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Believe me, I have looked, but the cheap advances just aren't there compared to this time last year. Split ticketing and using LNWR rather than Avanti can bring the cost down but carries a time penalty.
The only railcards I qualify for are family & friends or two together. No use for travelling solo.
My diesel averages nearly double that mpg for long distances.
Believe me, I have looked, but the cheap advances just aren't there compared to this time last year. Split ticketing and using LNWR rather than Avanti can bring the cost down but carries a time penalty.
The only railcards I qualify for are family & friends or two together. No use for travelling solo.
My diesel averages nearly double that mpg for long distances.
My point is that taking the statistical population of London-Manchester travellers, there will be many who do qualify for a railcard*, and/or can pick their services, and/or do have cars that have much higher fuel consumption. And therefore the increase in fuel costs will be making them switch. I accept that there are also many to whom this doesn’t apply and thus won’t switch.
* for those with a railcard who can travel at cheaper times and book a week or so out, it is quite easy to do a London - Manchester return for under £40. Which, frankly, is great value.
Yes, agreed and I check train times and prices every time before deciding. My final destination is one of the local stations on the Stockport - Stoke line where the Northern service is 1 tph and a taxi if that connection doesn't work can easily add £20+ to the public transport cost
Your probably right no government is going to reduce its ability to take in tax.
But, I really don’t think you’ll ever get a serious model shift from private vehicle to public transport. The irony being the more funding is cut to public transport the less attractive and simply viable an option it is to an increasing number of people who have no choice but to fill up their cars and drive.
Anyone else see the link between cuts to public transport and increased fuel duty income ?!
As I said upthread, I think road pricing could be a game changer. Especially if it hammers electric vehicles and hybrids just as much as petrol and diesel engines on the basis they take up as much road space
Electric seems like the future until you think about where all this electric comes from and how much it’s going to cost.
“We” don’t want nuclear plants as there unsafe, we don’t want wind farms on or off shore as there unsightly, we don’t want shale gas as that causes earthquakes, we don’t want oil, gas or coal burning as that’s not sustainable or environmentally friendly.
So how are we going to produce the power to charge all these lovely clean electric vehicles?
How about we ask a nice big European landmass country who aren’t all that keen on environmental issues to burn oil and gas they’ve plenty of it then send it along huge cables to us ?
Not to mention how do we allow Dave to charge his EV when he’s on the 17th floor of a tower block ? The local kids keep unplugging the charging points !
Or even Sally who lives in a traditional terrace house, she can’t even park her EV outside her house.
All EVs will do in the long term is create huge dead battery waste sites, unless we dump then in the Earth landfill (the ocean) and people on low and even average income people out of moving themselves around independently.
I’m sure given an assurance of future sales vehicle manufacturers can produce acceptable emissions level vehicles to avoid the massive expensive of EV charges being installed nationally, and the impending lights out power situation.
But try telling that to the good people of South Yorkshire, Great Northern (peak) and EMR to name 3 TOCs I use. Non of which are offering the pre-Christmas timetable. Maybe I am just on the 3 operators that haven’t restored the December 2021 timetable yet, yet alone anything near December 2019.
Indeed. Services within South Yorkshire have suffered massive cuts to the planned service. Unplanned cancellations add further to the uncertainty. This is a list of northern departures at Sheffiels (except to Manchester) from c 20.00 tonight (Sat) :-
19.57 Hull - cancelled
20.02 Leeds - ran
20.15 Leeds - ran
20.18 Leeds - ran
20.35 Huddersfied -ran
20.45 Leeds - ran
20.53 Lincoln - ran
20.57 Bridlington - cancelled
21.02 Leeds - cancelled
21.04 Nottingham - ran
21.05 Adwick - cancelled
21.15 Leeds - cancelled
21.18 Leeds - ran
21.43 Retford - cancelled
21.57 Hull - cancelled
22.18 Leeds - ran
22.31 Leeds - ran
22.40 Huddersfield - ran
22.43 Worksop - ran
23.00 Hull - cancelled
23.05 Doncaster - ran
A number of last services there. How can anyone rely on something like this?
