25 January 2023 , 17:36
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Next week sees the return of national rail strikes. And while they’re hugely inconvenient for those of us who rely on the trains to get around, workers do have to protest for fairer wages and conditions.
What gets me is why the railways are such a shambles when there isn’t strike action.
Anyone who’s bought a train ticket recently will tell you the same thing – they’re an absolute nightmare.
All of my weekends in January have been written off due to “planned engineering works” taking place.
That means instead of taking 15 minutes to get my son to weekend activities or to visit family and friends, it now takes hours criss-crossing South London, the least connected half of the city, on overcrowded buses and tubes which don’t serve the parts of town I need to get to.
Gales, snow and rain to batter country today with 80mph wind gusts
If, as they say, the works are planned, why can’t they be planned to at least run every other week or once a month instead of the back-to-back misery so many of us face?
This week there was some issue on the track that meant trains in and out of London Victoria all ground to a halt.
The only feedback we got was the trains were delayed with no attempt to even shed light on when they would be running again. So it comes as little surprise to hear that train cancellations are at an all-time high. In the four weeks to January 7, almost one out of every 12 trains across Britain was cancelled – excluding strike days. According to figures from the Office of Rail and Road, this was the least reliable rail service since it began recording data in 2014.
Research also showed rail passengers were delayed or disrupted on more than half of all train services departing from 15 of the country’s busiest railway stations in the last year.
As well as the strikes, rail companies have blamed the pandemic for contributing to these poor figures. The pandemic? Seriously, I would have more respect if they blamed the wrong type of snow.
Travelling by train feels like a lottery most days. And you practically need to win the lottery to pay for some of the highest rail fares in Europe.
How can we be paying more and getting much, much less?
As a result millions of people who would normally take the train are returning to their cars.
Given that we all want to be greener, making cars seem like a better option hardly seems to be the way forward.