UK - the south east

[John Ashworth]

During a recent visit to Europe, as well as travelling on UK's First Great Western and Ireland's IE intercity services (see other posts in this section), I also travelled around a bit in the south east of England. Stations I used included Paddington, St Pancras, Heathrow Airport, Gatwick Airport, Redhill, Vauxhall, Guildford, Teddington and Brighton. Train companies included Heathrow Express, Southern, South West Trains, First Capital Connect and First Great Western.

Generally I was very impressed. All the trains I travelled on ran to time (or almost so). All were clean and bright - the UK now has one of the newest fleets of locos and rolling stock anywhere in the world, and that's particularly evident in the south east. I travelled regularly on London suburban services during my schooldays in the 1960s and early '70s, and there is no comparison. Despite all the valid criticisms of the modern railways, and the unease about privatisation and the manner in which it was carried out, the railways today are infinitely better than they were. That's not to say, of course, that they couldn't be even better!

Information is generally easily available. There are arrival and departure screens at key points in the stations, with departure screens on each platform. The ones on the platforms scroll through all stops, but in some of the smaller stations (not the larger terminals, which are fine) the departure boards in the lobby only tell you train times and destinations, not intermediate stops. This caused me some confusion at Vauxhall, for example, which has about eight platforms, when I was travelling to Teddington and wasn't sure which destination I needed for the first train, as Teddington can be reached by more than one route. The large printed timetables which are found at most stations are useful, but they cause a slightly different problem by only telling you the train time and your destination - they don't tell you the ultimate destination of that train so you're not always sure which train to look for.

Many south eastern stations are incredibly busy, with trains coming through every few minutes on several platforms. Gatwick is a good example, and with two of its six platforms occupied pretty much all the time by Gatwick Express trains which sit and wait for baggage-toting tourists, it must be a challenge for signallers. Most other trains stay less than a minute in the station. Platform changes are being announced constantly, as a train arriving even a couple of minutes late can have a knock-on effect on many other trains. Clapham Junction is reputedly the busiest station in UK and while I passed through it a few times I never detrained there and didn't get the chance to see it in action.

The Heathrow Express is a nice train, but at GBP15.50 for a 20-minute journey it must be one of the most expensive train journeys in the world. UK trains in general are very expensive - that is one of the key criticisms these days. They also tend to be over-crowded, a victim of their own success in recent years as well as decades of underinvestment.

Heathrow Express reminds me of one of my key gripes - it has television screens constantly playing news and adverts. I hate it. I like trains to be quiet venues where I can happily look out of the windows. I may be in a minority there! True, there are "quiet coaches" in most trains nowadays, where cellphones and other noisy electronic apparatus are banned, but you can't guarantee that you'll find a place in one of those. Trains are also plagued with announcements and loud noises every time a door shuts. I know there are partially-sighted people around, but loud announcements of "Doors are about to close" followed by a series of ear-splitting shrieks at every station (which can be every couple of minutes on suburban routes) are intensely annoying. On most older stock you can usually tell when the door is going to shut anyway as there is a hiss of compressed air. The destination screens now fitted in most suburban stock are very useful.

Buying tickets can be a bit of a lottery. Saver, super saver, advanced purchase, walk-on fares, onboard purchase, peak and non-peak, etc. From Brighton to Guildford I tried to use the self-service ticket machine. I knew I couldn't get the cheapest off-peak fare as I was travelling before 0930, and I also couldn't get a cheap "return via Clapham Junction" (about 22 quid) as that would have taken me far out of my way, but I was shocked when the only non-Clapham Junction return ticket it would offer me was 58 quid! I went to the ticket office, told the bloke I wanted a return to Guildford but not via Clapham Junction, and said to him, "That's going to cost me quite a bit more, isn't it?" After consulting his oracle he said, "Yes, nearly a fiver more - 26 pound 80 please!" A couple of weeks previously I had had problems booking tickets for a long-distance return from Exeter (in the south west of England) to London for Jane and myself. On the internet it told me we could get the 0639 and buy return tickets for GBP59 each (the single fare plus one pound). I went to the local station in Exmouth to try to buy them. The woman assured me I couldn't have this ticket as the 0639 is a peak train. Instead I would need a peak single at GBP81.50 for the outward journey and a standard single at GBP58 for the homeward leg - a total of GBP139.50. Back to the internet to double check on First Great Western's own website. Back to the ticket office to present her with our findings. No change. She said she had been with the railways for "a number of years" and she knew that we couldn't travel to London on that train for that price. "But the internet..." I began. "If the internet will sell it to you, go and buy it there!" she replied, with somewhat less than 100% politeness. So I did. I bought the tickets, saved myself one hundred and sixty quid (eighty per ticket), picked them up at the fast ticket machine at Exeter, boarded the 0639, showed the tickets to the train manager, and everything was fine. First Great Western had apparently cancelled peak restrictions during Christmas week. Their website was well aware of that, but apparently not all their ticket sellers were. I plan to write to them to complain. Who knows, they might give me a complimentary ticket?

One very rarely sees locomotives in the south east nowadays. I think I only saw one Class 66 on a permanent way train. I also caught the tail end of a tanker train - couldn't see what was hauling it. The tank wagons were labelled TEA, which always causes a smile (see http://www.friendsoftherail.com/phpBB2/ ... =29&t=1008 for an example).

The new St Pancras is superb - see http://www.friendsoftherail.com/phpBB2/ ... f=42&t=775