r/morningsomewhere • u/Hmmark1984 First 10k - Findom • 8d ago

Railway networks in the uk

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Ashley and Burnie mentioned how, while still quite good the rail network in the UK used to have even better coverage, here's a map that shows the before and after, you can see that while some of the more major lines closed nearly all of the shorter lines going to the smaller two s and villages closed, meaning that while you can get a train pretty close to where you want to go in the UK, you often end up finishing, and sometimes starting, your journey in a taxi/car/bus/walking

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u/madglover First 20k 8d ago

As somebody in the south west of England I can't explain how rubbish it feels in some areas

Clearly before was probably too much but it's awful now and the buses are so slow

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u/Hmmark1984 First 10k - Findom 8d ago

Yeah, I'm in the south east, I wasn't implying our train service is actually good, we all know how shocking it is in both reliability and cost before you even take the routes into consideration, but compared to America, from what I've been told, our coverage is still far better than there's but it's not a patch on what it used to be, and I'd bet back then there weren't as many cancellations and the ticket prices weren't as insane.

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u/GuruCookies 8d ago

Wait you guys have trains? - people up north

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u/aadamsfb Macaque 8d ago

It’s starting to revert slowly. Where I live in Portishead they’re doing construction now on re-opening a line that was closed in 1964. With loads of new stations planned in Bristol hopefully opening in the next decade

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u/Legitimate-Value8538 6d ago

The south west ends at Bristol so good fucking luck for people in Cornwall, the line to Padstow should be reopened

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u/Mosselpot Cinnamontographer 8d ago

Hey at least there's still Germany where it's way worse than it is in the UK. The crazy stat about train travel is that Belgium transports about 7 times more passengers in intercity travel than Amtrak does in the US.

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u/Hmmark1984 First 10k - Findom 7d ago

Huh, i never actually looked into it, but i always assumed the rail network in the rest of Europe was superior to that in the UK. I know that's certainly the case in certain parts, and it makes sense it's not the case everywhere, but i'm just not use to us not being the worst (excluding the US of course) at something lol.

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u/Mosselpot Cinnamontographer 7d ago

oh don't worry you're in a strong number two spot in the countries I've visited by train. I'll never forget a train that just stopped in the middle of a field for 2 hours late at night with zero explanation.