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Boycott of the railways
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Are advance fares available?
gordonthemoron
Established Member
a lot of Munich Police Force live in Nuremburg and commute by ICE, it may even be free for them. That's 105 miles
If my travel was free or subsidised I'd go by train and 105 miles is nowt on a fast ICE.
Which incidentally coupled with an £8.90 day return from Crewe to Wilmslow gets you a return on any train (after 09:30) from Northampton to Wilmslow for under £30. That is really good value in my opinion.
In any event the OP Return from Northampton to Wilmslow is £54 and there are no peak time restrictions, so you can travel on the first train of the day or the middle of the morning peak if you so wish, so as to why someone would be sold a £115 ticket is beyond me?
Yes thank you for the sneering and patronisng way in which you have pointed out what everybody already knows. It's kind of axiomatic though don't you think - (I would suggest a reassessment of budget spending rather than more tax rises). A two hour commute is not "an urban planning problem" and as I am the one doing it you can take that as read. It is a lifestyle choice. It is my decision to commute rather than stay over, because my family are settled where we live and my job is not permanent so the question as everyone else on this thread has realised is about relative costs and incentives, not about whether or not to travel at all. Different question entirely. Go figure.
I agree with your point about the overcomplexity of the mass of different (and even competing) fare structures but the peak v off peak premium charging is a standard method to disincentivise or dampen higher peak demand and therefore reduce redundant capacity over a cycle. It is a standard practice in any industry where unit capital costs are high (power stations, distribution networks, trains etc) and as a technique it is certainly not "stupid". I may have argued for lower fares across the board but I definitely do not argue for removing peak and off peak incentivisation because that would lead to longer rows of idle suburban stock in sidings during off peak periods. How can you mock people demanding lower fares while proposing a policy that increases capital spending by an even higher amount? I'd stop laughing - it's not a good look with all that egg.
tbtc
Veteran Member
Look at this another way. If there were no peak restrictions, no advanced tickets, no need to "split" tickets, no "operator specific" tickets, no complexities... then how would some services be?
Some TOCs would struggle (e.g. who'd use LM or Chiltern between London and Birmingham if they cost the same as the frequent Virgin service - other than getting into another argument about Pendolini windows!)...
...most peak services would be horribly busy (standing room on many already despite the higher peak fares, so if there were no incentive to travel offpeak then presumably more people would be boarding in the rush hour),...
...many daytime trains would be a lot quieter (partly because people would travel at peak times if there was no disincentive, partly because the £5/ £10 advanced tickets are attracting a class of traveller who wouldn't pay anything more...
...First Class at the weekend would be virtually empty...
...presumably off-peak fares would rise/ peak fares would fall, which would put off a lot of leisure travel.
So the busiest services would be even busier and the quieter services would be even quieter. We'd have even more stock that was only really needed for a couple of journeys a day Monday to Friday too.
Easy to criticise the current set up (which I'm not wholly defending), but a lot of the restrictions are there for a reason.
Some TOCs would struggle (e.g. who'd use LM or Chiltern between London and Birmingham if they cost the same as the frequent Virgin service - other than getting into another argument about Pendolini windows!)...
...most peak services would be horribly busy (standing room on many already despite the higher peak fares, so if there were no incentive to travel offpeak then presumably more people would be boarding in the rush hour),...
...many daytime trains would be a lot quieter (partly because people would travel at peak times if there was no disincentive, partly because the £5/ £10 advanced tickets are attracting a class of traveller who wouldn't pay anything more...
...First Class at the weekend would be virtually empty...
...presumably off-peak fares would rise/ peak fares would fall, which would put off a lot of leisure travel.
So the busiest services would be even busier and the quieter services would be even quieter. We'd have even more stock that was only really needed for a couple of journeys a day Monday to Friday too.
Easy to criticise the current set up (which I'm not wholly defending), but a lot of the restrictions are there for a reason.
It's all resolvable, but only by taking a different approach.
