Hello everyone, @network-rail here. I originally created this blog because @northern-fail mentioned that there weren't any southern railroad blogs to have a rivalry with (see here for context). The whole point of this blog is to have an friendly rivalry with the railways up north, I don't really have any other plans for it. We used to be called southern-railway (#southern railway for those posts, in case you get a bit confused), but now that renationalization has happened we're network-southeast.
This blog is based on Network SouthEast, the sector of British Rail that ran train services in and around London from 1986 to 1994 (before it was privatized).
Public perceptions of train operating companies: round 1, poll 4
Out of the following train operating companies, which do you think is the best?
Avanti West Coast
Grand Central
Southeastern
East Midlands Railway
Hull Trains
Mersyrail
Transport for Wales Rail
Voting ended onOct 24, 2025
More info on each operator:
Avanti West Coast: runs intercity trains on the West Coast Main Line, from London to the midlands and also Scotland. It's a franchise contract, and is run by FirstGroup and Trenitalia (that's Italy's state-owned rail operator). They're the ones who run the Pendolinos (Class 390s) and if the APT had succeeded they'd probably run those too (or maybe not, they'd be quite old by this point). Also, they're set to be one of the last train companies nationalized. (really, the government should hurry up with that)
Grand Central: runs services from London to Sunderland and Bradford (those are both up north, by the way) via the East Coast Main Line. This one is an open access operator, run by Arriva UK, which is owned by Deutsche Bahn. Truly, DB is everywhere.
Southeastern: runs commuter & regional services around London and the southeast, and also non-international trains on HS1. This one is a Department for Transport operator (I've always wondered, why is it the Department for Transport and not the Ministry for Transport? Is there a difference between government agencies that are called Department and Ministry?), although instead of getting nationalized to prepare for Great British Railways, it was because the private operator broke the franchise agreement somehow.
East Midlands Railway: runs trains from London to (and around) the East Midlands. This includes trains to Luton airport. It's a franchised operator, run by Transport UK Group (the ones with the boring name). The trains are dark purple (I don't really have much to say about this operator).
Hull Trains: runs trains from London to Hull (the name has nothing to do with boats). It's an open acess operator owned by FirstGroup and it seems to have been around for a while. Goes along the East Coast Main Line. If you couldn't tell, I'm sort of running out of interesting things to say about these operators.
Merseyrail: runs trains in & around Liverpool as a metro/commuter rail thingy. This one is a Merseytravel concession, operated by Serco and Transport UK Group (we keep seeing a lot of the same names operating the privately run railways, I wonder what's up with that?).
Transport for Wales Rail: runs trains in Wales and places right next to Wales. Owned by the Welsh government, once again proving that England is the worst out of England, Scotland, and Wales. They still run some locomotive-hauled services (those aren't very common these days). We've run out of things to say about these operators, so go vote and give us more material to make content out of.
it is if you rescale all of the viscosity terms because you didn't realize you made a mistake and now have to change things so you continue to be right
“go early, it’s hard to find parking” you want public transit. “don’t go on weekends, traffic is terrible” you want public transit. “once i parked i had to walk half a mile to the entrance” you want public transit. “it took me an hour to get out of the area after the concert” you want public transit. “ugh somebody needs to DD” you want public transit. “can you drive? my car won’t start” you want public transit. you want public transit. you want public transit. you want public transit.
do you think steam just magically comes out of nowhere im so sick of these people who dont understand steampunk it makes me want to get into my submersible bathysphere and never reemerge
