6 billion quid

Just before New Years we were surprised by a gift of a trip to London to see Lloyd Webber's perennial money spinner, Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat featuring Lee Mead - winner of the BBC's talent show "I'm out of my depth on this show - Get me out of here!". Everything was paid for: the travel, the accommodation, the show and as it happened most of the booze too.

The arrangements were to travel down to London by train which on previous journeys has taken less than three hours between Preston and Euston. However, there were some major engineering works around Rugby which essentially cut off the entire West Coast Mainline from London. At one of the busiest times for families travelling.

Fortunately the person that arranged this trip - my brother - had the foresight to visit the station to reserve seats on the train and at that point he was told the train he had booked was not going to be running because of these engineering works and that there were two alternate routes: one involving three changes and the other involving four. Both options were scheduled to take around double the travel time. We opted for the route via Manchester and Sheffield, arriving at St Pancras "International" station: the newly modernised Eurostar terminal.

Not so bad is it, a couple of changes on the way and a bit of a delay so why moan about it? Well, given that the main direct train route from Glasgow through to London had been closed it meant the trains were busier. Much busier.

Every train we boarded was packed to the rafters. Well actually no, not strictly true. The first one from Blackpool to Preston wasn't quite as bad but most seats were taken. This train had seen better days - in about 1950. The seats were like those from old 1980's buses - benches crammed together and made from really cheap velvety stuff that was flattened and torn. The windows all had "Kev 4 Sharon 2006" type messages etched into them. The train also had the heating turned up so much it was like sitting in a blast furnace full of the likes of people you might find on Jeremy Kyle.

Fortunately this train was just 30 minutes and we boarded a slightly more modern - and evidently more popular - train at Preston. The aisles were full of luggage and people standing up that had not reserved seats. In fact on every train we boarded our reserved seats had sullen faced, half asleep students slumped in them so we had to go through the drama of shifting them and their luggage out of our seats to take a standing position whilst already crammed in by standing passengers.

Eventually we got into our seats and the train got moving. The train was equipped with a buffet car but forget the 15 minute battle through people and suitcases packing the aisles. Even if you needed the toilet it was the same battle. Arriving at Manchester we hoped the train through to Sheffield would be quieter but it was busier. Upon arriving at Sheffield, the door areas between the carriages of the train were full of people sitting on the floor with tons of luggage totally blocking entry and exit and being reluctant to move out of the way when people wanted to disembark the train.

The train from Sheffield to London was not too bad once we had kicked people out of our reserved seats again. The buffet car and toilets were still inaccessible due to people standing though. So after about 6 hours we arrived at St. Pancras.

The return journey was worse. We had to travel from Paddington to Reading, Reading to Birmingham and then Birmingham to Preston. The train from Paddington to Reading was busy, but this was nothing compared to the Birmingham train. It was literally full with people and luggage occupying every square foot of floor space. Quite claustrophobic and very hot as a result. The train manager came on the intercom explaining that whilst she realised that it was approaching New Year and that the West Coast Mainline had been cut off, her train only had 4 carriages today and she was really sorry. Awesome.

Now, I accept that engineering works have to be done but honestly why do it over Christmas and New Year when people are travelling long distances and are stressed enough already without needing to have their travel arrangements completely messed up by train operators. Further to this you really have to look at the cost of these trains. Our tickets cost £70 return each. They were standard seats so I think it's fair to assume that people in general would have been paying a similar price per mile. They are not now though - the rail networks have rammed the prices up another 10% since. It's funny though - because the trains were so busy the ticket inspector was not able to traverse the train. Therefore anyone could have travelled for free.

When you book a ticket for a train that does not guarantee you a seat like it would if you were travelling by air. Personally I find this appalling given the price of a ticket. It's free to go to a station and reserve a seat but why should you have to? Even if all the seats are reserved they will still let you on, but my view is that if you have to stand for the duration of your train journey then it should cost you nothing. What I experienced during the two days of travelling made me think of those TV images you see of absolutely packed trains in India.

You would have thought by now there would be allocated seating, TV screens in the back of seats and trolly dolly service like you get on a plane. But all you get on the most modern trains are some lousy headphone jack somewhere that plays boring music selections in low quality. You can always listen to the MP3's that the gang of chavs sat opposite you are blasting out of their mobile phones: it's better quality. Even modern coaches have a couple of TV screens, but trains dont? Barmy.

We could have done our journey in the car and saved around 2 hours each way and over £200 and the Government wonders why people are so reluctant to leave their cars for public transport. I read somewhere that they spend 6 billion quid a year on the train tracks, but do trains ever get any faster? Richard Branson has leased some new "Pendolino" tilting trains that look more modern on the outside than on the inside and have shaved a bit of time off Preston to London but I don't hear much else happening that's new, innovative, time saving or cost effective. OK there's that new section of track that opened for the Eurostar: apparently it saves 15 minutes on a trip to Paris from London and cost 10 billion quid. I'm just baffled that all our tracks are not of this quality, then we can knock time off all our journeys and make rail viable.

In general the busy routes are still too busy, the ticket prices are far overpriced and the gas-guzzling world-destroying car is massively more cost effective, more refined and in many cases faster. Gordon and his bunch of out of touch idiots in the Government must realise sooner or later why people love to stay in their cars:

People don't want to sit next to smelly abusive chavs.
People want their journey to be in their own hands, not that of an anonymous rail operator that does not give a toss.
People want to sit in comfortable, well maintained seats that can be adjusted rather than rock hard upright fabric seats that are often damaged and ridden with chewing gum.
People like high quality entertainment, not tinny repetitive crap.
People don't like having to stare into the back of a seat for hours on end listening to other peoples conversations either between each other or on a mobile phone.

And most of all - people don't like paying shit loads of money for slow, dirty, overcrowded crap. And that's what the rail service in the UK is. Other countries are testing futuristic 350MPH Maglev trains, but we are only just getting round to upgrading our track for trains technology that was designed in the 1970's.