@kato not many, perhaps 8. Each stop we were at the station for 4-5 minutes though. No doubt if the schedule included 1 minute at each stop it would also be late all the time. I’d rather spend 4-5 minutes at each station and the train be on time, than take pot luck that it would be on time or even running. Why can’t the UK rail operators be realistic about these things?
Thetrainline works all this out for you, including split tickets now.
So as passengers we have to pay another private company to game the ridiculously complex ticket system that results from privatisation and half-arsed regulation? Are we supposed to be happy about that?
afaik the reason longer jouneys are cheaper is the same reason ticket splitting works. Basically rail companies are allowed to inflate tickets by, say 5% on average across all routes. That average is based on all routes counting as 1. Some routes get loads of passengers, so they might put that route up by 10%, and some get almost none, so they put it up by 0%.
That way, the train company toes the line on 5% inflation in ticket prices but gets an effective ticket price increase of closer to 9%.
Just on a flip to this, it disappoints me how cheap some air fairs are to travel from 1 city to another in the UK by aeroplane.
Smacks of absolutely zero joined up policy about green travel. If anything aircraft should be taxed for internal flights to subsidise trains/busses
Just on a flip to this, it disappoints me how cheap some air fairs are to travel from 1 city to another in the UK by aeroplane.Smacks of absolutely zero joined up policy about green travel. If anything aircraft should be taxed for internal flights to subsidise trains/busses
UK Government recently cut Air Passenger Duty on internal flights (to "boost the economy" innit) and the likes of easyJet and Ryanair responded by ramping up UK internal flights dramatically, including opening up some new routes.
Government hasn't got a clue, they're dangerously incapable. Grab the cash and run, even as the planet is burning.
https://www.routesonline.com/news/29/breaking-news/299533/uk-cuts-domestic-air-passenger-duty/
UK Government recently cut Air Passenger Duty on internal flights (to “boost the economy” innit) and the likes of easyJet and Ryanair responded by ramping up UK internal flights dramatically, including opening up some new routes.
Government hasn’t got a clue, they’re dangerously incapable. Grab the cash and run, even as the planet is burning.
Cut air travel taxes - saves people who fly a lot, a lot.
Cut train fares - saves everyone else pence each.
Sounds like a perfectly competent Tory government to me.
So as passengers we have to pay another private company to game the ridiculously complex ticket system that results from privatisation and half-arsed regulation? Are we supposed to be happy about that?
So use thetrainline to work out the optimal tickets then buy them from somewhere else. Personally I don't particularly mind paying a quid to save thirty. YMMV.
Yes, of course it's utterly stupid and arguably borderline criminal. But if the rail operators are going to game their passengers then it's possible to game them right back. Or you can pay your apathy tax like people who let insurance auto-renew every year.
APD is a distraction, you could double it and it would still be cheaper to fly than get the train.
The issue isn't that flying is to cheap, it's that the train is too expensive, subsidy from APD wouldn't fix that without pricing APD at a level where no one would fly* so it wouldn't provide subsidy for anything.
Something is very wrong with a model where a plane can be run from Glasgow to London for a third of the cost of the train.
Planes are more costly to buy, more costly to fuel, smaller capacity, less efficient to run and it's not profiteering money grabbing share holders making it expensive, airlines have those too.
*that might be a good thing but it's not a good thing in terms of raising money from it.
But if the rail operators are going to game their passengers then it’s possible to game them right back
It's mainly not an operator problem, fares are not set by the operator, that's the public sector bit.
smaller capacity, less efficient to run
that capacity is used very efficiently though, both in terms of passengers per seat and in terms of time-per journey (ie a plane can do 2-3 london->edinburgh runs in the time a train can only do one) and there's lots of competition so prices are low.
and there’s lots of competition so prices are low.
Well there's Ryanair running Edinburgh to Luton and easyjet to Stansted. That's not exactly earth shattering amounts of competition and frankly neither be doing it for cost,they're both making a profit (and I dare guess more than the train operators who have a habit of going bust)
Faff Vs convenience too.
Getting a train to Edinburgh from southern England is as easy as get to your local train station, and go via London. From the passenger's perspective there's very little downtime waiting around.
