[Closed] "Trains are a rich man's toy"

We could ignore AGW and just discuss
1.pollution
2.Oil is running out
but hey you drive short distances in your car whilst you still can

but hey you drive short distances in your car whilst you still can

Will do!

Self righteous and sarcastic. Lovely.

yes sorry cars dont pollute and oil is infinite.
The undeniably powerful argument you used to defeat my flimsy attempts at reason leave me shamed.

I think his maths was seriously flawed. He claimed the average user of the train had above average income, but this is always going to be the case, as a large portion of train usage is commuting, and I'd bet there's not many shelf stackers who commute by train, as they'd just get a job locally.

You could half train prices, and the average user would probably still have above the average wage. In fact, it may encourage more higher earners to take the train, making the 'problem' worse.

trains are pricey, but I'm not sure they should be more heavily subsidied to make them cheaper. It just makes non-train users pay more in tax..

defeat my flimsy attempts at reason leave me shamed.

yes sorry cars dont pollute and oil is infinite.
The undeniably powerful argument you used to defeat my flimsy attempts at reason leave me shamed

Cars do pollute and oil is finite. And...

The conclusion you draw from that is incorrect and flimsy. Feel the power of my lack of concern.

The conclusion you draw from that is incorrect and flimsy

but hey you drive short distances in your car whilst you still can

trains are too cheap in my opinion
if they were more expensive the mother in law wouldn't visit quite so often

Thanks for helping me see sense

No problem! I knew you'd get there.

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

Read about this in the Metro this morning as I was waiting for my overcrowded commuter train with all the other rich people.

the most expensive rail travel per km in Europe for both urban and long distance
so yes it probably is a rich man's thing

its not like branson moved into trains because he passionately wanted to make train journeys more pleasurable its because he knew it was a poorly regulated essential service he could milk for all its worth

After years of enduring the hellhole that is London on public transport, whenever I have to go in to the city now I drive all the way and find a parking space. Since the introduction of the congestion charge central London isn't so bad in a car.

Even outside of big cities I've always found travelling on a train to be a bit hit and miss, sometimes it is relatively stress-free but other times the train will be packed (with ****s), dirty, too hot, running late and as others have pointed out, I still need to get from the house to the station, and from the station to my destination at the other end. When it's chucking it down with sleet in true British fashion, I'll take the car thanks!

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www.ipayroadtax.com

That's all you need to know.

It's £175 to travel at peak times for a return from Bristol to London when I need to go there for work, luckily work pays. It's 'only' £80 or so off peak but that is still too much and the offpeak times are so restrictive in means that you either it's just not practical for business unless you have just a 1 hr meeting around lunchtime or if you are going for leisure you miss half you day off having to wait for the offpeak services to start.
Having said that I have noticed that if you plot a route through London say Bristol to Ely then it really is cheap - just £13 one way, that's going through London at rush hour when you will be paying much less for the whole journey than those who paid just for the London - Ely part of the journey.
They really should sort of the train system in this country, either than or give up on them as they are impractical to maintain (the UK is the victim of being the leader in trains in Victorian times and we are no stuck with that infrastructure).
Wouldn't widening motorways to add long distance bus routes be better? Maybe not but something needs to be done because trains should be part of the answer to removing cars from the road but they are not.

(the UK is the victim of being the leader in trains in Victorian times and we are no stuck with that infrastructure).

Our train infrastructure is problematic for 2 significant reasons
1. when first built it was carried out by private companies each competing against each other in true market forces manner. This is part of the reason that we have (or had) railway stations adjacent to each other with no connection - KingsX/ St Pancras as the most obvious. In the majority of other countries the process was organised and regulated by the government to provide the best benefit (rather than the best profit)
2. our railways were built first and since then we haven't been invaded or had a war fought in it. Much of our infrastructure up until recently was pre war unlike much of Europe's which is post war. The Chicago-an Thatcherite government made a deliberate attempt to run down the railway and Major's inspired vertical unintegrated privatisation created the world's first asset stripping property company responsible for running a railway network.

The average family car now costs £8500/year to run!

If I didn't live at the opposite end of the country to my girlfriend it'd be the first thing to go! Much as I like the convenience, it's a f***load of money just pissed up the wall compared to takeing the train.

Just about every trip I do costs as much in petrol as the train ticket would have done*. But depreciation, insurance, serviceing, tax add upto about £2500/year over that, if trains are a rich mans toy, cars are for the oligarchs (sp?)!

*if you have a railcard, and if you regulalry use the trains you'r an idiot not to have one.

(the UK is the victim of being the leader in trains in Victorian times and we are now stuck with that infrastructure).

I thought it was because we blew up most of the European rail infrastructure during WW2 and then paid for it all to be rebuild properly to more modern (i.e. non Victorian) standards.

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?

Errrr, London? I would wager that whilst trains are expensive, in many many cases, a season ticket is still cheaper than housing yourself within walking/cycling distance of your city job. Plus if everyone did there would be nowhere left in London for anyone to live, and the home counties would be half empty.
S'alright for you with your deux pieds a terre, best of both worlds isn't it?

It's not that folk choose to live too far away from where they work, it's the concentration of jobs in certain areas. Move the civil service / MOD out of the South East (where they have to be, err, just because) and adopt less centralisation / more tele-commuting where possible.

However, you're talking about a massive shift in society, one which could take 20-30 years.

The average family car now costs £8500/year to run!

does is hell. you can get a brand new focus for £300pcm, lets say insurance is £500. thats £4100 a year. to use up £4400 on tyres, fuel and servicing, you'd have to be doing 30,000 miles per year. If you were doing that you'd still only see 28p/mile, which is cheaper than most train journeys

eta : those figures are all worst case. my car (mondeo) costs me £2k a year to run over 10,000 miles, with everything included

can you name any on peak train tickets which cost the same as the journey would in petrol? Bristol to London was mentioned earlier, at £175. Its £28 in fuel in an average car

The average family car now costs £8500/year to run!

How?

i have a new car at £200 a month, £100 a year for tax, £300 to insure +fuel which for my car for 12k is c£1500 at todays prices.

That totals at c£4k

I know i have a smallish car but is an average car going to cost double a smallish car?

Chaps, does your 200/300 a month pay off the car completely or do you have a 'balloon' payment to make at the end? If you have a balloon payment, how much is that spread over the time period during which you are borrowing the car from the finance company?

The average family car now costs £8500/year to run!

Complete bobbins.

£200 would normally just be 'borrowing' the car for 3 years, but I think thats the comparible cost to the train. After 3 season tickets you don't get to travel for less cost on the train (if anything, it'd cost you more) so comparing it to the cost of keeping a car after 3 years doesn't make sense

*if you have a railcard, and if you regulalry use the trains you'r an idiot not to have one.

Eh? An idiot, or between the ages of 26 and 50 and not a student.

Or is there some railcard I'm not aware of??

13thfloormonk - Member

Eh? An idiot, or between the ages of 26 and [s]50[/s] 60 and not a student.

Or is there some railcard I'm not aware of??

FTFY

*if you have a railcard, and if you regulalry use the trains you'r an idiot not to have one.

Not much good if you're a commuter are they???

£3900 for an annual ticket for the 30-38 minute journey into central London for me. Thankfully I'm not working.

It's £175 to travel at peak times for a return from Bristol to London when I need to go there for work, luckily work pays. It's 'only' £80 or so off peak but that is still too much and the offpeak times are so restrictive in means that you either it's just not practical for business unless you have just a 1 hr meeting around lunchtime or if you are going for leisure you miss half you day off having to wait for the offpeak services to start.

On the other hand, if you book well in advance, you can get an off-peak return for £25. That's properly cheap.

5lab - yes, I see your point but I bet that's where the 8.5k figure comes from. Don't forget however, that train continues to run after your season ticket runs out and the operator has to pay for this even if no-one takes your place.

That's the problem each time this debate comes up (again and again and again...)the actual cost of owning/driving a car is highly splintered into many differing payments, some fixed and some variable and everyone has a different take depending on the finance deals they are on. I don't believe that any one measure really takes into account the true total holistic cost of motoring (i.e. damage to environment, cost of lives lost etc etc as well as the actual pounds spent)

Similarly it is sooo easy to quote a walk-up fare, and point out that it's ridiculously expensive, when other much more reasonable fares are available with a bit of forethought. Also, as a matter of law train companies have to take the whole-cost view (i.e. no loss of life, lowest possible environmental impact etc etc).

Has anyone suggested cycling yet?

blopbonastick, yes there is a balloon payment but i am assuming that the car is worth nothing at the end of the term,

ie it is costing £200 a month, the value is depreciating by £200 a month.

Or another way of thinking, i am hiring the car at £200 a month.

If i was to assume the car had a residual value then the cost could be less.

Blobonastick, the big issue is that a car allows you the choice when you travel, if you are trying for cheap train fairs, you need to book an exact train in advance. If things happen you can be left with a worthless ticket.

The only train fair i am interested in is the one i get at the ticket office on the day i travel.

I only learnt to drive at the age of 33 because the train was getting silly expensive. getting a seat difficult, etc.

Now i am in the position that due to the recession loosing my job and luckily getting a new one, i need the car to get to work everyday, no trains, no buses. I can cycle but 16miles each way every day takes its tole on weekend cycling.

£3900 for an annual ticket for the 30-38 minute journey into central London for me. Thankfully I'm not working

(Genuine, non-trolling question)

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

I live about a mile from where I work, so I walk or ride.
BUT, I'm going down to the Peak district in a few weeks to go riding with mates.
I either drive for 3 hours at a cost of about £15 fuel, +return (+insurance and duty etc which are being paid anyway)
Or do a 4 hour train journey for £35. + return.

So its not just commuters it affects. I'd cope with the fact it takes longer if I'd save money.

I drive into London every day in my van. Work in Canary Wharf so its 80 miles each way. It costs me about £20 in diesel and £20.50 in car parking. It takes roughly 2 hours each way on a 'busy' run and I decide when I want to leave rather than being beholden to a timetable.

Or I could take the train, £76 return, 3 hours door to door, £7.60 parking and I get to stand up for the entire journey or be crammed in next to someone who probably has a cold and probably wants to share it with me. Hmmmm.....

can you name any on peak train tickets which cost the same as the journey would in petrol? Bristol to London was mentioned earlier, at £175. Its £28 in fuel in an average car

Belper -> Nottingham is pretty close -20 miles each way (or 24 if you go via A38,A52, which is often shown as quickest route in the morning). £7 return on the train. Or £4.90 return on the bus. So train is 17p a mile equivalent for the A610 route (or 14.5p a mile if you assume the car route is A38,A52) which works out at roughly 40 miles per gallon required from your car, which I doubt you'd get on rush hour traffic to Nottingham in most cars. Bus is 10.2p a mile, which is crazy cheap, but gosh darn is it slow sometimes.

Errrr, London? I would wager that whilst trains are expensive, in many many cases, a season ticket is still cheaper than housing yourself within walking/cycling distance of your city job. Plus if everyone did there would be nowhere left in London for anyone to live, and the home counties would be half empty.
S'alright for you with your deux pieds a terre, best of both worlds isn't it?

Yep def cheaper to 'live' in Woking an commute in than live in London..

It costs me about £20 in diesel and £20.50 in car parking. It takes roughly 2 hours each way

does is hell. you can get a brand new focus for £300pcm, lets say insurance is £500. thats £4100 a year. to use up £4400 on tyres, fuel and servicing, you'd have to be doing 30,000 miles per year. If you were doing that you'd still only see 28p/mile, which is cheaper than most train journeys

eta : those figures are all worst case. my car (mondeo) costs me £2k a year to run over 10,000 miles, with everything included

How?

i have a new car at £200 a month, £100 a year for tax, £300 to insure +fuel which for my car for 12k is c£1500 at todays prices.

That totals at c£4k

I know i have a smallish car but is an average car going to cost double a smallish car?

Errrr, so you've picked a small car and rubished the figure for an average car?

Let's say.......

Ford Focus Zetec 1.6 , according to parkers cost ~£15000 new, and is now worth £3500 6 years later. That's £11500/6 = ~£2000

Half a set of tyres ~£250

A service £100

An MOT £60

Tax £190

Insurance (mine) £550

Petrol, 12,000miles at 38mpg = £2000
That's.....

Grand total = £4990

And that's for a 1.6 petrol focus, which as "family cars" go is pretty much the bottom of the range its not an estate, its not big engined, and its definately not an upmarket brand like BMW/VW/Audi/etc. That figure came from the AA or RAC IIRC and I questioned it at the time but presubabaly they've looked at a good enough sample to come up with that figure.

BUT, I'm going down to the Peak district in a few weeks to go riding with mates.
I either drive for 3 hours at a cost of about £15 fuel, +return (+insurance and duty etc which are being paid anyway)
Or do a 4 hour train journey for £35. + return.

I drive with the right foot of an arthritic nun, and even I burn more than a fivers fuel in an hour!

Anyway, using your own figures.

£35, day returns are normaly 50p-£1 more than the single fare, so the train is only a fiver more, even if you do do significanlty more MPG than me.

The only train fair i am interested in is the one i get at the ticket office on the day i travel.

hear hear! In those terribly primitive lefty euro countries where every public servant is endlessly on a coffee break or on strike, your 'normal' (ie not tgv/thalys/etc) train travel [b]always[/b] costs x euros per kilometre, whether you book six weeks in advance or walk into the station two minutes before the train leaves. Of course, it's consistently and proportionally adjusted for first or second class, under/over 25, senior citizen or war veteran (oh yes, you can even nab people's seats in some countries if you have their equivalent of a 'purple heart') and easy to understand peak or off peak periods. The trains run on time too and they hold up smaller connecting services as a matter of course if the big train is late because they are all singing from the same hymn sheet. Remember when it was like that here?

This advance fare stuff in UK is complete bobbins: your super cheap advance fare will be subsidised by the poor sod who has no choice but to pay £450 for a three hour journey at the last minute because they have a job interview/funeral/other immovable and essential reason. The ticket pricing is so labyrinthine that if you phone around about a journey with multiple trains/lines/operators, you will get three different quotes from three different [s]middlemen[/s] err, authorised ticket vendors.

Cost me forty-six pounds fifty recently, from London to North Wales return. Booked only a couple of weeks in advance.

Would cost a bit more than that in a car, I'd imagine. And take a bit longer than the 3 hours each way.

TINAS, a ford focus is a family car, that a Golf or a Astra account for most cars.

If you then throw in Polos, Corsas and Fiestas and that would account for the vast majority of privately bought cars.

Remember that STW is not the "real world" most people do not have company A4's, 3 series and Mondeos.

If your buying a £15k car most people go lease these days but that is a different argument, i would also question if a family car is likely to be a £15k ford focus? get a pre-reg and you can save a chunk off that.

so based on your own numbers i would say £5k is the figure for the average family car per year. If you were to stick a bigger engine in etc i would still be happy for you to claim an average family car at £6k if bought new, but i don't think the reality would support that.

as for £500 for a set of tyres what the hell have they on that Ford Focus? seems a tad steep to me.