Boycott of the railways

[brompton rail]

"People are going to boycott rail travel". Great! I might get a seat then!

 

[fsmr]

Never been in a traffic jam or delayed by roadworks either?

In these days the answer is rare as it is easy with technology to plan around jams (note i am not talking about the South East which is one continuous jam)
On a train you are restricted and when things go wrong as has been discussed many times on here, trapped on board sometimes for hours

BTW i am not anti rail, just making comparissons as to why rail has to up its game if it really wants to compete

 

[notadriver]

No car driven legally can get from London to Preston in two hours ...

Rail already does compete well for intercity journeys at least.

 

[LE Greys]

No car driven legally can get from London to Preston in two hours ...

Rail already does compete well for intercity journeys at least.

A private aircraft can just about manage that, but the cost of owning, maintaining and fuelling one is astronomical, comprable with a First Season. On the primary main lines, rail travel is practically-unbeatable for time and competes well for cost. The problems occur everywhere else.

 

[Tiny Tim]

Using another form of transport isn't a boycott. It's making a choice. I'm sure a lot of commuters would prefer a cheaper train service, but the alternatives are rarely convenient. People who can use coaches, which are, in my experience considerably cheaper, already do. Could the roads actually cope with a significant influx of ex-rail users?

 

[Haydn1971]

It would cost about £50 in fuel if I drove.

Minor point, fuel represents about half to a third of the travel costs when considering the running costs of a car, servicing and tyres in particular ! Then on top of that there is the finance of the car purchase, the more miles you drive, the more often you have to replace the car. More miles could mean higher insurance costs, more miles increases exposure to accident risk too...

It costs me about the same to travel by train and car between Leeds and Sheffield, including the costs of parking and fuel to the station. The car beats the train in terms of time 40 minutes vs 70-75 minutes, train is less stressful than driving... I've just bought a season ticket because I'm frustrated by traffic daily on the M1

 

[kieron]

A return from Koln to Frankfurt (Main) would be 68 euros (£55), and is a similar journey time to the Northampton to Runcorn fare I mentioned in a previous post (£115).

An off-peak return from Northampton to Runcorn via Long Buckby costs £53.60, and is valid on all trains after 4:15am. It seems that you were poorly advised when you bought your ticket.

And it's more than 2 hours travel each way.

 

[tbtc]

An off-peak return from Northampton to Rugby via Long Buckby costs £53.60, and is valid on all trains after 4:15am. It seems that you were poorly advised when you bought your ticket.

And it's more than 2 hours travel each way.

Northampton to Rugby costs over £50?

 

[bluenoxid]

Northampton to Rugby costs over £50?

Typo??? I think he meant Runcorn

 

[rb311]

Of course rail is going to be more expensive, does the coach have to pay towards maintaining every road it travels on during the year covering for all the wear and tear plus incidental costs such as traffic lights, bridge repairs etc?
The trains do.

Errr yes. Road related taxes, VED, fuel duty etc account for over 6 times as much as the total road budget. Railways are a complete rip off. Expensive, dirty, crap service and services, overcrowded, under resourced, and the last thing the industry needs is a distracting and eye wateringly pointless project like HS2 fig leafing the real issues that the railways face.

 

[90019]

Not to be pedantic (really) - it's 100 kph or 62 mph for coaches and banned from the outside lane of motorways so in practice the speed will be the 56 mph or less that lorries are limited to and this assumes no roadworks or traffic jams!

Like HGVs, buses are only banned from the outside lane of motorways with 3 or more lanes.

 

[fadge]

We have by far the highest rail fares in Europe.

• A walk-up day return to London, from up to 50 miles (80km) away, could cost more than £250, whereas no similar fare in France would exceed £100.

I would be interested to know what station you based this £250 fare on as I cannot find any such fare?

 

[notadriver]

Like HGVs, buses are only banned from the outside lane of motorways with 3 or more lanes.

I said that ?!

 

[transmanche]

Road related taxes, VED, fuel duty etc account for over 6 times as much as the total road budget.

So what? Are 'chip-related' taxes (i.e. the VAT charged on chips) spent solely maintaining the supply of chips?

They are just taxes that go into the general pot. End of.

 

[andykn]

So you use an already over inflated fare to justify another? Well done.

