Train journey cheaper than a car - edinburgh / glasgow return. Cheapest return available is &7.20. I normally pay £12.70 IIRC. Its 90 miles so a tenners worth of petrol plus more in wear and tear etc etc
maybe so but IME the vast majority of journeys are massively more expensive than driving.
For example, Chelmsford to Bristol. Takes an hour longer in the train, and an open return is £177!! Costs about £30 there and back in the car, and I'm guaranteed a seat!
currently working in Chester and living in Cheltenham, business relocation. I can get to work at an average 60mpg, so a smidge over 2 gallons, say £12 each way? I have to pay for the tax, insurance regardless of whether i use the car or not.
If i use the car i can take my bike so i can get around in the week without the car, if i go by train, who knows a complete lottery and forget taking any amount of luggage. New trains are so spacious!!!
Now i have to be at work at 9am on a monday morning, it simply isn't going to happen the trains don't run that early.
finally according to Trainline the standard off peak return price is £52.40. I suppose you could say i could book in advance, but the point of the car is convenience, so "public" transport needs to try and get somewhere near. ie turn up and go pricing, not book 6 months in advance and hope you get one of the limited availability tickets. Of course there is then the tiny detail of the train arriving, never guaranteed.
I would like to point out i only learnt to drive three years ago because i was sick and tired of cancelled trains and the costs simply didn't work, and if two of you are travelling a car does not cost twice as much.
£1000 sums it up.
train journey gatwick to milton keynes £24, i did there and back for that same price.
return jouney for trains is like 5p more anyway.
some people like myself would never get up out of bed an extra 40 mins before work to ride 10 miles... then all sweaty then start work. not exactly hygienic due to not having showers etc....
The idea that expensive fuel will encourage us not to drive so much is plain stupid IMHO. I don't drive any more than i need to, expensive fuel means less money in my pocket not less driving.
I do catch the train to cardiff pretty much every day though, the train is cheaper due to the toll but only just, however I drive to and from the station. I used to ride my bike (and loved it) but the guards refused to let me put it on the train one time too many. If you know bristol, you'll know that you cannot lock it up at the stn!
If we want reduced prices how would that happen? Reduce tax? We need as much as we can get because of the debt....or just ask the oil companies nicely?
tbh another thing that gets on my t**s is we have a problem with obese kids but you get so many d***head people driving their kids to school. last week i came home from work to find the already tight area where i live jammed with cars and my driveway blocked by some numpety picking there kid up,i know that the world is different to when i was at school and you cant let them walk home on their ownyes you can, but nothing is stopping parents walking especially when schools have a radius of about 3/4 mile from the school.
Now THAT is a rant I can agree with 
and an open return is £177!!
Off peak is £71, and super off peak is less than £60. I agree that peak rail travel is stupidly priced, often cheaper to stay somewhere overnight.
As an aside it's £14 return from Salisbury to Port Talbot at certain times 
Doing Afan by train this summer...
I have people who work for me and live closer than me and drive everyday then complain about the costs of driving.
They always seem upset when I laugh at them and suggest that fuel isn't expensive enough.
interestingly scale it up
contact lense solution is well over 1000 bucks a barrel !
thats over priced - yet people pay it no bother !
my van moves at weekends for riding only - everything else is done by bike - oil pays my wages - i dont feel like paying my own wages un necessarily !
but do you need 5 litres of contact solution to go an hour worth of seeing?
i think something needs to be done. ok tax needs to be done but really so much on something NEEDED for peoples lifes to carry on.
i remember when the fuel blockade was on last that lasted a week or two was it?
i lived in a hamlet outside in country. no bus routes to or from and working 50 mile away.
so how did i go to work? by planning ahead and buying shit loads at the time. other colleagues never made it in as they couldnt get it (also from a small villages).
The problem is public transport is shit unless you live within the zones of london! its late, trains overcrowded, overpriced through peak times is lets be honest when most commuters are using it. funny that 
theres a shit load of tax there that could be used!
your telling me from all the speeding tickets and gatso cameras they still need to charge fuel at these prices? come on...
in my village the public transport is terrible!
2 buses a day through my village now 8.20 or 16.20! thats great for when i started work at 8
returns get me back at 12 and 8.40 great once again. the price is best 6 mile to leighton buzzard on a pop pop bus costs me a £5. now thats value for money!
get in your car drive it, in the warm where your garanteed a place out of the rain with music and wait for the lorry drivers to get so pisssssssed about it again they block it all up once again.
check the states!! 80cent / gallon!
When, in 1990?
It's actually around $2.80 per gallon
when my bro was there in texas 2 months ago
ive just come back from texas yesterday 2.60 dollars/gallon 
80 cents to 2.57 in two months is some inflation!
p.s. and a US galon is only 3.785 litres
There are always excuses for excessive tax.
