Even if you don't use them much, if at all, but would you still use a train to get somewhere after what happened in the Lake District a couple weeks back?

A classic quote from an ignorant fellow biology student at his interview at Durham uni on Friday
Interviewer - How would you get here?
Him - Drive
Interviewer - What about the train?
Him - God no not after what happened with that crash

Well...would you use them?

(this came from a Medicine applicant too...need I say more?!)

Of course. I rely on trains to get to and from school.

I will still use trains, that is just the same as would you still travel by plane despite what happened?

Look at it logically. Consider how many times that train had run, and how many times similar trains had run, and how many of them had similar accidents. Then consider what caused the crash, and how many times the cause occurs, then consider how many times it occurs when a train is in workable distance, then consider what the chances of it affecting the train are.

I believe that the conclusion you will come to will be remarkably reassuring.

I wonder how many fatal car crashes there are each day?!

What does the "medicine applicant... need I say more?!" have to do with anything please?

Yes I would.

Trains rock my socks.

My socks rock all by themselves!

I will have to rely on the train to get to college in September.

Although the bus is a reserve option...

Car Expert

I'll be going by train to Durham in a week or so.

I have to get to Forum events some way.
I could just as easily get run over by a bus.

Well, as you well know, my college being known for brainiac know-it-alls, especially with medical students. And medicine requiring potentials to be rather logical, well you'd expect one to be about most things. But what this chap in question has proven is blind ignorance!

In short, for a medical student, not very sharp :-/

But anyway, I'm glad to see the positive turn out about this thread. Good to see that it'll take a lot more than a once in a blue moon event like Grayrigg or Potters Barr to put people off

I enjoy long distance train travel, in particular. Having travelled to Paris by Eurostar, I now wouldn't get there any other way.

I don't think that logic comes into it always. There are hundreds of deaths each week from smoking related illnesses but people still don't think that it will happen to them. It probably will. Trains are many thousands of times safer. The train involved in the Cumbrian crash was praised for standing up to the impact so well. I know that one death is one too many but a few years ago there might have been a far greater loss of life. I love train travel.

Sorry, pedantic here, but it should be a derailment, not a crash

I think it amounts to the same thing, just in a different way.. after all, both tend to finish up with a battered train off the tracks, with hurt people inside.

However, unless such crashes/derailments were happening every day, I would still travel by train.

I expect that it should, but it still landed with a crash.

I heard it all the way over in wherever-I-was-at-the-time!

Erm, why would the interviewer ask if he used the train instead of driving? Why use public transport when you've got a car? Don't get why the interviewer would ask a question like that!

If it had been me:
Interviewer - How would you get here?
Me - Drive
Interviewer - What about the train?
Me - I don't like public transport and why miss out on a hoon down here!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps because people are becoming environmentally aware?

Of course, in some instances, taking the car is actually more environmentally friendly than taking the train.

Though if the train is going to run anyway, I suppose it isn't. And there's probably a moral headache for the train companies there too...

And if you can book far enough in advance it can be cheaper than the petrol.

And if you can book far enough in advance it can be cheaper than the petrol.
[/quote]

Last summer 1 adult and 2 children Preston to London and back for £32 much cheaper that a couple of tanks of petrol. I just wish they could cope with cellos better than they do.

We get the train into work every day, and have no plans of stopping doing so. It all comes down to keeping a sense of perspective, something the media apparently cannot do: hundreds of people a year are killed in road accidents; but when one person is killed in a train derailment, it makes the news.

Whilst loss of life is always terrible, no matter the numbers involved, in the case of this train incident I think we should think positively that although the train was moving at 95 miles an hour the majority of passengers walked out unhurt - can the same be said for buses, or cars? It was a modern train with excellent safety features, and if anything demonstrates that trains are both safe statistically and should anything happen, are 'built like a tank', as Richard Branson commented afterwards.

Thanks to Beeching, I live in a bit of a railway back-water, however I will always consider the train for long distances (after I've driven to Ely station). Cost-wise its not always the best option, however I don't have to drive and in that way it is more relaxing.

As for safety, the thing that stuck me about the recent incident in Cumbria was how few serious injuries there were. It is sad that there was one death, but for so many people to escape something like that demonstrates how well engineered the Pendolino is.