Getting a plane requires you to get the train to an airport-ish, shuttle busses, check in, security, etc. Then the reverse at the other end. Taking the inverse journey, apart from city airport, the other 4 "London" airports are about as close to London as Dundee, Perth or Glasgow are to Edinburgh.
If planes cost as much as trains no one would even consider them.
Tell me about it! I'm taking the train to the start of a 450km gravel race on Friday. The start is in the centre of Barcelona and I'm travelling the hour and a quarter from Tarragona with my bike for the extortionate sum of €8.05 welcome to the People's Republic of Cataluña.
I'm a recent convert to rail commuting - 6 mile drive to and from the station, £3 to park, £6.70 return ticket vs 24 mile drive to and from, and £6 parking.
The costs probably balance out. Getting 30-60 minutes of my day back - priceless!
£6.70 return ticket vs 24 mile drive
By heck, that's not bad at all.
£12 ish return to Leeds (£9 if you book two specific singles) £13 to York. Both about 14 miles each way.
They're both a lot better than they used to be mind, was £15 return a few years ago and £11 each way on peak.
Went to London three weeks ago from Newcastle via LUMO with return tickets costing me £108.80.
LUMO is good but they are not as frequent and the train was almost full on both days of my travel. Faster arrival time by comparison to LNER by I think 30 to 40 mins.
On the return journey someone smoked/vaped on the train and we had to stop at York to get the person of the train.
I will use LUMO again.
LNER is about £40 return for me from Newcastle to York (1hr 15mins journey).
Been a while since I've done it but I used to fly to Glasgow to Amsterdam every month and get the train to Antwerp.
The train to Antwerp cost the same regardless if you booked it in advance or if you turned up on the day, and it was insanely cheap for the very nice Thalys service.
These days Manchester is as far as I get and I gave up on the shambolic Trans Pennine and Avanti West coast service after a few disastrous trips. Drive up and down now instead of gambling on extortionately priced and completely unreliable trains.
@crazylegs
In fact every rail route in Scotland is subsidised. Even Glasgow Edinburgh wasn't profitable.
, in 2019-20, the only services where revenue was greater than operating costs was the route between Edinburgh and Glasgow via Falkirk High, with intercity services from Glasgow and Edinburgh to Aberdeen close to break even. The average subsidy required per passenger journey was £2.55, noting that this does not include costs for operating, maintaining and renewing rail infrastructure.
https://www.scotrail.co.uk/about-scotrail/fit-future/detailed-assessment
Individual route passenger numbers, revenue, and subsidy are here.
All UK rail is subsidised is it not?
Because there’s no way you’re actually buying a car and driving to London and back for less than 2x ~£140.
Diesel – £70
Congestion charge – £15
Parking – £60 (it’s actually cheapest to just park up and pay the PCN in Zone 1)
ULEZ – £12.50
= £157.50 and you’ve not even bought, insured, taxes, breakdown covered the car yet.
Eh, congestion charge as well as parking? If I drive up to London, parking for around 12 hours is roughly £20, and I’ve never paid a congestion charge, in all the years since it was introduced. It costs about £50 to fill my car up, which gives me around 340 miles, and by the time I’ve done the 200 mile round trip, I’ve got about 280 miles left. It’s a 1.0 petrol Ford, btw.
Train or coach? Yeah, love to. One problem - if I’m catching a train up for a concert, gigs usually end at around 11pm. The last train leaves Paddington at 11.32 pm. That means leaving the venue before the concert ends.
Coach? Last one leaves at 11pm.
Now, I could stop overnight, so a B&B is £60-odd, a return on the train, if I got an off-peak at around £50, I’ll have to wait until 9.30am to catch the next off-peak, so I’m looking at £160. The earliest coach I can get a cheap return leaves at 07.30, so I’d have to hang around at Victoria Coach station for seven hours, or cough up for a B&B, putting the cost up well north of £130 or so.
It’s a two hour drive each way.
