Rant Train Costs

[Darthshearer]

I am not happy at all.

There is always some muttering about the amount of cars and the roads and getting them off it etc, fair enough. I would tend to agree.

When this countries rail system was run on steam it must of been spectacular. You could of gone ANYWHERE with ease. So why is it so bloody difficult today?

I am hoping to go see a friend in Stoke-on-Trent (I know, not great lol) so I thought, "Ill get train and have a relax" So, this is in a months time. How much from Leeds? £65! It wouldnt cost me that in petrol FFS!

So £65 to sit on a crowded train thats a shit hole. I would rather drive in my nice warm car etc. But WHY really? Europe has a great rail network. I shouldnt have to think really should I? For a journey like that it should be either rail, coach or car.

Mental

 

[Chilly]

If you factored in insurance, tax, upkeep, cost of car etc into your journey cost by car you might well find its a bit closer to 65, which is how the railways have to price it. At the moment prices are high because the networks are all undergoing years and years of delayed maintenance work in the space of one or two years. Yes its shit, but it works most of the time. Overcrowding is a very difficult problem to solve - you cant simply extend train length because then they wont fit in many stations and you cant run more trains because of archaic control systems and already busy networks.

Its a **** of a problem that is horrendously expensive to fix - hence 65 quid tickets to SoT from Leeds

 

[Darthshearer]

If you factored in insurance, tax, upkeep, cost of car etc into your journey cost by car you might well find its a bit closer to 65, which is how the railways have to price it. At the moment prices are high because the networks are all undergoing years and years of delayed maintenance work in the space of one or two years. Yes its shit, but it works most of the time. Overcrowding is a very difficult problem to solve - you cant simply extend train length because then they wont fit in many stations and you cant run more trains because of archaic control systems and already busy networks.

Its a **** of a problem that is horrendously expensive to fix - hence 65 quid tickets to SoT from Leeds

Ive just done it from Leeds -> Manchester -> Stoke-on-Trent and back via the same route buying singles and it comes to £25!!!

/rant over lol

 

[Yoni]

It isn't as expensive as Sweden but the quality of train is much better there, however it is much more expensive than Netherlands...the downside is the toilets and the age of the trains there. However, they run on time in my experience and leaves on the track won't stop the service....

 

[dysfunction]

I still have trouble working that one out.

You buy a return train ticket and its comes to £stupidMoney.
Then you buy a single there then buy a single back and its £reasonable.

What is their reasoning behind this? Do they count on people not trying different methods of buying a ticket or is the system just flawed?

 

[Chilly]

Profiteering

 

[Tom]

The rail franchising system in this country doesn't exactly help. Nobody is going to invest without a guaranteed return - which currently they do not have.

When you also have to pay £1bn for a 10 year franchise (why exactly?) it all amounts to a huge mess. The Victorians knew how to do things, 180 years ago they built railways with a bunch of blokes and a load of shovels and horses. These days you'd need the same numbers of people just to deal with the public inquiry.

 

[Trem]

*waits at Stoke station*

*stalks Darthy*

 

[SheepCow]

The train ticket booking system is "special".

If your journey will take you on multiple train operators you will almost always get a cheaper ticket by getting singles. This seems to be because even though operator A has a super super super cheap advance ticket for 90% of your journey, the other operator only has standard tickets available, so it gives you a standard for the entire journey.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Similar in Finland. Be green, use public ransport etc etc adds everywhere and then they raise the travel costs of public transports by 20 or so percent.

 

[Overdriven]

To get to Stafford (Closer to London than Stoke and Wolves) cost me £50 (return, so £25 wasn't bad) and if I'm being a twat and don't pre-order, looking at £60 or so =< Unfair.

Stoke is hell compared to Staffs XD

 

[Trem]

Stoke is hell compared to Staffs XD

See I find Stafford just about the worst place I have ever been, god awful road network and spacker people. Stoke isn't great but it leaves Stafford standing imo of course. I now refuse to go Stafford.

 

[Darthshearer]

*waits at Stoke station*

*stalks Darthy*

*gets bumper pack of lube ready* :kissit:

 

[DaGaffer]

See I find Stafford just about the worst place I have ever been, god awful road network and spacker people. Stoke isn't great but it leaves Stafford standing imo of course. I now refuse to go Stafford.

My brother went to North Staffs Poly in Stafford; biggest shithole I've ever visited, and I've been to Billingham (*hides*)

Funnily enough I think the train has become a much more attractive travel option lately; I think its a combination of petrol prices, improved train services (simple things like plug sockets improve the experience enormously), shit road conditions and my general decline into old fartyness.

 

[Overdriven]

See I find Stafford just about the worst place I have ever been, god awful road network and spacker people.
.

Hey, I didn't say Staffs didn't have faults I'm willingly going to the uni there; and some of the people seem so far into the inbreeding process it's scary

 

[Wazzerphuk]

4 coach trains into Waterloo in peak time, with half of one those coaches being first class. This means the majority of people that need to get the train have to wait for the next one. I can't remember the last time I sat down on a train.

 

[rynnor]

The rail franchising system in this country doesn't exactly help.

