I was buying my rail tickets last week when the counter clerk proffered a copy of the new timetable, which comes into force today. The British railways network has traditionally operated two timetables – summer and winter – in May and September. Invariably this leads to subtle alterations in timings and occasionally more (or less) trains at certain times or on certain days. More on summer Saturdays, for example.
Anyway, this change has made the news because it is an extra change and the Train Operating Companies have also changed in some locations. These changes are part of the EU-wide standardisation whereby in future there will only be one annual change. There is a drive from the EU for interoperability between member states and this is part of that process. That’s the upside. The downside is that people may find that their regular train no longer runs or that is stops more frequently leading to more overcrowding.
Overcrowding is a pet peeve of mine. When all the mainline trains were of the old High Speed Train type (the 125 Intercity trains) they were either seven or eight coaches long. The newer trains are four or five coaches long. The cross country and commuter services have always suffered from overcrowding so replacement with shorter trains just makes matters worse. The apparent solution was to run more trains. However, this merely massaged the problem and caused more strain on the already crowded network. One of the reasons trains have difficulty running on time on the UK network is that it is running at full capacity and therefore there is insufficient makeup time built into the timetable. A small delay has knock-on effects that can affect services several hours later.
Despite all this, the services that I take from Bristol are little changed – just a minute here and there. On the downside, though, the fares are set to rise. Not that I am too worried by that as I charge them back to my clients. 
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