We’ve done this extensively on other threads. But the answer is wind and nuclear power. The amount of wind power under construction or consented to build will see the amount produced in Great Britain double within the next 6-7 years. There’s more in development and not yet given planning consent.
To put it in context, in the month of February, wind power generated nearly twice as much electricity as gas.
Indeed. Services within South Yorkshire have suffered massive cuts to the planned service. Unplanned cancellations add further to the uncertainty. This is a list of northern departures at Sheffiels (except to Manchester) from c 20.00 tonight (Sat) :-
19.57 Hull - cancelled
20.02 Leeds - ran
20.15 Leeds - ran
20.18 Leeds - ran
20.35 Huddersfied -ran
20.45 Leeds - ran
20.53 Lincoln - ran
20.57 Bridlington - cancelled
21.02 Leeds - cancelled
21.04 Nottingham - ran
21.05 Adwick - cancelled
21.15 Leeds - cancelled
21.18 Leeds - ran
21.43 Retford - cancelled
21.57 Hull - cancelled
22.18 Leeds - ran
22.31 Leeds - ran
22.40 Huddersfield - ran
22.43 Worksop - ran
23.00 Hull - cancelled
23.05 Doncaster - ran
A number of last services there. How can anyone rely on something like this?
Its no better on the South Coast, we've got a new timetable where a third of the services are permantly cancelled. Yesterday another hourly service was completely cancelled because of signalling failure at Southampton for several hours before being reinstated terminating 15 miles short at Fareham.
The remainder services were being randomly cancelled due to crew shortage.
As I said upthread, I think road pricing could be a game changer. Especially if it hammers electric vehicles and hybrids just as much as petrol and diesel engines on the basis they take up as much road space
Road pricing will basically price people off the roads, particularly poorer people. And outside a few big cities it's utterly unviable and impractical to suggest public transport can bridge the gap. And it will almost certainly lead to wage demands increasing by those who have to travel to offset the loss, leading to inflation.
Its implementation will be widely opposed - when there was a referendum on it in Gtr Manchester it was overwhelmingly rejected. London's C Charge was never subject to a public vote, instead it was just imposed, so can't be used as an example.
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Electric seems like the future until you think about where all this electric comes from and how much it’s going to cost.
“We” don’t want nuclear plants as there unsafe, we don’t want wind farms on or off shore as there unsightly, we don’t want shale gas as that causes earthquakes, we don’t want oil, gas or coal burning as that’s not sustainable or environmentally friendly.
So how are we going to produce the power to charge all these lovely clean electric vehicles?
How about we ask a nice big European landmass country who aren’t all that keen on environmental issues to burn oil and gas they’ve plenty of it then send it along huge cables to us ?
Not to mention how do we allow Dave to charge his EV when he’s on the 17th floor of a tower block ? The local kids keep unplugging the charging points !
Or even Sally who lives in a traditional terrace house, she can’t even park her EV outside her house.
All EVs will do in the long term is create huge dead battery waste sites, unless we dump then in the Earth landfill (the ocean) and people on low and even average income people out of moving themselves around independently.
I’m sure given an assurance of future sales vehicle manufacturers can produce acceptable emissions level vehicles to avoid the massive expensive of EV charges being installed nationally, and the impending lights out power situation.
Its no better on the South Coast, we've got a new timetable where a third of the services are permantly cancelled. Yesterday another hourly service was completely cancelled because of signalling failure at Southampton for several hours before being reinstated terminating 15 miles short at Fareham.
The remainder services were being randomly cancelled due to crew shortage.
We’ve done this extensive on other threads. But the answer is wind and nuclear power. The amount of wind power under construction or consented to build will see the amount produced in Great Britain double within the next 6-7 years. There’s more in development and not yet given planning consent.
To put it in context, in the month of February, wind power generated nearly twice as much electricity as gas.
We've done this to death because your reply isn't creditable:
Wind, currently we have 25GWp installed and we have plans to increase this to 50GWp by 2030
On average that will generate 40% so around 20 GWh.
Beyond the 50 GWp target wind is prohibitively expensive because you basically need a CCGT station or unknown future technology sitting redundant except when there is no wind as there frequently isn't for several days at a time in the UK when high pressure sits over us. Solar isn't a creditable back up because the isolation in the UK winter months is too low.