The problem is now that the government are as addicted to fuel duty as the public are to fossil fuels. If we think the cost of travel is ridiculous now, it's only going to get worse.
While fuel prices escalate, it would make sense to divert some of this revenue into public transport. Instead £177bn has been given out to a wunch of bankers.
i reckon when you take into account the fact that cars are getting more and more efficient, the per-mile cost is just the same.
I remember my old Rover 200 costing around 8-9p per mile back in 2001 (when i was young and driving like a wally) and my Golf diesel is now costing around the same.
no one forced you to live in that hamlet .....ergo you do not NEED fuel to carry on life it mearly makes it convienant for you to live where you choose (or where you got a cheaper house)
I filled my van & car yesterday, £93 for my van & £67 for my car, I never think about the expense,I need to use fuel to earn money, I look on it as that's £160 I'm not going to be paying income tax on.
Its simply not excessive tax. Its necessary tax. Where ever taxation is raised from you moan about it - and you also moan about poor services. The money to pay for services has to come from somewhere
As for those who say a car is a necessity - it is only a necessity for your chosen lifestyle. Don't live in dormitory / commuter villages or don't complain about cost of cars.
It is the people who commute from these villages that have made public transport not viable in these areas by not using it and have killed local shops and pushed up property prices to the point that people who work in rural areas cannot afford to live there.
It will take another generation to sort out but petrol and energy in general is only going to get more expensive.
If petrol was 5 times the price how quickly would we have 100+ mpg cars? Those of you moaning about petrol prices why don't you have more economical cars - 70 mpg is feasible now.
Where and when are these cheap train journeys?
We live 40 miles out of London, and its £27 at peak time for a return - and peak been the time everybody goes to work. And you've still got to get to the station (£5.50 to park - or £3.50 each way in a taxi).
So £27 to do 80 miles, and 2 hours in and 2 hours out.
Anyway while I can complain about the price of public transport, I can't about fuel - I run a V8 
As an aside, we went to Afan today - 400 mile round trip, best value day out so far this year - try doing that on public transport, on a Sunday!
the point im trying to make is fuel is going up far higher than the rate of inflation, but wages are not in fact people have had pay cuts, the same as many of us on here,
Me too but I don't come on here and moan about my lifestyle choices.
b r - MemberAnyway while I can complain about the price of public transport, I can't about fuel - I run a V8
As an aside, we went to Afan today - 400 mile round trip, best value day out so far this year - try doing that on public transport, on a Sunday!
Game, set and match
"It is the people who commute from these villages that have made public transport not viable in these areas by not using it "
Its the other way round. It all started with the "Beeching axe".
I can't afford a v8.
I run a family hatchback, which I only use at weekends (yes, I use my bike to commute the 5 miles to my local railway station).
Br, read my posts for some examples. And the fact that I can get to afan for £14 from here. Granted, not sure you could on a Sunday, so I'll go on Saturday....
RichPenny - I'd like some examples please. My g/f and I wanted to book tickets to visit friends in Morpeth, but the cheapest we could find was the thick end of £250.
Where's the incentive?
"It is the people who commute from these villages that have made public transport not viable in these areas by not using it "
make it cheaper in the first place and we might??
Easter is approaching, people using cars for staycations = higher fuel prices. The price will go down for a couple months and then rise again end June beginning July.
HoratioHufnagel - Member
"It is the people who commute from these villages that have made public transport not viable in these areas by not using it "Its the other way round. It all started with the "Beeching axe".
I cannot get a bus to work so it is car or bike. No car share because no-one working with me stays anywhere near me.
If my wife were to use buses it would take 1hr to travel the 5mls with a change of bus half way.
Fossil fuel users are cash cows, pure and simple. 90% of everything travels by road at some point, the 'high fuel tax' advocates don't get that. Do you know how many bike panniers you would need to fill to get your average 40'trailer load of goods to market? Neither do I, but I reckon it'd be a lot. Net result is the high tax on fuel has a direct cost implication on everything including the mass transportation system which last time I looked didn't run on fresh air.
Why not just tax those who are selfish enough to drive large fuel ineficient cars for their personal gratification.
'I asked him how he thought I could tow the caravan behind a train (once he has priced me off the road) - he did not reply to this question.'
Now that made me laugh.
Weester - I tend to go on holiday by bike and train and camp once there. Rarely but sometimes I hare a car
I can't fault you TandemJeremy. I wish I could but the 4 year old and the wife with Scoliosis might not wear it.
Interesting thought though, how many miles to the gallon does a train carrying 300 people do?
"Fossil fuel users are cash cows, pure and simple. 90% of everything travels by road at some point, the 'high fuel tax' advocates don't get that."
I'm sure most of them do. You'll find most people who support high fuel costs also support reducing road haulage and improving freight infrastructure as well as public transport. But transportation costs are a small part of point-of-sale prices.
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