Oh, and as for public transport locally, if I want to catch a bus to Bristol, using my bus pass, I have to go via Bath, which takes at least two hours, for a trip that I can do in a bit less than an hour in my car, or spend out for a coach or train. There’s a direct road to Bristol from where I live, but no bus. ☹️
I am going to try coach torture 8 hour journey (take the latest one so sleep in the coach) in one of my future trip to London. Only cost £40 return as I was told.
It's just another great example of the government passing the problem to you solve whereas it could find a solution with its own purse, if it was remotely serious about not just giving the cash away for profit.
Enjoy.
Hmmm, just checked, i can rock up to the station in Gotebörg at 6 am, pay for a peak rate day return to Stockholm (600 mile round trip) with a seat for about £250, including the parking (~3 minute walk from the ticket office). Copenhagen return is about £160.
If i book more than a week in advance the price drops ~75%. Doesn't matter how much further out i book, it stays at roughly that cost with a bit of fluctuation based on time of day.
Cheapest i can do on the day is about £120, but that's travelling during the day/last thing in the evening.
Well, that’s just silly. You have a valid ticket covering the trip. Just because you have a ticket doesn’t make travel mandatory.
They actually changed the rules when i was commuting to Uni back in the 90s. You have to either get on, or get off the train at the stop the ticket starts/finishes at.
I used to by a cheap day return from where i lived to a stop on the edge of the zone that my regional transport pass worked. I used to get free travel on all bus and train in west yorkshire, but lived 2 or 3 stops outside the zone.
But, if i got on a train that didn't stop at that particular stop, i was fare dodging, even though i had tickets covering the whole journey. Pain in the arris, either catch a slow train that stops everywhere. Or try and avoid the inspector.
Trains do not have to be expensive compared to a car. I regularly go to Glasgow / Milngavie from Edinburgh. £14.20 return to glasgow or 18.80 to milngavie. 1.5 hrs to Milngavie and 50 mins to Glasgow. If i am going train the whole way add in a bus to Waverly (£1.80) and 20 mins travel. Usually I go by bike so add 15 mins to waverly but only 25 mins Glasgow to Milngavie so total time is a bit less than train all the way if I do bike and train
47 miles edinburgh city centre to glasgow, 55 to milngavie ie total cost of £40 - 50 for a car ( its bogus to just use the additional cost which even then ( petrol, tyres, wear, servicing ) is probably more than the train
Cheaper, quicker ( depending on traffic levels - low traffic times I could get to Milgavie a bit quicker by car but not Edinburgh centre to Glasgow centre) , less stressful and nicer by train
its bogus to just use the additional cost
I'm which case can I add the extra 100k in house price of £500 a month in rent to live within easy travel range of a train station? And thankfully I don't live in London, a tube station will add three times that.
All well and good saying purchase, tax insurance etc all add to car use but there are similar parallels for buses and trains - some of which are considerably more expensive.
Just don't go to London. Simples.
Just don’t go to London.
Turns out moving the building I need to be in up north a bit is more expensive than the train into the city. Shame really, I'd rather move the building.
but there are similar parallels for buses and trains – some of which are considerably more expensive.
Which are?
The most obvious one, living near enough a station to be able to use the train without the need to use a car (taxi) to get to the station.
If I transplanted my house to a with kit walking distance of a train station is would add 30% of more to the house price, that's more interest on a mortgage, or more rent etc.
I could of course move the house to somewhere with a better bus service, that would only add 20%.
At the other end of any train journey you'll need to get where you're going, unless that's actually the train station, so that's £14 for a tube in London, what ever the bus fare is where ever you are, or a taxi etc.
None of that is free, none of it is needed if you drive.
(Then there's a couple of of books a week, I don't need those if I drive, a few beers, can't have those if I drive)
Which are?
I have to drive to the station, if i lived close enough to walk or realistically cycle my mortgage would be (more than) twice what i'm paying now. (house price would essentially triple, and then some)
If i wanted to live near a realistic and viable bus route you're looking at a doubling of house price.
And for both of those new houses, I'd *realistically* need a car anyway.
Unless i get rid of the kids of course. Then i could manage without.
That is not a cost of using public transport. thats a cost of where you are living. clutching at straws comes to mind
The point I was making was that public transport does not have to be expensive
I regularly go to Glasgow / Milngavie from Edinburgh.
