Re: More WCML Problems

NM wrote:

On 10 jul, 10:15, Chris Tolley <cj...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
NM wrote:
On 8 jul, 22:49, Chris  Tolley <cj...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
NM wrote:
Isn't rail travel wonderful?

I quite agree. Much better than any of the alternatives.

Rail travel in the UK is expensive, dirty, unreliable, dangerous (from
fellow travellers) inbuilt inability to collect me from where I maybe,
failure to deliver me to where I want to go, leaves when it wants not
when I want, is more polluting, noisy, only runs when there is the
right kind of snow/rain/leaves and more....... please show me at what
point it becomes better than the alternatives? I'm all ears.

No, actually you're all cliches, and pretty well every one of them is
incorrect.

Then feel free to correct.

expensive

Some train travel is expensive. Some is inexpensive. If I know where I
am going and when I want to go, I can get very cheap tickets. Oddly
enough, no matter how much advance warning I might have of a car
journey, the petrol never gets any cheaper.

My car or motorcycle costs the same amount whenever I use it wherever
I am going, I don't need to check if there is an 'r' in the month, or
I have the right type of railcard or have to book up aeons in advance,
so comparing like for like (not appreciated by trainset lovers) On
demand own car costs compared with on demand railfares. answer car is
considerably cheaper especially when there is more than one passenger.
That is an unargueable fact.

No, it isn't, actually. From where I live, I have the option to make a
trip to Chester, and I can either drive it or drive to a station en
route and take the train. The cost of the car/train version is cheaper,
using a ticket bought on the train, on the day, than I am able to
reclaim for using the car. Thanks to the fact that my local rail company
offers "duo" tickets, where there is a discount for two people
travelling together, it remains cheaper to do it that way when I go with
someone. When down in London the other day, I saw a poster advertising
groupsave on C2C - four travel for the price of two. And in Germany,
I've travelled in groups of five where the price of the ticket is the
same as for two. There are plenty of situations where on-demand travel
on the railways can be cheaper than using cars - and that's without any
consideration of the fact that it costs a hefty sum to buy and keep a
car, whether one runs it or not.

Different modes have different benefits, but to state as "an unarguable
fact" that car is always cheaper than rail just makes you look
uninformed.

dirty

Trains, like most other modes of public transport, are cleaned
regularly, usually at the end of each daily duty cycle. My car, and most
others I know about, are not.

The level of cleanliness of my car or motorcycle is a level I choose
whereas the level of other peoples *** I have to sit amoungst in a
train is unacceptable and a thing over which I have no control, It's
one of the major reasons trainsets lack appeal. I don't think I'm
alone in not wanting to wallow in other peoples crap.

Nor am I, but that isn't what you said. Objectively, trains are cleaned
much more often than private cars. The fact that you choose to accept
the dirt because it's *your* dirt doesn't stop it being dirt, mate.

unreliable

Without knowing what aspect of reliabilty you mean, it's pointless to
attempt a response

OK how about this for an example, from many of my own, Book ticket on
Easy Jet from Luton, non transferrable. look in train timetable, check
out times for Sunday, allow an extra hour for train delays, go two
trains earlier than should be necessary, buy ticket, enter platform
where there was a chalk board saying between station X and stationY
there is a bus service because of work on the line.

This is vital information why do they wait until I have bought a
ticket before telling me? Get the train, then the bus, then another
train, using up the extra hour I had allowed, then problem at
Blackfriars, another bus, this one unheralded by chalkboards, Train
again from St Pancras got there just too late to fly.air ticket
invalid, distress purchase at fiull price another air ticket.

Add this extra cost to the extortionate price I had already paid to be
fucked around by the trainset and you now get an appreciation of why I
now make all my near European journies by car.

Yes, I get an appreciation of it. But you haven't made the general
point.

Whilst I'm in whinge mode, what moron decided the Eurostar arrivals
from the UK are on another level from the Thalys and a fair walk away,
the time between the predicted arrival of ES and the departure of the
Thalys (needs to be booked so you need to get the right one) give a
fit man an opportunity to work up a sweat if he has any luggage with
him, *** knows how the elderly make it.

This is Brussels you're talking about, is it? Simple answer, I don't
know who is responsible for such decisions, nor what things need to be
taken into account when making them. In a similar vein, I posted the
other day here that I had driven into Reading, but was unable (by virtue
of not driving a bus or a taxi) to get to the front of the railway
station - indeed finding *any* reasonable route through the place was a
bit of a trial. Nobody had any answer to my question. So, I guess that
the "moron" who in your view mis-designed Brussels railway station (or
wherever it was) may well be in the same club as whoever has ruined the
centre of Reading. (And Birmingham, while I'm at it.)

I never have to change cars when I drive anywhere.

You appear to have just contradicted yourself. Above, you say: "I now
make all my near European journies by car." Since obviously you would
never demean yourself by putting your car into a train to get across the
Channel, I am fascinated by how you manage these journeys.

dangerous (from fellow travellers)

I've done about 400,000 miles by train in my life, and never once
suffered violence from any fellow passenger. In contrast, I have about
an eighth of that mileage in a car, and other road users have contrived
to collide with my vehicle three times, on one occasion putting it off
the road for a month, and on another writing it off completely. There
are countless occasions when the antics of some other road user have
caused me to take evasive action.