It would cost about £50 in fuel if I drove.

And what about all the other per mile expenses of driving; maintenance, wear & tear etc.

 

[dk1]

"People are going to boycott rail travel". Great! I might get a seat then!

I think many would agtree with you there

Over the years ive heard this so many times. The reality is that any other company that got the bad press railways do in this country would have gone out of business years ago. That 'most expensive fares in Europe' chestnut has stolen the headlines every year for as long as i can remember. Not done much harm as passenger numbers are soaring & for everone who deserts there is somebody just waiting to step onboard.

 

[neilmc]

I do think that people who are still unaware of the rail industry's ticketing practices are indeed being "shafted".

Example: Charity worker I met going from Slaithwaite to Reading for a day meeting in the morning peak was quoted over £300 (peak journey via London I presume - I get it £202 via Manchester and Birmingham). When she said that was ridiculous, the conductor sold her a ticket to Manchester instead and suggested she rebook there - half a cheer at least. This took the cost down to £161 on the 09.27 Cross Country from Manchester plus the cost of the Slaithwaite to Manchester return (£12.10). So she plus the conductor saved the charity some money, right? Well, maybe ...

The ticket office at Manchester Piccadilly obligingly sold her the return via Birmingham. I then (too late!) pointed out that if the conductor had sold her a return from Stalybridge to Stockport (£20) and an off-peak return from Stockport to Reading - the same 09.27 from Manchester leaving Stockport at 09.35 (i.e outside of peak) at a cost of £71.70, she could have travelled for less than £100 on the same trains saving the charity a considerable sum - without having to do any ridiculous multi-splits or knowledge of obscure routing points. She just shook her head sadly at the silliness of it all.

Nobody is sensibly going to boycott the railways, they will probably do what my (very large) company has done once they worked out the swindle with their agency booking staff automatic "anytime" fares :
- institute "no travel" weeks
- ban open returns, you either have to book one leg on an advance ticket or travel off peak
- get as many people as possible to work from home or teleconference.

I go beyond the call of duty by split ticketing, using offers such as Arriva's "Club 55" and staying an extra night in a hotel (Cross Country advance fares are very poor!).

 

[tbtc]

Railways are a complete rip off. Expensive, dirty, crap service and services, overcrowded, under resourced, and the last thing the industry needs is a distracting and eye wateringly pointless project like HS2 fig leafing the real issues that the railways face.

If they are overcrowded then they are very popular so how are they a rip off if such huge numbers are clearly willing to pay for them?

And yet you are against introducing a huge capacity increase (400m trains etc) to relieve this congestion?

 

[90019]

I said that ?!

My point is, it doesn't apply to two lane motorways, so buses aren't limited to the speed of HGVs (apart from when HGVs are overtaking each other and taking up the other lanes).

 

[radamfi]

I wonder where the often quoted statement that train frequencies in 'Europe' are low comes from? You need to compare areas of similar population density and England has either the highest or second highest population density in Europe based on recent population estimates. (Wikipedia says the density of England is higher than the Netherlands, but the Netherlands density may have gone down since part of the Caribbean became part of the Netherlands proper). If you exclude the area west of Bristol and north of Preston then the density would be even higher. Obviously the density in SE England (where most of the train passengers go to, from or within) is very high, which means that train frequencies need to be very high, especially given the dependence on rail commuting into central London.

As for comparing fares, the national railcards need to be taken into account. The bargain Bahncard 100 has already been mentioned but there are also Bahncards 50 and 25 giving 50% and 25% off respectively. The Netherlands has a wide range of railcards. The most popular one giving 40% off outside peak hours, meaning a maximum fare of £12 single, even for a 200 km trip.

One advantage the UK (and Ireland) have is a comprehensive coach network which doesn't exist in most of western Europe. So people who really want to save money and don't mind a long journey can take advantage of very low fares.

 

[transmanche]

If they are overcrowded then they are very popular so how are they a rip off if such huge numbers are clearly willing to pay for them?

That's like saying; because huge numbers of people are clearly 'willing' to pay the prices charged by gas and electricity suppliers in winter, they're not allowed to regard them as a rip-off?