Our nuclear capacity is reaching the end of its life so nuclear capacity will actually fall in the near future until Hinkley Point C comes fully on line in 2028. Other than Hinkley there is currently no new nuclear plant approved in the UK and its unlikely that any new large scale plant will be able to achieve private sector funding for the foreseeable future.
The small reactor plant is hoped to reach demonstration by 2030. Assuming the trials are successful once you take in to account planning permission for nuclear sites the first site would likely reach generation in the early to mid 2040s.
Interconnectors can't be relied on to provide the gap because of the single point of failure of the convertor stations and undersea cabling.
Currently French Interconnector 1 is reduced to 25% capacity following the fire at the Ruckinge site and ongoing repairs, the EW export is restricted to 375MW because there is no business case to repair the convertor station. The Norwegian Interconnector is limited to 75% because of faults at the Blyth convertor since new. No body seems to know what is actually going on with the Western HVDC link but its suffered from repeat faults.
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Er perhaps operating the service over the 90% of the route where the signalling wasn't affected.
ie between Brighton and Chichester, Fratton or Fareham?
Out of interest, what is the difference in risk for a single point failure for the converter stations and the connection point for any other power station?
For the tiny number of people for which those non-regulated and incredibly heavily restricted were actually useful. They were useless for a day out in London or Birmingham other than on a Sunday for instance.
Remember that on the West Coast the Off Peak is the old Saver and any Super Off Peaks are headline "offers". On the East Coast, Midland and I think GW, the Super Off Peak is the old Saver.
Why do people think that energy storage is some kind of unproven future technology? Dinorwig Power Station opened in 1984 specifically for the purpose of providing peak load and rapid response generation. Known locally as 'Electric Mountain' it can store water in its upper reservoir to generate electricity at the time when most needed. Now of course it is not the only plant in the country with this sort of capability, and of course since then there have been a lot of sites where industrial batteries are used too. But however you look at it the technology is available. It is likely to become much more efficient in the future too, pumped storage with heavy fluid in a closed system looks extremely promising for smoothing out the peaks.
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Do you think that generation from natural gas is going to remain below that price until 2030? Given the geopolitical situation surrounding the places where natural gas comes from it's disappointing we haven't embargoed their gas already. The pressure now to do so with Russia will be overwhelming. Qatar is not exactly a free liberal democracy either. Our North Sea gas is nearly spent. What do you suggest if we don't embrace the future of renewables and nuclear?
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It certainly doesn't sound like you know the first thing about electric vehicles if I'm honest. They cannot be unplugged or driven away while charging.
Why do people think that energy storage is some kind of unproven future technology? Dinorwig Power Station opened in 1984 specifically for the purpose of providing peak load and rapid response generation. Known locally as 'Electric Mountain' it can store water in its upper reservoir to generate electricity at the time when most needed. Now of course it is not the only plant in the country with this sort of capability, and of course since then there have been a lot of sites where industrial batteries are used too. But however you look at it the technology is available. It is likely to become much more efficient in the future too, pumped storage with heavy fluid in a closed system looks extremely promising for smoothing out the peaks.
I don't think anybody thinks that energy storage is unproven technology in terms of smoothing peaks but to put it in to context Dinorwig at full capacity could in theory power the average UK consumption for 16 mins, much less than that in Winter when demand is higher. Storage that could provide back up for wind farms over a stillage of several days is very much still an unproven future technology. That's why wind turbine capacity over 50GWp is so expensive the only currently viable technology to back it up is a Gas Power station.
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We've done this to death because your reply isn't creditable
Well, it’s whats going to happen. In my opinion.
Out of interest, what is the difference in risk for a single point failure for the converter stations and the connection point for any other power station?
Underwater Cable Failures and convertor station failures at Interconnectors are currently running at a far higher rate and take much longer to repair than failures from individual power stations.
But you're only comparing the fuel price - you need to factor in the othe running costs of the car for a fair comparison. An "average" family car i.e. Ford Focus is reckoned to cost about 65p / mile.
That's quite a high estimate, although it does heavily depend on how frequently the car is replaced.