Dont knock it Since the charging schemes are now ridiculously complicated its all done by computers with no human sense being applied.

By happy chance theres a bug in the system where I live that effectively means the further I travel the less I pay if I use the right combination of network operators - I live in fear of them ever realising and stopping it but so far so good

 

[ECA]

Yeah our train network sucks a ballsack.

In germany I can get a day ticket to go anywhere within a city for like 6 euros.
It's retarded.

 

[sayward]

Parking prices are pretty awful too. I've just had to pay £3 for 2hours on road parking. And I'm nowhere near a central location. Only wanted a prescription filled.

 

[SilverHood]

Yeah, it's a shambles. And the prices keep going up and up and up, and I don't see any increase in service (or in my pay). They really need to nationalise the damn thing.

My fave was finding it cheaper to fly to Glasgow and get the train down to Manchester, than go there directly on a train from Bournemouth.

 

[Tom]

Noooo we don't want it nationalised! Nationalisation ruined the railway network in this country! We need a private rail network with the ability to build new lines or upgrade rolling stock without interference from government. We need a government that will say "yes its ok, you can demolish all those low bridges, and yes we'll compulsory purchase those houses so you can have a 3 or 4 track system". A government that will allow them to build new viaducts without massive expensive public enquiries. Right now we don't have that.

We're still dealing with the remnants of nationalisation, Bob Crowe (spits) has a lot to answer for. When the Victorians did things, they didn't fuck around. I've done a bit of writing on these things and its surprising what they got up to.

 

[Cadelin]

Noooo we don't want it nationalised! Nationalisation ruined the railway network in this country! We need a private rail network with the ability to build new lines or upgrade rolling stock without interference from government. We need a government that will say "yes its ok, you can demolish all those low bridges, and yes we'll compulsory purchase those houses so you can have a 3 or 4 track system". A government that will allow them to build new viaducts without massive expensive public enquiries. Right now we don't have that.

You want to give private companies the power for compulsory purchase and to be able to build whatever they like without consultation?

The rail network should be maintained in the same way the road network or the shipping lanes or the airspace. One large government run company. It has its draw backs but it is the only sensible way of doing things.

The franchise system for the rail companies also has a problem in that anything that goes across multiple companies will cost more than it would if just one company was involved.

There is no reason a nationalized rail company wouldn't work as long as the current level of government investment was maintained.

 

[gunner440]

Spot the Keynesians!

 

[Tom]

There is no reason a nationalized rail company wouldn't work as long as the current level of government investment was maintained.

:lol:

What, like British Rail? The organisation that effectively destroyed the railway network in this country?

:

 

[DaGaffer]

:lol:

What, like British Rail? The organisation that effectively destroyed the railway network in this country?

:

The politicians, and particularly the Beeching Report, were the cause of the decline in the railways. Just because nationalised railways were run badly in the 60s and 70s doesn't alter the fact that railway infrastructure is a natural monopoly. Other countries manage to run public railways effectively enough. Personally I think that even though they are separate companies, its only the cross-billing issue that's a particular problem; if there was common tariff legislation (as they have in Japan), then those problems would go away.

As for giving a railway company carte blanche to build where it likes; get real. This 2008, not 1830; 3-4 times the population and voters who get rather upset when you nick their house, rather than disenfranchised peons and landowner MPs giving each other backhanders (ooh, maybe scratch that last one).

 

[Milkshake]

Quite enjoy using the train to get to work. No car travel stress and it's cut my commute down from 40mins to 15.

 

[SheepCow]

I commute to work on the choo choo trains as well, usually it's fine. I do 90% of my train travel on Virgin or CrossCountry trains (which are the older Virgin ones) which are quiet and comfortable.

They do annoying things sometimes, like the doubled up a train to be 8 coaches (it was literally two trains stuck together), then split the train half way into the journey. I was happy as I was sitting in my prebooked seat to go all the way, but they stopped my half and the other half was continuing, so everyone with a prebooked ticket and allocated seat had to get off and move to the other 4 coaches. Got to feel sorry for the train guard that day, he took a bollocking from customers.

 

[Cadelin]

What, like British Rail? The organisation that effectively destroyed the railway network in this country?

British Rail was forced to run unprofitable routes while getting little government funding.

I couldn't find a detailed list of figures but in 2006 the government provided £6.3 billion of subsidies to the rail industry while the total turnover from ticket sales was around £9 billion. With a vast subsidy like that is it any wonder the rail network has improved?

Private rail companies are making a profit which is removing money that would otherwise be spent on improving the rail network or keeping ticket costs down. There is no reason why a single large company couldn't run the train services for the entire country.

 

[Chilly]

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with making profit. If you structure the incentives appropriately it works well as the directors and management of the company strive to maximise their gains - assuming those gains are linked to real and sensible goals like more people on more trains more often on time then the result is that they will put energy into doing those things. There is a natural profit level in any business and I suspect the rail companies make far less than a fully private network operator on self-owned infrastructure would.

 

[Overdriven]

Well, I intended to go to Southampton some time soon.. £70 to go there from Stafford... OHLOL, 1/3rd discount card is now on order.