[ValentineC]

> As for the article---I think you really undervalue your time and the price of inconvenience. I can see how you can romanticize it as a nice way to get things done, but (dealing with) train delays is hardly distraction free and is full of forced setting changes and (very) shit working environments (like waiting on a platform).

By delays, I think the author meant that they get on a train, then sit in it for ~5 hours, with the option of paying roughly twice the price for first class [1].

As someone who frequently uses their laptop on public transport too, this sounds like a great way to either get things done or pass time.

[1] https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/travel-information/onboard...

[Doctor_Fegg]

Though the problem is that delayed trains are often overcrowded trains. And overcrowded trains are not conducive for doing work on a laptop, unless you like sitting on the vestibule floor outside the toilet door with your laptop on your knees.

[tempfile]

To be fair, in my experience a lot of train operators will not declassify a train unless it is very very full. So if you got a first class ticket, you wouldn't be as stuck.

[ValentineC]

> Though the problem is that delayed trains are often overcrowded trains.

I've experienced exactly this with Deutsche Bahn trains, but I've been looking at the National Rail Conditions of Travel [1], and there's no requirement that tickets automatically turn into "flexi" tickets, allowing use of alternate routes, unlike German regulations.

I'm guessing a huge number of people being allowed to hop onto the next train instead of just being provided a refund is a huge cause of overcrowding, but I also haven't experienced the UK rail system first-hand in many years.

[1] https://assets.nationalrail.co.uk/e8xgegruud3g/3Y9UXuFziljws...

[seabass-labrax]

It is mostly the same in the UK too, at least in principle. Sparpreis fares correspond to Advance tickets, which can vary over time or be sold at a discount. DB's Flexpreis would be called 'walk-up' fares in Britain, which are fixed in price by the Department for Transport (a part of the British government).

If you miss a train due to no fault of your own you can take the next available one, including with an Advance ticket[1].

What complicates the matter greatly in the United Kingdom is the semi-privatized franchising system and the hundreds of 'restriction codes' that limit the validity of the tickets to what is essentially an arbitrary subset of the available services, even in the case of disruption.

I think that German regulations, as well as European industry agreements such as CIV, are better for the passenger because they codify in law how reasonable railway staff would act anyway. However there are equivalent protections in Britain, albeit ones encoded in nebulous contracts and precedent rather than enshrined in law. They can help you but only if you know what they are and are prepared to fight the bueorocracy to invoke them.

[1]: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/tickets-railcards-and-offers/...