[RichHI1]

Love Trains and use them a lot in Japan but stopped using British Trains when there were all the crashes due to Privatized infrstructure (Potters Bar, Hatfield etc) and have never gone back.Sounds like no reason to change things. One question ,why is there no United KIngdom Rail Passenger Duty. Level playing field?

[NTarrant]

That is a fairly poor generalisation RichHI1. Infrastructure is not in private hands anymore and hasn;t been for a number of years. There have been more accidents as a result of driver error or other factors than maintenance, which is far better now than at the time of the incidents you mention.

Accidents are not confined to privatisation, Clapham, Lewisham were during nationalised days. You are less likely to be killed or injured on the railways than on the roads. But if you really love trains then you would know that and would still use them.

[RichHI1]

NTarrant, you interpret my words wrongly. I made the decision after it happened. I did not mean to imply that Privitisation or maintenance was, is ro will be a primary cause of accident, it was merely the chain of events and frequency that casued me to make my choice. As you rightly observe there have been many more crashes on British railways though I cannot recall as many recently.
As you say the roads are not staistically safe though I can only remember three crashes in mainstream UK aviation in my memory (Papa India, Manchester runway and Lockerbie).
I do use trains in Japan and historically I have used trains in the Netherlands, Switzerland and the East Coast of USA (Acela Express).
The item made me think, it had been a long time since I used British trains and when I read the posts, I just though no reason to change.
My last use of UK trains was Eurostar a number of years ago after a scare alert cancelled all flights back to UK from Belgium. It was a nasty experience asticketing was laborious due to the air cancellations and the train stopped started virtually every mile after we left the tunnel, resulting in a 20minute wait at a Signal at Catford dog track.
So no political point about priviatisation, no points about bad maintnenance against, bad design, bad management or bad staff just a fact that I made a choice and then time slid by.

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