 

[Mintona]

I was in the south if France in the summer, travelling between Avignon and Montpellier. These 2 cities are about the same size of Cheltenham Spa and Southampton respectively, but only 45mins apart. The trains were hourly (with some hours skipped), 4 coaches long and the last train back from Montpellier was at 19.16. I can't think of any 2 cities in the UK that close together with such a poor service?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I also take slight issue with the fella who said it takes 75minutes to get from Leeds to Sheffield by train? I'm certain it doesn't take that long!

 

[tbtc]

That's like saying; because huge numbers of people are clearly 'willing' to pay the prices charged by gas and electricity suppliers in winter, they're not allowed to regard them as a rip-off?

You need fuel to heat your house - there's not a lot of alternatives.

You generally choose where you want to work and you generally choose where you want to live - there are often alternative means of getting between the two.

If people decide to move out of the city and commute in, or if people decide to go and work in another town/ city then the cost of travel must be a price worth paying to allow that to happen.

For example, if I commute from Sheffield to Leeds each day (as I used to) I'd need to earn around £3k gross just to pay for the season ticket (approx £2k), so I factor that (and the time taken) into any job considerations.

 

[radamfi]

I was in the south if France in the summer, travelling between Avignon and Montpellier. These 2 cities are about the same size of Cheltenham Spa and Southampton respectively, but only 45mins apart. The trains were hourly (with some hours skipped), 4 coaches long and the last train back from Montpellier was at 19.16. I can't think of any 2 cities in the UK that close together with such a poor service?

Most countries in western Europe, including GB, operate a clockface timetable. France is a notable exception and has its famous middle of the day shutdown for engineering work. Lines in the Paris area and TGV services tend to be much more frequent. It might be worth mentioning that GB outside the SE only got a clockface timetable in the late 80s when loco-hauled services were converted to Sprinters.

 

[ainsworth74]

I also take slight issue with the fella who said it takes 75minutes to get from Leeds to Sheffield by train? I'm certain it doesn't take that long!

If you take the hourly fast XC service (calling Wakefield only) it'll take around forty minutes. Otherwise you're looking at around an hour (bit more depending on the calling pattern).

 

[Metrailway]

If they are overcrowded then they are very popular so how are they a rip off if such huge numbers are clearly willing to pay for them?

Possibly because rail has a captive market in the London & South East area? Around 68% of all rail journeys in Great Britain are undertaken using London & South East operators. Indeed the London & South East area is where the main growth in nominal passenger numbers has occurred.

 

[transmanche]

You generally choose where you want to work and you generally choose where you want to live - there are often alternative means of getting between the two.

For many people, it's pretty much Hobson's choice though. They live where they can afford to, they work where the jobs are and there is only one practical option for commuting between the two.

The point is made though. Just because something is sells well, it doesn't mean it's not a rip-off.

 

[6Gman]

People are thinking of boycotting the railways, even on the television people are admitting that coach travel is cheaper.

"People are thinking" - what people? Where?

"even on television" - why is it of special significance that this was said on television?

"people are admitting" - what people? And in what sense is this an 'admission'?

"Coach travel is cheaper" - so?

 

[Haydn1971]

I also take slight issue with the fella who said it takes 75minutes to get from Leeds to Sheffield by train? I'm certain it doesn't take that long!

15 minute drive from home in SE Sheffield to Meadowhall, 5 minute transfer and wait, 50 minute journey to Leeds, 10 minute walk to office = 75 minutes

vs

Drive from home to office in 40 minutes, 5 minute walk to office = 45 minutes

vs

10 minute walk to tram stop, 5 minute wait, 40 minute tram ride, 20 minute wait because early trams don't integrate with CrossCountry, 40 minute ride on a Voyager, 10 minute walk to office = 125 minutes - over TWO HOURS !

 

[EM2]

For many people, it's pretty much Hobson's choice though. They live where they can afford to, they work where the jobs are and there is only one practical option for commuting between the two.

The point is made though. Just because something is sells well, it doesn't mean it's not a rip-off.

But then there are many people that 'trade up' and move somewhere that they can buy a bigger property for the same money.
I'd lay money that many of the people that commute from Brighton, or Oxford, or Maidenhead, or Woking could easily afford to live nearer work, and I don't mean in a crummy flat.
But because they want four bedrooms, a double garage and room for a pony, they subject themselves to three hours travelling a day.