Railway Blues

We are frequently encouraged to use public transport more and our cars less.  In situations where this can reduce congestion and pollution I am all for it, after all I can relax and have a cold beer if I am not driving.

Trouble is, public transport seems to have so many problems to make this impractical in many instances.  Take today for example, we are told by the rail companies that due to the warm weather a number of services will be cancelled during the day and others will run at significantly reduced speed.

Add this to the problems in the past from the wrong kind of snow, leaves on the line, too much rain and you get the picture - our trains only run under optimal conditions

If I am making an important trip, I have to take into account the possible problems before deciding if I should drive or take the train.  Whilst it is true that road travel also has it's issues, you would anticipate that as the railway is a much more controlled environment from a traffic poiint of view it could be run much more reliably.  I believe it is done in other countries, why not here?

This reminds me of an amusing story from some years ago now. 

A university friend had stopped with me on her way to an interview with British Rail as it was then.  On the morning of her interview I took her to Preston Rail Station to enable her to travel to the interview in Crewe using the rail pass she had been given.

When we arrived we waited for the train which didn't show on time - the boards always seemed to indicate it would arrive in ten minutes.  Further enquiries with staff showed that they had no idea where the train was and that in fact they had not seen the previous train on that service yet either (now some 90 minutes late).

I drove my friend to Crewe as it appeared that the train would be an issue.  When we arrived at Crewe station neither of the two trains had yet arrived from Preston.

To top it all off, the interviewer reported there had been a very poor turnout for the interview (could this be something to do with trains not arriving do you think?)