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agree with the split ticketing.
However, it's the price one pays for letting someone else do all the driving?
I wish they'd come up with really cheap [ie competitive] drive-on drive off ro-rail trains...like with the chunnel.....would ease congestion, save the planet...and one would arrive fairly refreshed?
From one major area to another?
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However, it's the price one pays for letting someone else do all the driving?
I wish they'd come up with really cheap [ie competitive] drive-on drive off ro-rail trains...like with the chunnel.....would ease congestion, save the planet...and one would arrive fairly refreshed?
From one major area to another?
Not economic - BR ran Motorail on various long-distance routes from mid-50s to mid-90s and First Great Western ran a service between Penzance and London from '99 to '05 - but neither was profitable.
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If you can manage to book your journey in advance, and book and pay online, you are likely to save a considerable amount of money on what a normal fare would cost.
Visit the National Rail website, and click on the "Journey Planner"
Link: ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/planjourney/search
I myself recently had to go up to Stoke-on-Trent to collect a car. I could have just turned up at my local station and paid £137.00 for a single fare.
How much did I pay? By booking a few days in advance and booking and paying online, £39.00!
The only real limitation is that you have to get exactly the train they say, but I didn't find that any problem.
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agree with the split ticketing.
However, it's the price one pays for letting someone else do all the driving?
I wish they'd come up with really cheap [ie competitive] drive-on drive off ro-rail trains...like with the chunnel.....would ease congestion, save the planet...and one would arrive fairly refreshed?
From one major area to another?
Interesting idea...although rail freight isn't exactly big business any more, but worth a look. I suppose the main advantage would be for people with lots of luggage (families going on holiday or business people with lots of stuff for meetings, presentations, etc) would could pack the car, drive to the local "boarding station", then (as you say) let the train "take the strain" and be refreshed when they get off nearish to their final detination, with no need to lug heavy luggage etc to stations/airports etc.
I find that train travel is fine if you're travelling light, the route is low on changes, uses reasonably fast trains & is within 10-15 mins walk max of your final destination, and the road alternative just isn't worth the bother (going into London or other very large conurbations where traffic and parking in the centre are horrendous).
I've thought about and rejected the possibility of me going to my holiday destination in Cornwall by train for the reasons given by the OP - cost (although the real cost per mile for a car should include allowances for depreciation, servicing, insurance, petrol, etc) - including a taxi and a hire car (if there for a holiday) at the other end, time and the hassle getting all my luggage (and golf stuff) to and from stations and interchanges, beisdes all the logistics if you miss a connection through no fault of your own. Much easier to drive.
I wonder how the train fares for the OP's journey compares to flying? There are a few local airports in the south west. Similar problem to the train regarding luggage I suppose, but less changes (taxis at each end).
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I had to go from Bradford to London return this week ticket supplier "A" 98ukps ticket supplier "B" 32ukp same train same times.I was in Germany last week a ticket for 5days anywhere any train cost 54euros what a difference .
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Unless you actually enjoy driving for 11 hours on the motorway, wouldn't £152 be a worthwhile premium to pay for not having to drive?
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Unless you actually enjoy driving for 11 hours on the motorway, wouldn't £152 be a worthwhile premium to pay for not having to drive?
At £152 for a day's work, there would probably be plenty of offers to do the driving from the local job centre queue.
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Interesting idea...although rail freight isn't exactly big business any more, but worth a look.
On he contrary, rail freight is very big business.
The East and West coast main lines and routes to Felixstowe and Southampton etc are full up, one reason why daytime point to point Motorail won't work - lack of viable paths.
