I am planning to use the train to go to Oxford on one day and Salisbury/Bath on another.

Can I count on the rail service running (approximately) on time? On the Salisbury/Bath day I am leaving London at about 7, spending time at Salisbury Cathedral and taking a bus trip out to Stonehenge. My plan is to leave Salisbury for Bath at about 1 or 2, and then stay in Bath through the afternoon and early evening, catching a train from Bath around 7:30.

I have the rail and bus schedules and have located a good fare from Bath back to London (hard to do!) with a little help from fodors.com.

I know this is rushing through great territory, but this agenda does give me more time than a bus tour would.

Generally, yes, barring unforeseen circumstances.

Alternatively:

Generally, no, barring unforeseen circumstances.



DR D.

The on-time performance of the UK rail system is not as good as it should be. The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) publishes quarterly statistics. In the London and SE area, on time performance is about 80%. So, on average, you can expect one in five trains to be late. My experience has been that the degree of lateness has been small and has never affected me in getting to my destination more or less when I expected.

For the most part, yes. I've traveled to Britain four times and used trains extensively on each trip. I only encountered one delay, which was on my most recent trip this past April when all the trains out of London's Waterloo Station were experiencing delays. This was during the Easter holidays, and I think any holiday season is going to be the most likely time for delays since there are so many more people traveling by rail. Fortunately in our case we were using BritRail passes and so weren't commited to a specific train ticket, so we stayed in town that day and took out train trip another day.

I've also done the Salisbury/Stonehenge day trip on a previous visit, and to make it easier for visitors to get to Stonehenge, the buses leave from right outside the Salisbury train station and are scheduled around the train arrival times.

I use these trains regularly and live in a community where a large proportion of the population depend on these trains daily, and broadcast poor performance in the pub each night.

If the weather's hot, there's a high chance in the evenings of a 15-20 minute delay on the Oxford line (speed restrictions are applied on one segment on hot summer evenings) There is no similar wired-in problem on the other lines. But as Rom says, you're likely to be delayed a few minnutes on one of the legs.

All the trains you're planning, except the London-Salisbury one, run at least twice an hour. If anything does go wrong, you just take the next train (whatever it says on the deal you've bought). No-one will object, and you'll still get your trip done.

You will undoubtedly encounter - possibly on this board - gullible people, who don't use trains in Britain, have heard media scare stories, and are convinced it'll all go wrong. Ignore them.

And enjoy your trips.

As others have already said, if there are delays they will generally be very minor. The only proviso to this is that Sundays and Bank holidays often have more delays, as those are the days they sometimes choose to do maintenance work on the tracks.

Thank you for all the replies. I am a first-time visitor to Great Britain, but after having done much research, decided to be brave and do trains as opposed to sitting hours on a tour coach with minimum time at destinations. I am looking forward to my adventure.

Thanks especially for the advice that it is ok to take the next train if I missed one for which I purchased an advance ticket.

smroan, I honestly don't think it will require much bravery to take the English trains. The system is not that complicated and the language is English so you can ask anyone for assistance.

Have a great trip!

If you're from in the US, then the answer is "Yes".

If you're from continental Europe or Japan, then the answer is "No".

I just would hate to lose some of my time in the London area by getting confused or missing a connection. I have the hours rationed! But I think the train is a good solution to getting places earlier and leaving them later.

Generally, the trains are not as bad as media makes out. I use main line and branch lines frequently and have had mixed experiences but nothing to bad. Try not to use at weekends or public hoildays though when track maintneance is planned.

Anything though is better than my 3hours to travel 6 miles on a major road yeserday!

If you haven't done so already, have a look at http://www.rail.co.uk/
It has an online timetable and has up to date information about possible delays.

We just returned from a two week trip through England, Wales and Scotland and used the trains. We had a 4 day flex pass and found, for the most part, that the trains were reliable. Don't hesitate to ask questions. Everyone was very helpful. I would advise that you make sure you are on the right train before you board even if it is the right platform at the right time. We were "kidnapped" in Crewe by the wrong train. We did not seem to be alone and they left us off at the next station, and the Edinburgh train was right behind. I ended up having to stand part of the trip, but meet an interesting person and had a good chat. Make your plans, but stay flexible enough that you can seize the moment and still have a great time. We made it to Edinburgh on time and all was well.

Let me elaborate a little. Trains in countries like Japan, Germany or Switzerland run exactly ontime almost always. If the timetable says arrival 8:37, then it's 8:37, not 8:36 or 8:38.

In the UK, if it says 8:37, then it can be 8:35 or 8:40 or 8:45. Some long distance trains may be quite a few minutes late in the middle of the trip but can make up most of the time in the end. But the point is that you can't rely on UK rails to make "2-minute" type connections, which you can possibly do in Japan or Germany/Switzerland.

And then you have the US. Passengers consider themselves extremely lucky if their train is within 15 minutes late. Delays of half a day or more are common on the long-distance trains outside the NE Corridor.

And then there are the trains in Italy...