"Trains are a rich man's toy" « Singletrack Forum

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"Trains are a rich man's toy"

136 posts & 53 voices | Started 8 months ago by Stu_N | Latest reply from flange

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Stu_N - Member

So says transport secretary Philip Hammond. And he has to be right.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14904610

I pay £8 a day for a 20 mins each way trip = about £1,500 a year if I did it every day.

Edinburgh - Glasgow is about £22 peak (peak being before 9.30 and between about 4 and 6.30 so you can't work normal hours and avoid that).

£150 Birmingham to London peak, Edinburgh - London £221

All these are standard class. Bonkers. And I bet Hammond gets pillored for speaking the truth. Trains are too expensive.

End of.

Posted 8 months ago #
don simon - Member

I concur.

Posted 8 months ago #
allthepies - Member

When I was (recently) working in that London my weekly ticket was £92.20, for a 45min journey from Surrey.

Posted 8 months ago #
mikewsmith - Member

In various jobs I have paid about £8 and spent about 2 hrs doing what should be a should be 50mins of driving. That was just the fuel add in insurance and tax and running costs trains sound cheap

Posted 8 months ago #
Northwind - Member

Stu_N - Member

I pay £8 a day for a 20 mins each way trip = about £1,500 a year if I did it every day.

Because TJ isn't here- compare with price of learning to drive, buying car, insuring car, car depreciating, petrol in car, denting car, servicing car, parking car, taxing car, MOTing car and ooooh it'll cost you sir.

It's costing me £25 to go from London to Edinburgh in November.

Re Edinburgh-Glasgow- it's not £22 to go from Edinburgh to Glasgow, it's £19.60 return at peak. Or you can get a 10-journey pass for £96, or a month's unlimited travel for £306.10. And that also includes not sitting at Junction 17 and Junction 2 for a decent percentage of your life. Far rather take the train tbh, life's too short to spend it staring at the back of the car in front.

£306.10 gets you a month's unlimited travel, or £96.20 gets you 10 trips.

But I do agree, trains are too expensive.

Posted 8 months ago #
SandyThePig - Member

Wholeheartedly agree Stuart. Trains are a total rip off, for a substandard service.

Assume you just bike it for the fairer months of the year, and take the train in horrific weather (like the last few days)?

Posted 8 months ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

You cannot drive Edinburgh / Glasgowa s quickly and cheaply as the train in rush hour. I know - I have just done it today. You can sit and read the paper on the train and have a coffee. Far more pleasant than the M8 in rush hour

Posted 8 months ago #
uplink - Member

I just paid £317.67 for a return ticket from Darlington to Guildford

and it still took nearly 7 hours

Posted 8 months ago #
El-bent - Member

The above-inflation increase is part of the government's agenda to reduce the cost to the public purse of running the rail network.

So instead of collectively paying for it through taxation, it will be down to the individual to foot the cost, which of course has been happening for years.

Privatisation is stupid enough, but not to have a relatively cheap mass transportation system SERVICING the economy like pretty much the other leading "westernised" economies have (Usa excepted), is probably costing us more competitively.

Posted 8 months ago #
Northwind - Member

TJ! I thought you'd been quiet.

Posted 8 months ago #
CaptainFlashheart - Member

Well, quite simply, isn't a massive part of the problem that people choose to live too far away from where they work?

Posted 8 months ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

Northwind - gainfully employed these days

Posted 8 months ago #
uplink - Member

TJ - did the same journey to Guildford in a car last week

I read a couple of papers and had a couple of teas and it was quicker and much cheaper
just like the train, I let someone else drive

Posted 8 months ago #
El-bent - Member

Well, quite simply, isn't the problem that people choose to live too far away from where they work?

That may be the case for the well off, but others live where they are because its all they can afford and have to commute to where the work is.

Posted 8 months ago #
Stoner - Member

I like my train journey, and even onpeak think it's good value for money.

A 2:20 journey, each way, depositing me at Paddington before 9am in the morning for £66 return. I do it once a fortnight.

Sure I could drive the 240 miles for less, but Im not allowed a beer in the car, or to have the newspaper flopped over the wheel all the way across Oxfordshire.

Posted 8 months ago #
tadeuszkrieger - Member

"Well, quite simply, isn't a massive part of the problem that people choose to live too far away from where they work? "

Yup, I live in Bramhall Manchester and work in Branson, Missouri.'kin train takes forever,good job I only commute every six months or so.

Posted 8 months ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

Darlington / guildford £302 is the anytime return ( most expensive second class), £204 open return tomorrow morning departure and takes 4 1/2 hrs

Posted 8 months ago #
uplink - Member

4.5 hrs my arse

for a start I need to get to thestation at each end and also get between Kings x and Waterloo

Posted 8 months ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

Thats what the timetable said including the cross london journey for which plenty of time was allowed.

