Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Mostly repeating what others have said but...

Trains get delayed and cancelled very frequently. They leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere because there's a technical issue fairly regularly: it's not a daily occurrence, but it's frequent enough that people will just go "ahhh classic british rail".

Trains are often packed, with literally nowhere to sit for hours-long journeys.

And this poor quality of service is very expensive. I know adults in their late 20s - early 30s with a fulltime job that choose to take the coach even though it's twice as long, because it's much cheaper. An ex-colleague was living outside of london, and spending £16k a year on train for commuting (you'd expect a big bill, but £16k is insane).

I'm sure there's plenty of countries that do worse, and as an infrequent traveller you'd probably be fine, but it's just... not great



Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: