Commuting by train from Birmingham to London for £16k pa ?

In the absence of anything more worthwhile in my life to rant about…

Reading the Metro today, there was a story about train season ticket price increases.
One example they quoted was that someone living in Birmingham, commuting by train to London and earning £16000 a year, would now be spending a quarter of their wages on their season ticket.

Does anyone actually do that ?

£4000 seems cheap. Its about 3 from reading to london afaik.

I presume that they save more than this amount on account of cheaper housing etc.

Don’t let common sense get in the way! 😉

I want to know what portion of my tax gets spent on train fares as I haven’t been on one for over 10 years.

I wonder what kind of heinous crimes you’d have to commit to end up with a sentence of living in Birmingham, working in London, and spending hours a day shuttling between New Street and Euston?

Surely, if that was your ‘life’ then a bullet to the back of the head would be an act of mercy?

Binners has the solution.

HS2 pushing a new business case?

Apart from making the percentage seem larger, what does the £16k salary have to do with it?

While £4k is a lot…assuming 5 weeks of holiday, equates to 47 weeks of commuting at 117miles each way, means an annual mileage of 55k miles. Which is quite far.

Diesel costs assuming you travelled by car & achieved 55mpg would be £6350 (£1.4/litre)…

Presumably if you earn £16k and work in London you don’t choose to live in Birmingham…?

What kind of job would you do that only pays £16k but requires you to commute from Birmingham to London each day?

Over £10k for a Bristol to London season ticket 😯
It your salary allows for it then fair enough finance wise but it’s still not worth the 1hr 45min train journey plus probably another 1hr commuting to and from the station at each end. Nothing is worth wasting that much time commuting for.

Someone earning £16k a year must take home about ~£12K?? So £4k on train tickets and the time spent travelling must mean they’d be be on a highr rate £/hour on a paper round.

I’d prefer to be a tramp and eat out of bins/hedges or take it in the ass from truck drivers.

Its £6.6K from Brum to london on the WCML on virgin, or £5.2K if you take midland on same route and stop at every station.

It is over £4K from Milton Keynes, so no idea where their figures are from.

I heard on the news that was based on a family season ticket not a single commuter. Fail

hmmm my season ticket is £9,500

I was talking to someone the other day that does Chester to London daily!!

I have no idea of her salary but it is definitely not enough.

Must feel like the train is more homely than her house!

In answer to the ops question, I think the answer is no, they don’t. However I’d bet a fair few do pay that for a season ticket but then they’ll be paid closer to £100k than £16k…

Mine’s only £2.5k. However I live in Surrey about 25 miles from London. I think £4k (or whatever it actually is) to Birmingham sounds quite a bargain!

To make sense you need to look at journeys that commuters actually take.

http://www.newstank.co.uk/headline-news/rail-fare-hikes-effective-today/04621/

Over £10k for a Bristol to London season ticket
It your salary allows for it then fair enough finance wise but it’s still not worth the 1hr 45min train journey plus probably another 1hr commuting to and from the station at each end. Nothing is worth wasting that much time commuting for.

I have recently had the option to work in our London office. It’s a nice office to work in but 3 hours each way made me opt for unemployment instead.

I’d prefer to be a tramp and eat out of bins/hedges or take it in the ass from truck drivers.

Genuine lol, leading to one of those embarrassing moments explaining why to a co-worker

I would imagine a train commute from Chester, or Wilmslow (a lot of people seem to do that) to London, would be an infinitely more enjoyable experience than being crammed in like sardines on a filthy, god forsaken commuter service from some hell-hole in Essex. And probably wouldn’t take that much longer

i have a customer in hebden bridge who takes the train to london town 3 times a week… something to do with the bbc/ eastenders..

lol at Binners

I’m looking at commuting Leicester to Birmingham and I got quoted 3k pa! I simply cannot afford that to go to study!

Birmingham’s quite nice (centre)- better centre than Manchester’s IMO. The difference is Manchester has a wow 360 degrees around the outer reaches whereas Birmingham..hmm.

16k a year = work on your doorstep and use the bike.

Or pretend you’ve got a bad back, and depression, then spit out 5 kids with 6 different dads and get a massive housing benefit funded house, a huge telly with Sky, and a life of as much Stella and Lambert and Butler as you can eat!

You mugs! 😀

told the other day of a chap commuting from Coventry to south London everyday on a motorbike (not a slight, but sitting in your heated box with radio is easier than on the riding on the edge on a m/c down the m1/m25), for wages not much better than that of the OP… bizarre, even taking a drop in wages for more “life”, it would be better, but it just proves ppl do it..