Then it sounds like you are a crap driver, it's as well you are in
love with the trainset as clearly you are a menace on the roads.

How does other people driving into me make me the crap driver? On one
occasion I was stationary at a junction and someone drove into the back
of me, on the other I was slowing down for queuing traffic ahead, and
was struck at about 60mph by the person behind me who wasn't paying
attention, and wrote off four other cars as well as mine.

inbuilt inability to collect me from where I maybe,

Unless you keep your car in your living room, that's equally true.

Don't be silly, I keep my car and motor cycle near my home, by near I
mean paces away whereas the nearest possible place to mount a train
requires a fair walk or a bus ride.

I'm not being silly. If this is to be a senisble discussion, it's got to
be about the general situation. It's no good arguing that because *you*
don't like the distance *you* have to walk to a station, that it's
always unsuitable. By that logic, HGV's can't be driven on a tightrope
over Niagara Falls, therefore they are completely useless vehicle.

failure to deliver me to where I want to go

See above.

Seldom have I required to go to where there is a station close by
(airports excepted) normally it requires onward transit by taxi bus or
on foot, I suppose referring to your previous point you have a train
in your living room (seeing that you seem to be married to the
trainset I don't find that totally surprising).

Do grow up. There are many places where it is more convenient to use the
train to go. There are many places where it is not. If you genuinely
maintain that you never go anywhere (apart from airports) where the
train is more conveninent, then I'd suspect you have a distinctly odd
lifestyle.


is more polluting,

Not since 1968.

There you are wrong, per passenger/mile a modern car is less polluting
than a train.

Ah, proof by assertion, as one of our posters would say. What's the
evidence?

About 6 months ago, I was listening to a scientific analysis of
pollution trends, and I was struck by one significant fact. You may be
aware that geologists identified the impact of a meteorite at the end of
the cretaceous period by virtue of discovering a very thin band of rock,
widely distributed, containing the element iridium? Well, whether or not
you are, it's a fact, and you can look it up. A related fact is that all
around the world there is a similar layer in modern sediments. Except
it's lead. Lead from petrol used in cars. And it's more significant than
any of the other traces of the whole of human industrialised society.

But of course you're talking "modern" cars. So let's talk "modern"
trains. How much pollution per passenger mile comes out of a maglev?


noisy,

Living next to an A road, the noise from the road is constant and
intrusive through double glazing. Back in the day when I used to live
across the road from a railway line, with only single glazing, I hardly
ever heard a train.

As did I, For a few years I lived at a fork in the line (Underground,
very busy) there were trains on embankments, therefore window height
on both sides of the house, after a few weeks one dosen't hear them
any more because of acclimatisation but when there was an unexpected
failure in the system the sudden silence was tangible, similarly when
I lived at the end of the runway at Heathrow (one of the last houses
before the runway) the planes were not noticed most of the time until
they stopped.
That you became acclimatised to the noise is not an excuse for the
noise existing or a valid reason to tolerate it.
Yet again someone is trying to introduce (this time erroniously) a
perceived defect in one system (road noise) as a reason to excuse
another systems faults (train noise).

I'm doing no such thing. I wasn't acclimated to the noise of the trains
across the road from me. It was just a lot less than I get from the A54
which passes 20 feet from my back wall.

I have been in some quiet places. I was at a monastery in Co Durham
earlier this year, a couple of miles from the nearest public road, and
that was truly quiet. Where I live is a small town with the A54 going
right through the middle of it, and it is never quiet. I can't hear the
railway at all, but then it is more than a mile from where I live; the
only awareness I have of trains actually running is at night when there
is arcing from the overhead wires that causes brief flashes of light in
the sky. In contrast, the M6 is 6 miles away from where I live, and it
is the source of a dull but perceptible hiss on the stillest nights.

But anyway, the point is that you said trains were noisy. Well, they
aren't silent certainly, but they contribute a lot less to my perception
of noise in the environment than cars do.


only runs when there is the right kind of snow/rain/leaves

clutching at straws, mate.

Well publishised station announcments were all lies then?

Not lies, but a long way from the truth. The snow case was a jokey
remark taken out of all context. There is no "wrong kind of rain" or
"wrong kind of leaves" scenario that I am aware of. It's a fact that
autumn is a more difficult time than average to operate trains. It's a
fact that winter is a more difficult time than average to operate cars.
So what? And I haven't a clue, honestly, what you think the issue is
with rain. Is it that you are aware that some trains were stopped by
storms on the Dawlish Sea Wall? If so, how many cars were running that
night on the road that is behind and a few feet higher than the railway?

I doubt you'll attempt any reasoned answers to these points, but in a
spirit of optimism, I'll give you a chance to.

Thank you for the opportunity, I am truly grateful. Sadly my answers
will certainly fall on stony ground as you appear impervious to any
criticism of your beloved trainset, rather like a born again christian
will hear nothing against god.

You can criticise the railways all you like, and if you come up with
anything realistic, then I'll be the first to agree, as my responses
above indicate. But by the same token, when I don't agree, you need to
acknowledge that when I don't agree, that may be because your argument
lacks merit.

As you choose to live in cloud cukoo land and I have some paint to
watch dry (which if infinitely more satisfying than trying to convince
a bigot), I shall bid you good morning.

If your arguments were convincing, you wouldn't need to add the personal
insults.

--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9632900.html
(33 202 at Wimbledon Depot, 6 May 1991)
.

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