As it happens, my last car was a diesel Focus, bought new and run for 8 years and 132,000 miles (which I'm fairly sure is longer than average).
Overall it cost me 30.2p per mile. The biggest component was depreciation at 13.5p, then fuel at 9.2p, non-mileage-related costs like tax, insurance and MoTs at 4.1p, and mileage related costs like servicing and tyres at 3.4p.
So the marginal cost to me of making an extra journey was 9.2 + 3.4 = 12.6p per mile. (There is small mileage related component in insurance and depreciation as well, but it is difficult to separate that out). That's the cost I would use in making a comparison with rail fares.
That's quite a high estimate, although it does heavily depend on how frequently the car is replaced.
As it happens, my last car was a diesel Focus, bought new and run for 8 years and 132,000 miles (which I'm fairly sure is longer than average).
Overall it cost me 30.2p per mile. The biggest component was depreciation at 13.5p, then fuel at 9.2p, non-mileage-related costs like tax, insurance and MoTs at 4.1p, and mileage related costs like servicing and tyres at 3.4p.
So the marginal cost to me of making an extra journey was 9.2 + 3.4 = 12.6p per mile. (There is small mileage related component in insurance and depreciation as well, but it is difficult to separate that out). That's the cost I would use in making a comparison with rail fares.
Indeed. On a whole life basis the marginal costs are very low and 5 - 10p is easily achieved. For an electric car even lower. Which is why to compete, rail fares should face an upper bound of 25 - 30p / mile for standard class unless there's a compelling reason to be going higher, such as a very high average speed.
Do you think that generation from natural gas is going to remain below that price until 2030? Given the geopolitical situation surrounding the places where natural gas comes from it's disappointing we haven't embargoed their gas already. The pressure now to do so with Russia will be overwhelming. Qatar is not exactly a free liberal democracy either. Our North Sea gas is nearly spent. What do you suggest if we don't embrace the future of renewables and nuclear?
Why do people think that energy storage is some kind of unproven future technology? Dinorwig Power Station opened in 1984 specifically for the purpose of providing peak load and rapid response generation. Known locally as 'Electric Mountain' it can store water in its upper reservoir to generate electricity at the time when most needed. Now of course it is not the only plant in the country with this sort of capability, and of course since then there have been a lot of sites where industrial batteries are used too. But however you look at it the technology is available. It is likely to become much more efficient in the future too, pumped storage with heavy fluid in a closed system looks extremely promising for smoothing out the peaks.
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Do you think that generation from natural gas is going to remain below that price until 2030? Given the geopolitical situation surrounding the places where natural gas comes from it's disappointing we haven't embargoed their gas already. The pressure now to do so with Russia will be overwhelming. Qatar is not exactly a free liberal democracy either. Our North Sea gas is nearly spent. What do you suggest if we don't embrace the future of renewables and nuclear?
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It certainly doesn't sound like you know the first thing about electric vehicles if I'm honest. They cannot be unplugged or driven away while charging.
What I’m saying is I’m sure someone who wants to could damage the charger point, cable or plug and render the charge period useless, so you go out to your car in the morning to find you’ve zero charge or not as much as you require.
It would pretty easy to disable any of those three elements if you don’t care about causing damage casually as a brainless yob passing by.
I don’t think unless your seriously intend on doing so do the same to a normal car.
You didn’t explain where all the life expired batteries will go, or how all this lovely clean, green energy will be produce or where ?
For the record, I’m all for cleaner transport but it has to be sustainable and affordable at the moment it simply isn’t.
What I’m saying is I’m sure someone who wants to could damage the charger point, cable or plug and render the charge period useless, so you go out to your car in the morning to find you’ve zero charge or not as much as you require.
It would pretty easy to disable any of those three elements if you don’t care about causing damage casually as a brainless yob passing by.
I don’t think unless your seriously intend on doing so do the same to a normal car.
You didn’t explain where all the life expired batteries will go, or how all this lovely clean, green energy will be produce or where ?
For the record, I’m all for cleaner transport but it has to be sustainable and affordable at the moment it simply isn’t.
