Unpopular opinions

[Johnny Lewis]

Some suggestions:

TPE (and others) should stop running lots of silly little trains at frequencies that prevent local operators improving their services (and building new stations), and should, instead, run fewer, but significantly longer trains so that when they arrive, people can actually get a seat. How about 2 x 9 car trains running between Manchester and York each hour; one from Liverpool, the other from Manchester Airport? Plenty of peak-time capacity!

We should so away with Advance, Super Off-peak, Off-peak, Anytime etc. fare classes. All fares should be calculated on a pence per mile basis, with a 50% premium for First Class, so that people know exactly what they will pay for a journey, and we don't end up with an Annual Season Ticket holder standing for journey of an hour or more, while an Advance ticket holder, who's paid about 50p, sitting down.

And stop running diesel trains under the wires for lengthy distances - no more Birmingham - Glasgow / Edinburgh Voyagers and no XC services north of Newcastle. Oh, and while we're about it, put the XC network back to what it was, where there was a decent service of decent length trains connecting the majority of places on the XC network by at least one direct train each day, as well as retaining the higher frequency services on the core sections of the network.

 

[ainsworth74]

We should so away with Advance, Super Off-peak, Off-peak, Anytime etc. fare classes. All fares should be calculated on a pence per mile basis, with a 50% premium for First Class, so that people know exactly what they will pay for a journey

Okay so could you please answer the following three questions:

Let's see if this is workable shall we?

1) Please give me the proposed fares from York to Whitby for a day return, avoiding Darlington, and tell me how this fare is calculated and whether you think it will be competetive with the coach service provided by Coastliner that costs only slightly more than the current rail ticket price but offers a shorter journey time?

2) Please give me the proposed fares from York to London for a day return, and if this is lower than current prices, tell me where the revenue will be brought in to compensate EC for the revenue loss?

3) Please give me the proposed fares from Peterborough to Leicester, and also Leicester to Nottingham, and let me know how you are calculating the mileage and whether under your system it will be permitted to travel from Peterborough to Nottingham via Leicester or not, and if someone does go via Leicester what excess will be charged (if any)?

If you can't give me actual fares and details of how they are calculated then I'll assume the system doesn't work.

You can get mileages from the NRT, or the "carbon emissions" options on WebTIS-powered sites, or from Railmiles.

In the highly unlikely event that these questions can be answered in a way that would be satisfactory to the DfT, ATOC, the TOCs, and passengers, then I will be quite shocked.