Aren't you retired though? I'd imagine that being able to chose the cheapest fare, as opposed to having to chose a time based on an externally created timetable (a meeting, peak travel to get to work on time, weekend etc etc) makes a difference
I mean; the cheapest fare (on a casual google) Manchester to Euston is £44.00, but when I can actually go; the cost is £120.00
Just don’t go to London. Simples.
Sadly, even for us occasional travellers of 'The South', some plum* designed most of our rail and road system around faster links to Londonium as it is 'important'. We now reap what we sow in all sorts of ways - and transport costs and time is one of them....
*a few, and we are still doing it with HS2 rather than the Northern Corridor etc.
Aren’t you retired though? I’d imagine that being able to chose the cheapest fare, as opposed to having to chose a time based on an externally created timetable (a meeting, peak travel to get to work on time, weekend etc etc) makes a difference
It is exactly this for me with work, plus I use the train for long journey's - Dunblane to London or Winchester, down to Birmingham etc. These are 6-8 hour journey times and ideal for a train - but then I either have to leave at 4am to get a cheap ticket or arrive back in Dunblane at 11:58pm...
I don't get to choose when staff training is, or a client meeting, a conference I am speaking at, or a government shindig etc, the things I usually travel for. Ergo, the peak cost is the issue, not the 12 weeks and set off at 5am on a Thursday is £0.003p to travel.
That is not a cost of using public transport. thats a cost of where you are living. clutching at straws comes to mind
Or splitting hairs. Again, folks often don't choose where they live, or if they did choose, their circumstances may have changed. Fo'shure public transport doesn't have to be expensive, but its often calculated - by the people that run the service, to be expensive when people are able to travel. They don't operate these services in a vacuum.
And the selling point of public transport is that it needs to be so convenient that it's more difficult not to use it. There's a tram stop 2 mins from where I live that goes to Manchester city centre, I'd be daft not to, but I can still park my car more cheaply in a city centre CP for a couple of hours than it costs to get there and back on the tram.
That is not a cost of using public transport. thats a cost of where you are living
No, its a cost of living somewhere with public transport.
Without access I can't use it, I have to pay for that access so it's absolutely a cost of use.
The point I was making was that public transport does not have to be expensive
I do sometimes travel at peak times - its a fiver more (ish)
The point is very simple - there is no need for public transport to be inconvenient or expensive. Much UK stuff is because of political decisions. Not all UK stuff is expensive or inconvenient either
there is no need for public transport to be inconvenient or expensive. Much UK stuff is because of political decisions.
^ That i agree with.
Agree with all that, but here we are; 4 pages in on a thread about the cost of public transport and no one is really expressing anything other than how cripplingly expensive it is to use. You're the outlier here
Again
The point I was making was that public transport does not have to be expensive
I wasn't even including the discount I get for being an old fart! Free buses and cheaper trains 🙂
Eh, congestion charge as well as parking? If I drive up to London, parking for around 12 hours is roughly £20, and I’ve never paid a congestion charge, in all the years since it was introduced.
You're not in "London", you're driving to some suburb around it.
Council car parking in Wesminster is upto £8.70 an hour, it's cheaper to park up and wait for a £40 yellow ticket as they can't give you two in the same spot within 24h. + ULEZ + congestion.
there is no need for public transport to be inconvenient or expensive
I don't think anyone disagrees with that however like a lot of things, what it is and what it could/should/might be aren't the same.
The other half of it is the cheaper and better transport gets, until it reaches somewhere near saturation, the more people will pay to live near it - look at good schools and catchment areas - so a lot of the cost simply moves to something else.
If I lived in the Edinburgh suburbs the costs and timings would be the same BTW - and I could have a cheaply built "executive home" or semi because Edinburgh retains a comprehensive state owned public transport system I think the only UK city other than london that does.
and I could have a cheaply built “executive home”
Point of order, I don't think you can have an executive home and be a retiree, I think it's just a house. Possibly a residence if you're the sort who had an executive home previously, but I think you'll find it's no longer executive in b either case.
🙂 But but but - thats what they are advertised as 🙂
