As much as it pains me to say it, being the Britophile that I am...but I have to agree. Having taken trains in a handful of countries in Europe, the least pleasant times I've had dealing with trains has been in Britain.
The thing is, it's never been just the train travel itself (though that's been far from perfect), it's getting a ticket and getting on the train that's just as much of a mess.
We took the train from London (Paddington) to Bath, returning same day, and bought tickets well in advance online. First, you better have a fully-qualified process manager to help you with the tickets, as there are categories for full fare rates, singles, returns, off-peak, express, seniors, students, tourist, weekend, and any number of other seemingly nonsensical categories (I fully expected to see one for people traveling with hats preferring to sit on the left side of the car while humming a jaunty tune), and all these categories could be combined, as in off-peak senior weekend single. Honestly, the grid with all the permutations was too big to fit on the screen.
I thought I was just an idiot, but later, talking to some other British friends, they laughed and said, "Don't worry about it, we live here and we can't understand it, either!" Apparently, there's a scheme to streamline the whole ticketing process, but I don't know if it's happened yet.
Anyway, I went to pick up tickets at the self-serve kiosk. Two adults out to Bath and back, same day. Guess how many ticket-like stubs the machine spit out? Nine! Nine #%@! stubs that all looked almost exactly the same. There was a ticket for each of us each way, that was four right there. Then a stub for the reservation over all, then another stub for each of us for the reservation and then a couple more just for fun, and they all had control numbers on them, but they seemed to be in random order, like if I put them in numerical order, I had my return ticket first, followed by the overall reservation stub, followed by the wife's reservation stub, followed by her ticket going out, etc. No discernible order whatsoever.
Then, the station: keep in mind, we lived in Britain, we've traveled back several times, we take the train on occasion, so it wasn't like first-time confusion.
We got onto the platform area about 45 minutes before we were to leave, just to make sure. Train to Bath with specific platform isn't listed. No problem, it's early.
30 minutes...20 minutes...15 minutes...no train, so I went to ask: "Yeah, it'll be listed and they'll announce it at about 10 minutes before departure, unless it's delayed, but it's not delayed as of now."
10 minutes...seven minutes...six minutes, still no listing. Back to ask: "Yeah, it's not delayed, but it's not ready yet, and I don't have the platform. Don't worry, they'll announce it."
"Not ready yet," - doesn't that mean it's delayed? Apparently not.
Finally, out of nowhere: "THE 07:42 DEPARTURE TO BATH IS PREPARING TO LEAVE FROM PLATFORM 2. ALL PASSENGERS TRAVELING TO BATH ON THE 07:42 SERVICE SHOULD BE ON BOARD AT THIS TIME!"
Great, and we're at the other end of the terminal!
We had to hoof it and barely, and I mean barely made that train.
The way back was worse, because there were service disruptions and a four hour delay, and all the people who would have traveled during those four hours were stuck onto one train back and it was standing-room-only and we missed supper.