Depart Arrive Travel by Train company Duration
08:24
Darlington

10:54
London Kings Cross
Train EAST COAST 02h 30
10:54
London Kings Cross

11:37
Vauxhall
Tube n/a 00h 43
11:37
Vauxhall

11:41
Clapham Junction
Train SOUTH WEST TRAINS 00h 04
11:52
Clapham Junction

12:23
Guildford Station
Train SOUTH WEST TRAINS 00h 31

or

08:24
Darlington

10:54
London Kings Cross
Train EAST COAST 02h 30
10:54
London Kings Cross

11:37
Vauxhall
Tube n/a 00h 43
11:37
Vauxhall

12:32
Guildford Station
Train SOUTH WEST TRAINS 00h 55

Posted 8 months ago #
stuartlangwilson - Member

Part of the problem is lack of capacity, current prices are part of a strategy to manage the amount of users.

Posted 8 months ago #
uplink - Member

takes me around 7 hrs door to door which is a little more than the drive does and a hell of a lot more expensive

Posted 8 months ago #
aP - Member

Actually motoring is too cheap.

Posted 8 months ago #
don simon - Member

Darlington / guildford £302 is the anytime return ( most expensive second class), £204 open return tomorrow morning departure and takes 4 1/2 hrs

I can't work out if this is for or against trains.

Posted 8 months ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

3 hours spent from your house to the station and from the station to the place you are going to?

Posted 8 months ago #
simon_g - Member

I tend to think of it as a premium for the disorganised.

I have to travel London-Preston fairly often for work. I usually travel first class both ways for under £100, which is about what it'd cost to drive and I get fed both ways too. A standard bought-on-the-day return is about £240, and first class £420. Which is bonkers, but I wonder how many people actually buy tickets like that. Pretty much everyone I share a carriage with seems to have a reservation, which would imply an advance booking.

Posted 8 months ago #
druidh - Member

I got the train from Keith to Edinburgh on Saturday. It cost £14.20 and my bike went for free. Anyone care to work out how much that would have cost in petrol or diesel?

Posted 8 months ago #
uplink - Member

3 hours spent from your house to the station and from the station to the place you are going to?

since when does 4.5 + 3 = a bit less than 7?

anyway, your shocking maths aside, I do the journey quite often and it takes nearly 7 hrs door to door
you can either trust your theoretical journey time or my actual one, I don't really care which

BTW - I reckon 1/2 one end, about 3/4 the other

Posted 8 months ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

Well the train is actually nearer 4 than 4 and a half hours - I did post the timings. so actually with a 4 hr train and and hour a a quarter travel at the ends its under 6 for sure and not much over 5 hours at best - not seven

Posted 8 months ago #
uplink - Member

you obviously know best TJ

I don't know why I ever questioned that you'd know how long it took me to get home today better than my watch did

Posted 8 months ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

uplink - just trying to understand why you claim a time so much longer than the timetable said. so the train is under 4 1/2 hrs, yo have under a 1 1/2 hr travel time at both ends but it actually take you over an hour longer than that?

Posted 8 months ago #
CaptainFlashheart - Member

TJ, train timetables are not FACTS! They are an estimation.

Posted 8 months ago #
SST - Member

I love trains. Sit and watch the countryside out the window, read a book, have a coffee, nod off. Get there feeling good, rather than stressed

Posted 8 months ago #
andyl - Member

cheapest possible ticket from Bristol to Preston and the return seems to be £67 at the moment. That is even with booking 3 weeks in advance and off-peak ie £134 return. Same journey would cost me £25 each way in diesel. My car costs £130 a year to tax, £240 a year to insure, £40 MOT and maybe £100-150 a year in repairs and servicing (DIY). Lets assume depreciation of £150 a year (only cost me £1k) so that's under £1k a year in fixed costs and the rest is fuel at 50+ mpg and on business trips, which is my main use, I get 41p per mile allowance. Seems silly for me to get the train. Especially as I live no-where near a train station or any decent bus links

Posted 8 months ago #
FeeFoo - Member

Actually motoring is too cheap.

Is it?

***prays you're not talking from an environmental standpoint***

Posted 8 months ago #
aP - Member

Well, I see loads of people in cars sitting outside shops waiting for their passenger to go round the shop and stand in a queue to buy stuff. In my book, that makes fuel too cheap, and the number of cars on the road many of them travelling less than 5 miles means motoring is too cheap.

Posted 8 months ago #