When driving my safety isn't just determined by the quality of my driving, but also the behaviour of other road users. You've only got to watch a programme such as "Traffic Cops" to realise there are a lot of inconsiderate drivers on the roads. So if the train is a viable option then I'll use it, if it isn't for any reason then I'll drive.

When I was under 25 due to a lack of car and a young person's railcard, I used the train a lot. We now have a family railcard, and aswell as using it for trips to London may well take the kids to York by rail this year.

I forget the exact statistics but we kills thousands on the roads in this country each year. It's an outrage really but nobody seems to be that bothered. We have rail accidents, yes, and one death is one too many but, like flying, train is actually a pretty safe way to travel.

I was travelling yesterday up a major motorway and saw no fewer than six drivers holding mobiles whilst at the wheel loom up in my rear mirror behind me and a further three who were eating, or drinking from bottles. I'd worry much more about them than trains if I'm concerned for my safety.

Can you expand on this one, bobifier? I'm intruiged to know how you conclude that a train might sometimes be less environmentally friendly than a car. The trains I usually catch are often full and standing; even if they aren't, the CO2 produced by generating the electricity or emitted by the diesel is (I'd guess) less than the equivalent number of cars going the same distance.

I don't drive, so if I want to go more than a few miles anywhere by myself, rail is my only real option - and even if I did, I couldn't read, do sudoku or write programme notes whilst stuck behind the wheel, and I'm not sure I'd want to drive into central London in any case. As petrat said, one death is one death too many, but the number of deaths per passenger journey for rail travel as compared to road travel is significantly lower; indeed, these things only make the news because they happen so infrequently. About half of deaths on the railways are, in any case, suicides, and a significant proportion of the remainder include road vehicles, e.g. car stuck on a level crossing.

My salaried employment occasionally takes me through Ufton Nervet, where there was an accident in 2004 (train hit a car which was on the level crossing, and seven people were killed). No point getting paranoid about it - it was a tragic accident which could have happened anywhere.

As long as you don't need the toilet or have luggage...

Ive done the same to Amsterdam- much less hassle than flying

I got sick of trains after travelling from Aberdeen to Winchester (11 hours) nearly twice a week! I occasionally use them for Aberdeen to Inverurie though which is only 15 mins and never gets particularly fast. I was on a carriage once and thick smoke started coming from underneath the carriage, when we stopped at the next station the conductor just said it was because it was cold - first time I've heard of the cold causing a fire. We did all move to the other carriage!

It's the same ignorance that makes people say "Oh I'd never want to visit Northern Ireland/Lebanon/Israel/Croatia" etc. because that place is indelibly linked with war or bombs or whatever in their brains and they haven't actually got any updated knowledge of the place.

I should still use trains -

of course we tend to be choosy, so we use them when they suit us.
Just stepping outside your door and leaving home the moment you feel like it and then (hopefully) arriving at the exact spot at the time you want to be there is very tempting, isn't it?

Considerations of how easy is it to get to the nearest railway station - at each end of the journey - come into it. But trains have a lot to commend them. Remember? Let the train take the strain!

I work on trains and travel back and forth hundreds of miles every day, so I guess I will have to continue to use them.

Travel by rail is statistically deemed as one of the safest ways to travel in this country. Rail accidents do sadly occur for various reasons, and thankfully serious accidents are few and far between, and although I have respect for people who would not want to travel by train because of that small risk, I wouldn't let it stop me.

Hundreds of trains leave stations all over the country every day. Considering that the last major accident before the Cumbria derailment was in 2002, I think that rail travel still fares pretty safe. The chances of being on a train that crashes are slim. Far more accidents on the railway are due to people acting carelessly, like crashes at level crossings, or jumpers.

hey good to see you back UZ - how have you been ??

loving your signature uberzoldat!

Hi Maggie, have been good thanks. How are you all here? It's been a while!

Thanks, Carol. I shamessly stole it from a comedian lol

Well why not - I'm sure they weren't using it at the time!

please could someone clarify what has happened in the lake district. I'm a bit slow on the uptake

How about Google News?

http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&ne...tnG=Search+News

Check here for the RAIB's findings so far.