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How important are connections between trains?  What percentage of your journeys have involved a change of train along the way?   I'm asking over five years to give a spread of pre and during and post covid, and by "train" I mean National Rail service and underground train too.  Not thinking of trams or heritage connections.   Comments welcome - I've decided not to complicate the poll by adding buttons about how MANY journeys you make.

I'd suggest that the importance of connections is very different on (most) Underground journeys, where a missed connection will usually result in just a few minutes overall delay rather than 30/60 minutes or longer for most National Rail journeys.  More generally, the interchange at a particular station can vary in importance depending on direction - it's a royal pain to come off a slightly late mainline train to find that the 2-hourly branch has already left, but probably less annoying in the other direction to get off the late branch service, just miss the mainline one and quite often only have to wait half an hour for the next one.

I have guesstimated at the 60-80% range because trips into the city aside (generally DIG-EXC) the vast majority of my rail journeys include a change at either EXC or EXD. Connections, particularly the waiting time, are of great importance to me; it is very annoying to arrive at EXD from 'up country' only to see an Exmouth branch connection disappear into the distance, doubly so when the incoming service is running late and a timetabled connection is not held for a few minutes.

The importance of underground connections differs though (like your National Rail comment) ... FROM Underground to the Pembroke Coast Express is pretty important ... vice versa, it's a few minutes

Most of my journeys not involving a change of train are accounted for by short hops from Redland Station to Bristol Temple Meads and back when I visit central Bristol.  Most of my longer jaunts start and finish at Redland too but involve changing trains, usually at Temple Meads and not infrequently elsewhere as well.
Take away the 12 minute soley local journeys and more than 90% of my rail travel would involve a change of trains so connections are important to me.
Connection times are consequently important to me with enough allowance needed for late running but not so much that the journey times become unworthwhile.

Most of my journeys involve a change of train at Truro to go to Penzance or Plymouth. As I get on at Perranwell we only have an hourly train so on return I have to make sure the connection is good.

Most of my weekend cycling trips involve SWR land from Reading. Normally going out towards Southampton from Reading in the morning is ok. But if I have to come back via Basingstoke it is a pain as the train to Reading is now hourly at weekends, and one of the last places I want to wait 50 minutes is Basingstoke. That's why wherever possible I come back from Portsmouth area via Guildford which is a far better connection. Not sure what it will be like with the replacement stock that apparently can't pull the skin off a rice pudding.

Going Brighton way can be a bit of a rush for a connection at Gatwick, even more so if going to Eastbourne.

For those who think I should plan better, I don't cycle to a time table, it takes what it takes. My form of relaxation/masochism.

It's a good job I've kept a note of my train journeys in a journal program on my PC, otherwise I wouldn't have had a clue. The figure came out to just under 40% required a change, most of which were to Oxford, changing at Reading with the odd few to Salisbury, Windsor, Southampton and Winchester. There were quite a few notes of delays and missed connections, several of which were caused the conductor's ticket machine not working and then having to queue at the Excess Fares desk in Reading.

The 60% that didn't need a change were mostly to Reading, with a few to Guildford.

The vast majority of these trips were pre-pandemic. I have only made 7 trips by rail since March 2020.

A number of my trips from Pinhoe have been to Basingstoke to visit family. With SWR's recent 'emergency' timetable, that would have involved a change at Salisbury, but it has been quicker to go via Exeter and Reading.

My biggest beef, however, is with GWR's Exmouth to Paignton timetable. Her ladyship and I often take the pooch for a walk on Dawlish Warren and we travel from Polsloe Bridge rather than Pinhoe. Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to get a through train from Polsloe Bridge to Dawlish Warren or in the other direction outside of peak hours. Trains that call at 'all stations' from Paignton to Exeter then miss out St James Park and Polsloe Bridge. Trains from Polsloe Bridge and St James Park miss out St Thomas, Starcross and Dawlish Warren!

Poll closed

What percentage of your journeys have involved a change of train along the way?   Result:
0 to 20%   - 6.3%
over 20% to 40%   - 12.5%
over 40% to 60%   - 43.8%
over 60% to 80%   - 21.9%
over 80% to 100%   - 15.6%

Small and not very scientific sample, but it averages out to somewhat over half of journeys involve a connection.   What a pity, then, that performance and journey time is routinely monitored by individual train running and journey time and hardly ever (never?) by total journey time by rail including connections.

The old "trick" from 60 years ago to help lines and journeys to the grave was to run services at times they did not connect, and very effective too it was in places.   There are examples of poor connections around at present too, and more coming in May, where there were through trains and/or better connections 2 years ago prior to the Covid cuts.  Some service changes / reductions do make sense, but there is a real and seemingly-lacking requirement to monitor connections, especially where they have taken on a replacement role.

I missed this poll for some reason, but my experience is pretty similar to johnneyw (and Bob_Blakey). Severn Beach line trains historically connect quite well with Bath or London-bound trains, but the return connections in the evening can be terrible. It is often quicker for me to walk the last leg rather than wait for a 40-minute 'connection'.

Branch lines have to serve the trunk routes; if they don't do that they wither and die.

In answer to Graham, there is an external audit of stations, timekeeping & other customer- oriented things loke failed trains within the National Rail contract - so I expect missed connections between same-TOC services to be picked up. Poor scores are penalised, so expect TOCs to quickly improve if necessary.

The problem will be connections between differdnt TOCs which wouldn’t appear within a single-TOC audit. But within-TOC connections should get timed such that connections would be made.

I missed this poll as well. Many journeys I would like to make would involve a change of train, but due to poor timetabling, I don't make the journey or make it differently.

For instance, for me to get from Oldfield Park to Bedminster, which I have often needed to do for meetings, I need to change trains at Temple Meads. However, the hourly services from Oldfield Park have always been timetabled to arrive at Temple Meads two minutes after the hourly service to Bedminster leaves. So I never make that journey that way, and instead either cycle from Temple Meads to Bedminster or cycle from my house to Bath Spa to catch a better connecting train. It does also mean trying to travel from here to Weston super Mare is frustrating. Travelling from Oldfield Park will always require at least a 25 minute wait at Temple Meads, or to go to Bath Spa and catch the one through train in the late morning (don't know if this still runs) or one of the two direct trains in the evening back to there.