There are a few people who commute from York to London every day.

A couple of them were interviewed recently and they both live in Luxury Apartments (penthouse) 2 mins walk from York Station, and Work a few minutes walk from Kings Cross.

Leave home just before 7 am. Back home just after 7 pm.

Relaxing couple of hours in First Class having Breakfast and doing a bit of Work. In the office just after 10.
Leave the office just before 5, First Class train home, little bit of work, bit of a kip maybe. Home by 7pm.

Sounds good to me.

(Their season Tickets were costing £22k each ! )

Sounds good to me.

😯 Seriously? 12hr days sounds good? It’s 9hr for me from home back to home again and that’s too much!
And a £22k ticket. They could take a £20k pay cut for a job nearer home and I bet they would be a lot happier.

There are a few people who commute from York to London every day.

A couple of them were interviewed recently and they both live in Luxury Apartments (penthouse) 2 mins walk from York Station, and Work a few minutes walk from Kings Cross.

Leave home just before 7 am. Back home just after 7 pm.

That’s pretty slack hours for someone earning enough to drop 22k on a season ticket! You’d struggle to do 10-4 on unless you work on top of the station.

But yes, if you can find me a job that pays enough that I can spend £22k on a season ticket and work <30 hours a week I’ll take it, I’ll even commute!

I don’t buy a season ticket, mine’s £4000 (from Sussex to London, no tube), you need to do it 3 days a week 52 weeks a year to make it pay. Factor in holidays, riding a bit and going to our other non-London office whenever I can and it doesn’t work out.

I looked at living out of London and getting the train in, somewhere like MK or St Albans.

In the end it was slightly cheaper in London, so I live there and commute by bike, much more fun.

Seriously? 12hr days sounds good

I regularly do similar hours, and earn less than the price of their season ticket.
I also don’t get Four hours a day sitting in First Class chilling out.
So yes, it does sound good.

And a £22k ticket. They could take a £20k pay cut for a job nearer home and I bet they would be a lot happier.

They both seemed perfectly happy, they both used to live in London doing the same Jobs, and same 12 hours, but now they live in York in a far nicer house that cost half as much and in much nicer surroundings.

What’s not to like ?

I hate the way the rest of the country has to subsidise the London commuter train fares. About time you lot paid full price. And I can then afford to buy some diesel for my car.

I don’t buy a season ticket, mine’s £4000 (from Sussex to London, no tube), you need to do it 3 days a week 52 weeks a year to make it pay. Factor in holidays, riding a bit and going to our other non-London office whenever I can and it doesn’t work out.

This.

But, buying a daily ticket is now +£30, and its under an hour…

For me though its less about money and more about time, once you are taking over 1hr 30mins from door to door its just too much – which tbh is why I’ve pretty much always used a motorcycle for London/SE commutes.

Given how busy the commuter trains are around my way I’d have thought they’re about as profitable as trains can get – and cost per mile seems high. But then again all transport attracts investment paid for out of taxes – road maintenance must cost a bit.

Are there any gay truckers on STW. If so I believe Papa Lazarou may have a great proposition for you!

😯

Thats like me traveling from aberdeen to edinburgh for work.

Anyone doing that daily needs their head looking at.

Is that right – the fee for a season ticket for 12months, 5 days a week from Birmingham to London is only £4K? If used every working day (assuming 5 days a week with 6 weeks holiday to be generous) that’s only £16 per day.

That seems an amazing bargain. Just looked up the train and Birmingham New Street to Euston return at peak time would cost you £158 if bought on the day as a one off – which is quite frankly a daft price! A years worth of working days of that comes to about £37K!

Alternatively do that journey (245m round trip) every working day by car even at a very reasonable 30p per mile that’s £17K

In fact thinking about it, the number of car commuters that spend more that £16 a day must be very sizeable. Then there the group of cyclists that think they will ride to work, buy a daft expensive bike to do it on and go off the idea after a dozen trips – per trip that has to be up there as one of the more expensive commuting ideas!

Can I just say also that environmentally we should also be attempting to reduce our home to work daily commute (he says smugly actually living at work and wife working a mile and a half away) so down with this sort of thing. Unless you ride to work, then as you were.

” Then there the group of cyclists that think they will ride to work, buy a daft expensive bike to do it on and go off the idea after a dozen trips – per trip that has to be up there as one of the more expensive commuting ideas!”

Leaves cheap second hand bikes for the likes of me 🙂