Firstly, Chiltern can undercut Virgin by using a route-specific ticket, which also applies to SWT and FGW. LM would very rapidly be absorbed by Virgin, which makes a nice recreation of the London & North Western idea. I absolutely agree with you about peak and off-peak. Acutally, I reckon the difference should be even greater, say an SVR being about 60% the price of as SOR, and an SSR being about 40% the price. Advance discount fares can go. Weekend First is also a good idea.
You can see a lot of where it came from by looking at the history. Many of the route-specific tickets have their origin with Chris Green when he was with NSE, simply as a means to increase off-peak travel and gain passengers from Inter-City. This created some internal competition in BR, which worked fine as long as it was still BR and someone had overall control. The rest was simply demand management, which (IIRC) started right back in Peter Parker's day. Once again, it worked OK as a BR system, but not with competing companies.
Yes, but it's a lifestyle choice you expect the rest of us to provide the costly infrastructure to enable.
DiscoStu
Member
I'm still surprised how many of you believe the fact we have by far the highest fares in Europe (we just do ... I don't care how you butter it) is okay, and somehow justified.
I'm speechless actually.
I'm speechless actually.
Lewisham2221
Established Member
Somewhere has to....
Advanced fares are extremely cheap! £13 from london to Leeds! You pay extra if you want more flexibility in your travel times.
We also have amongst the highest wages, most densely populated country, highest house prices, an do on, so it's not surprising that our rail fares are amongst the highest.
There is an argument that says if our house prices were a lot lower than wage demands would be less, which would enable companies to pay their staff less, which enable them to charge us less, which would mean that all our bills would be lower including making repairs to our houses and building new houses which would mean that our house prices wouldn't need to be as high. Likewise the opposite is true (i.e. high house prices = high wages = high bills).
tbtc
Veteran Member
Precisely - which is why comparing UK train ticket prices to those in India/ Portugal etc is meaningless - the cost of a season ticket between (say) Milton Keynes and London should be seen in the context of the difference between a house in Milton Keynes and an equivalent in London.
I'm sorry but could you point to these 250 fares please? I'm on leave so can't check but I think you're making up things here.
Let's take Margate to st pancreas. Around 70 miles station to station. Takes a bit longer in the car most if not all the time yet a walk up anytime day return on the fast shiny javelin too costs around 65 notes. That's under a pound a mile and is 4 times cheaper than what you state and is further than your 50 mile radius.
So without looking at all possible journeys within 50 miles of London could you point out this 250 quid fare you mention as your statement clearly means all journeys at that distance from London cost that.
If not then clearly you are making up things to try and push your argument of high fares,which actually weakens your argument due to lying.
Its like you're a politician
Your problem appears to be that you think people are trying to justify your 250 quid return fare for a 50 mile journey.
But no-one has found such a fare to be able to justify it, they are just justifying far lower fares than that.
Good point Andy, but any investment wouldn't be just for my journey, in the way that (say) a taxi ride would be. I will benefit from the Reading station upgrade but it's not being done just for me! But if by "the rest of us" you mean the non train using public subsidising railways, we all subsidise all sorts of things through the common exchecquer including things we will never ever utilise personally. Ask a childless couple what benefit they get from their taxes paying for schools for example. Fares reduction is an argument that moves away from transport policy towards social policy, and anyone who regards railways as public transport should not be sorry to see that.
A childless couple benefit from schools because they will be provided with services by those educated children when they retire.
I'm not saying society shouldn't subsidise the railways in general, just that it's not necessarily reasonable to subsidise lifestyle choices that, in any sensible society, wouldn't be seen as reasonable. Most people see a public library as reasonable, commuting over 100 miles a day to and from work not so much.
I am drawn to refer to your first post in this forum, where you bemoaned the price, yet still paid it.
Market forces.
It's all very well arguing for an ethical or moral basis for a price, but it all falls by the wayside - it is clear that the railway can justify these prices simply because people continue to buy them.
Simply bleating about Market Forces over and over again completely misses the point. The railways are a public service - the pricing of public services should not be down solely to market forces. Market forces are for pricing entirely commercial operations which are not subsidised by taxpayers money nor provided for the benefit of society.