Even inthe middle of the night I hear regular trains rolling by on the MK>Rugby section of the West Coast line
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I can sympathise with the OP. Why are do they practically give away tickets at way below cost price just because they've been booked three weeks in advance, only to charge some other poor sod way over the odds to try to balance the books? There's over an order of magnitude difference between a Hyper-Supa-Mega-Advance-Sava ticket and the walk-on price for the same train. It's not as if the advance booking saves much in admin costs. By nature rail is fairly inflexible compared to road transport; the last thing it needs is additional administrative inflexibility. I think the old RMT union "take it or leave it" attitude is still endemic on the railways. Personally, I leave it.
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That's the demand side of the "supply & demand" equation - those who need to travel at short notice have no choice and will pay whatever it takes - those who book AND PAY well in advance are more critical of alternatives - just like ferries, air travel and advance booking for events.
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Oh, I appreciate that. But it doesn't entice me to leave my car on the drive does it? You only let a merchant rip you off once-you don't go back!
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I only use trains on two occasions - when I want to go to a city centre event, I drive to and stay on the outskirts, near a suburban station, and then get the train to/from the event - in future I plan to get a Scotland Rover ticket and do all the scenic routes in one go.
Back in the '90s, when I was working, we could claim 2nd class rail fares without any receipts - so we all used to drive our company cars, not fully expensed, but claim the rail fare as it was way more than the fuel cost!
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Interesting idea...although rail freight isn't exactly big business any more, but worth a look.
On he contrary, rail freight is very big business.
The East and West coast main lines and routes to Felixstowe and Southampton etc are full up, one reason why daytime point to point Motorail won't work - lack of viable paths.
Even inthe middle of the night I hear regular trains rolling by on the MK>Rugby section of the West Coast line
Not compared to before lorries started moving freight around the UK in large numbers around WWII. Given the inflexibility of railfreight travel (you still need lorries at each end, except for transporting things like coal where the tracks go right to the power station, and most stations don't have freight facilities), only large, heavy items that have long lead times move by rail. Even the Post Office have dumped the rail trains (my uncle worked on them for years) and use lorries and air freight now. I agree that, compared to 10-20 years ago, things have improved, but nothing compared to the pre-war era.
I agree that due to the increase in passenger use and general lack of capacity, any car services would find it difficult to fit in.
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One reason for the cost is that 30m other taxpayers have paid for the track you drive on.
Secondly, you are not including fixed car ownership costs, such as wear and tear, purchse cost versus investment of the capital etc.
Thirdly, the car driver's hourly charge out rate including N.I. has not been including in the car cost.
Forthly, there is too much demand and a lack of supply of rail alternatives, so pricing is high. Conversely, the private sector's competitveness has enabled massively sophisticated cars to be priced economically.
If the UK was serious about public transport, it would build as many rail lines as roads, have a station in every village and so on. But it's not because we're too physically lazy to walk anywhere, and want a peronal transport mode yards from our door.
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The Victorians did just that, when people didn't have cars - and Dr Beeching closed the village stations down in the 1960s because they lost money.
I'd call it convenience more than laziness. As I've said in another thread, I've just come back from a trip to Aldeburgh, Suffolk (from Berkshire): 2.5 hours each way. If I'd tried to do that on a train I'd still be in Suffolk now.
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Or possibly Watford Junction.
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The railways were built primarily to carry freight - passenger traffic was only ancilliary and was only viable where branch lines fed people onto the main lines.
Like horse-drawn wagons and canals, the railways were always doomed to be eventually replaced by the greater flexibility of road vehicles.
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I used to travel by train, booking at least a couple of months in advance for cheap fares, then unforseen circumstances cropped up a couple of times and I couldn't travel, that type of fare isn't refundable so I lost the money, I just use the car now. Also, the car park charges at the stations on the East Coast line are ridiculous, if you go away for the day you could be paying more to park than the cost of the train fare.
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I don't expect to have to sit a maths test and compete for a Brucie bonus just to complete a journey though.
My car doesn't suddenly use more petrol because I didn't pre-book the journey.
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I don't expect to have to sit a maths test and compete for a Brucie bonus just to complete a journey though.