You're right in your latter point regarding the embodied carbon in new vehicles. This is of course a serious issue for all new vehicles and you're absolutely right to suggest that these emissions go too easily unchecked. In my view new vehicles are significantly under-taxed. I personally would pull the plug in car grant around next year, and start applying higher VED.
We also need to probably at least triple the subsidy we give to public transport operators and look at closing city centre roads and restricting private car parking. Road pricing also needs to be looked at to replace fuel tax revenues. We need to reduce the number of cars by around a third and more people will go car free or use car clubs. That's the logical solution to the problems with EVs you're highlighting - are you in favour or would you complain about those too? I'm not going to explain where all the life expired batteries will go because I am not going to be buying an EV (or any other car). That's on someone else.
I'm afraid your first point however is meaningless. It's not any easier or more difficult to damage an electric vehicle if you're a "brainless yob" than any other kind. Bricked or keyed vehicles are a function of the intentions of the people who can access them in where they're parked. It's completely irrelevant what powers the car.
You're right in your latter point regarding the embodied carbon in new vehicles. This is of course a serious issue for all new vehicles and you're absolutely right to suggest that these emissions go too easily unchecked. In my view new vehicles are significantly under-taxed. I personally would pull the plug in car grant around next year, and start applying higher VED.
We also need to probably at least triple the subsidy we give to public transport operators and look at closing city centre roads and restricting private car parking. Road pricing also needs to be looked at to replace fuel tax revenues. We need to reduce the number of cars by around a third and more people will go car free or use car clubs. That's the logical solution to the problems with EVs you're highlighting - are you in favour or would you complain about those too? I'm not going to explain where all the life expired batteries will go because I am not going to be buying an EV (or any other car). That's on someone else.
I'm afraid your first point however is meaningless. It's not any easier or more difficult to damage an electric vehicle if you're a "brainless yob" than any other kind. Bricked or keyed vehicles are a function of the intentions of the people who can access them in where they're parked. It's completely irrelevant what powers the car.
I respect you viewpoint, it does seem you want to see a war on the common motorist. The private is the single most important item to enable people to access services, education and employment.
Public transport can’t ever cut it, or provide a real alternative to many outside the major cities or towns.
I respect you viewpoint, it does seem you want to see a war on the common motorist. The private is the single most important item to enable people to access services, education and employment.
Public transport can’t ever cut it, or provide a real alternative to many outside the major cities or towns.
Not at all. Motoring is and will continue to be a vital part of our transport infrastructure. People in rural villages will always need some elements of driving. I'd respectfully suggest it's just your biases talking there. We can all drive less, and drive electric where we do so, without giving up cars. And achieve all of our important objectives about climate while doing so.
But one thing you don't get to do is complain about the embodied carbon emissions of electric vehicles while not accepting there needs to be a large net reduction in vehicle km on the roads. You cannot have it both ways.
Not at all. Motoring is and will continue to be a vital part of our transport infrastructure. I'd respectfully suggest it's just your biases talking there. We can all drive less, and drive electric where we do so, without giving up cars. And achieve all of our important objectives about climate while doing so.
Which is why I favour urban road use and parking taxation over blanket road pricing. It makes sense to penalise those who use cars when there is a viable alternative, not when there isn't. It also encourages use of P&R sites and dissuades "I'm in the car now so might as well drive all the way".
Why do people think that energy storage is some kind of unproven future technology? Dinorwig Power Station opened in 1984 specifically for the purpose of providing peak load and rapid response generation. Known locally as 'Electric Mountain' it can store water in its upper reservoir to generate electricity at the time when most needed. Now of course it is not the only plant in the country with this sort of capability, and of course since then there have been a lot of sites where industrial batteries are used too. But however you look at it the technology is available. It is likely to become much more efficient in the future too, pumped storage with heavy fluid in a closed system looks extremely promising for smoothing out the peaks.
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My car does 24mpg and I have a railcard. You can guess which is cheaper most of the time. It also depends on transport connections in your area and in the area you are headed.
My Land Rover Defender managed better than that, it was just over 30 on average and that was with the rather aggressive acceleration needed to use the MK grid. What on earth is it, some massive V8 petrol?
Every time you fill the car tank, you are helping Putin. I agree that public transport is too unreliable, but that can be cured if enough of us demand it.