Air Travel is and should be priced according to market forces. Bus and Rail travel should not.
The average commuter will continue to pay ever increasing fares. Market forces dictate that the price of his fare can ever increase - he will STILL pay it because steep fare increases are - just - preferable to quitting his job or moving his entire life somewhere else. But he'll begin to pay it at the detriment of other spending elsewhere.This is generally bad for the economy as a whole and a useful illustration of why market based pricing has no place in public transport.
Air Travel is and should be priced according to market forces. Bus and Rail travel should not.
The average commuter will continue to pay ever increasing fares. Market forces dictate that the price of his fare can ever increase - he will STILL pay it because steep fare increases are - just - preferable to quitting his job or moving his entire life somewhere else. But he'll begin to pay it at the detriment of other spending elsewhere.This is generally bad for the economy as a whole and a useful illustration of why market based pricing has no place in public transport.
craigwilson
Member
Even better value if you consider that going via Ashford, as the regular service does (rather than Faversham) makes it more like 90 miles!
Even better value if you consider that going via Ashford, as the regular service does (rather than Faversham) makes it more like 90 miles!
Are you using 'good value' to refer to a rail fare priced at £1 a mile? Surely some mistake?
Should the railway therefore operate at a loss?
I'm interested in how you define air travel not to be a "public service", but the railway is. A great many people rely on air travel - and it wasn't long ago we had our own state airline, which was privatised (in fact, British Airways has been in private hands for only a handful of years longer than the railways). Funny how it isn't a "public service" any more, and people forget about that.
I don't disagree that the railway is a public service, but it isn't a charity. I agree that season ticket prices are very high indeed, but the cost of running the railway makes these prices necessary.
Without hearing the tiresome "Bring Back BR" argument: How will you bring down the cost of running the railway?
Surely the requirement of the public to travel is the public service element, and the mode of transport which is used to undertake the journey should not come into the equation.
As an example, if one needs to travel from Aberdeen to London, why should the cost of the rail fare be subsidised as a public service, but the cost of the air fare not be similarly subsidised?
I don't disagree with the thrust of the debate that in general walk-on fares in the UK represent poor value for money, but stating one form of transport over another is a social enterprise is flawed.
Also it is worth pointing out there are still many loss making lines in rural areas of the UK which are subsidised through the payments made by the Government to the TOCs to run them.
EM2
Established Member
Let's be honest though, the railways were not created as a 'public service'. They were built because some people saw them as a way as making money.
So, when did they become one?
So, when did they become one?
craigwilson
Member
The fare in that example:
ANYTIME DAY RETURN Margate to London Terminals = £64.60
Distance via Ashford = approx 91 miles
Some way less than £1/mile!!
Just using the anytime return costs to illustrate excessive cost is a bit of a fallacy, I've always thought. People who commute will likely have seasons, and those longer distance commutes will have a more favourable multipler between the daily ticket and the weekly seasons.
A 7-day season for the above example is ~2.1 x the Anytime Day Return cost. A shorter commute will see this ratio being 3-4. So it's season tickets you really need to be comparing.
tbtc
Veteran Member
Are the railways a public service?
Genuine public services don't shut down on Boxing Day, the Fire Brigade don't cancel provision on Sundays due to insufficient staff willing to work those shifts, you don't hear of the Police going on strike due to salary negotiations etc.
The argument that peak fares are too high is more relevant on TOCs like Virgin where the seat occupancy rate is relatively low at those times. On routes where the trains are very busy despite the "peak" prices then where would the spare capacity be if prices were slashed?
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Good point - anyone commuting daily would be daft to pay for twenty Day Returns
When they were nationalised - just like the NHS being formed.
Hospitals weren't built as a truly altruistic gesture either.
The railway is not nationalised and I disagree that it's a "public service" in the traditional sense of the term.
I believe the railway is a public service. If it were a not a public service, then there'd be no franchising, and every TOC would be an Open Access Operator (with totally unregulated fares)
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