My wife and I arrived at Paddington railway station on Sunday lunchtime after a wet cold weekend in London. We were at the head of the queue entering the platform to board the train to Exeter. As I walked along the platform I counted three first class carriages out of a total of eight.
It was fortuitous that we were at the head of the queue so we managed to get a seat. By the time the train was ready to depart, every seat in our carriage was occupied with a few people standing between carriages. On leaving the train at Exeter I walked past the train trying to gauge how many people were in the three first class carriages. As far as I can tell there were four or five passengers in each coach.
I fully understand and appreciate that first class passengers have paid more and should expect a bit more comfort than the rest of us ordinary people. First class passengers can have their table at every seat, extra leg room and reclining seats but three coaches for 15 passengers! That smacks of incompetence, particularly when the rest of us are packed like sardines, with some passengers not even having a seat.
Assuming that companies conduct analyses of the way space is used on their trains, how can such an anomaly happen? Fragmenting the railways, and having different operators running the trains is supposed to create competition, and that should force companies to treat their passengers fairly and with more consideration. But we had no choice of which train company to use. Anyone travelling on a particular day at a certain time has to use the train available.
The analysis looked at three different kinds of commuter journeys to the "principle city" in the eight European countries: short commutes of between five and 16km, medium journeys of between 17 and 40km, and longer trips of between 41 and 80km. It found that in all three categories, "unrestricted day return" fares, which allow commuters to take any train they choose, were more expensive in Britain than any of the other countries examined.
Commuters making a journey in the medium band [in Britain] have to pay 59 per cent more than those in Switzerland, the second most expensive country in that category, while the fare is more than three times the cost of commuters making a similar trip in Spain.
In addition to cost, overcrowding and the bewildering price structure were also highlighted as a contributing factor to satisfaction rates among commuters dropping to below 30% on some routes. Don't panic; this article is not going down the enigma wrapped in mystery of the ticketing structure of rail travel in the UK.
What is so galling is that with some planning, more care and a dose of common sense, those of us travelling standard class could have been made more comfortable without affecting the comfort of the first class passengers.
The Rail Regulator should take companies to task in the way their travelling space is allocated. Also, we the Standard class rail users need to challenge train companies by complaining about the unfairness, stupidity and incompetence that allows such a ridiculous split in space allocation between first class and standard class train travel.
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2) Weekend travel obviously doesn't attract the businessmen and women and you should remember that for five out of seven days a week these trains are in use when they are very much attracted and consequently these 1st Class are often a lot better used. Indeed, on many trains there is barely a 1st Class seat available.
3) First Great Western, the operator of that service, in common with all the other long distance operators promote 'Weekend First' meaning that, for a reasonably small surcharge, Standard Class ticket holders can use these First Class carriages. Perhaps that offer wasn't promoted by the on-train staff on this train in question, but it can make quite a difference.
4) In recognition of the fact that rail travel has become so popular over the last few years, FGW are adding another 90 or so seats to many of these types of train as well as getting hold of as many extra carriages of other types they can. These should, in the most part, be introduced for the Olympic Games.
5) The way the franchise system, and rail privatisation in general, works means that sadly there is no onus on FGW to make sure it has enough carriages to cater for demand - it has to justify it on a commercial basis. Hopefully the rules will change with the new franchise.
Does your comment imply that there is no flexibility in the system, and standard class carriages cannot be substituted for first class ones at weekends?
I am pleased for the sake of the environment that rail travel is becoming more popular, but why can’t the extra revenue generated be used to ensure every passenger has a seat.
The fact they run as fixed formation means cheaper maintenance and operating costs, but means that it is not practical to insert extra Standard Class carriages at weekends. Firstly due to the logistics, and secondly due to the fact that these Standard Class carriages are simply not in existence. During the rush hour peaks, pretty much every carriage at FGW's disposal is out in service (and still thousands of people have to stand), and even at the weekend there's not much spare capacity as heavier maintenance is planned around when there are more spare carriages.
In short, there are serious problems with the way the railway in Britain is run, for example the Government is faced with the reality that for every passenger extra who travels, there railway costs more to subsidise, but there are indications that the situation is slowly starting to change.