Assuming there's a real time/convenience or if, shock horror, you don't have a car it's pretty straightforward to check the prices on national rail. The simpler shortcuts are well publicised on the net and wouldn't tax a man of your intelligence. The more complex stuff is geeky but again there are websites to help if you've got the incentive to save.
My car doesn't suddenly use more petrol because I didn't pre-book the journey.
True, but road user charging is coming to a carraigeway near you quite soon. It will have some of the same affects as regards peak time travel.
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True, but road user charging is coming to a carraigeway near you quite soon. It will have some of the same affects as regards peak time travel.
I'm not sure this is a given outside of congestion hotspots. There is a lot of opposition to road pricing. The fact is that subsidised trains are barely competitive with taxed cars. There comes a point when the natural equilibrium should be allowed to prevail.
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True, but road user charging is coming to a carraigeway near you quite soon. It will have some of the same affects as regards peak time travel.
It is now a decade since the public smashed Tony Blair's plan to introduce road pricing and with political parties more starved of votes than ever, it's not coming any time soon.
Oddly it seems you want road charging, perhaps because you realise that lumping the railways handicaps onto the motor car is the only realistic way the train is going to 'win.' I'm someone who'd rather see rail travel made easier with standardised prices, where as you want the motorcar kicked as much as possible to eventually force people onto trains by default. Not because trains will have improved, but because you'll have smashed the alternative.
As unthrottled says, taxed cars still outperform subsidised trains for most people. If you took the tax burden off the car and stripped the train of subsidy, you'd only see train usage fall further.
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True, but road user charging is coming to a carraigeway near you quite soon. It will have some of the same affects as regards peak time travel.
It is now a decade since the public smashed Tony Blair's plan to introduce road pricing and with political parties more starved of votes than ever, it's not coming any time soon.
Oddly it seems you want road charging, perhaps because you realise that lumping the railways handicaps onto the motor car is the only realistic way the train is going to 'win.' I'm someone who'd rather see rail travel made easier with standardised prices, where as you want the motorcar kicked as much as possible to eventually force people onto trains by default. Not because trains will have improved, but because you'll have smashed the alternative.
As unthrottled says, taxed cars still outperform subsidised trains for most people. If you took the tax burden off the car and stripped the train of subsidy, you'd only see train usage fall further.
I'm at best agnostic on road user charging and certainly not in favour. I think though its one of those things that will become a matter of political concensus. It's either that or, with new build squeezed off the agenda by austerity, peak road usage being governed by congestion.
The subsidy question is not as straightforward as you suggest. If rail's infrastructure were wholly funded by the taxpayer, as the roads are, then the palaying field would be rather differerent. Whether you like it or not tax is tax whether levied on petrol or beer. It doesn't go to specific pots according to who pays.
We're also paying far more now in real terms subsidy to the 'efficient' private sector passenger train companies than we ever paid to state owned inneficient monolith British Rail.
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The rail industry was never "really" privatised - I worked for one of the Tube "companies for a few years and found 2/3rds of the "coalface" employees were ex-LU staff (now LU staff again!), with all the managers and top bosses coming in from "project management" firms (often not that many engineers amongst them) - the worst of all worlds. I believe the same happens in the rest of the rail industry.
Too many long-time staff either marking time (either no useful purpose, so invents work to do, or doesn't care about problems as within 5-10 years of a very fat pension and on very nice employment terms/salary), militant (and very difficult to get rid of if no good [deliberate or otherwise] at their job due to union influence) or utterly incompetant. I got out due to the politics, incompetance and lack of enthusiasm at all levels to both recognise the many major problems and to want to try and solve them. I worked on projects that cost a fortune (e.g. £2M [and take 1.5 years from start to finish] for a paint & decorate + at very small outlying overground stations...you could BUILD several similar stations for that much!)
If the best of all worlds ran/worked in the rail industry, they could lop 1/3 to half the costs out of the system and have a better-run system as a result. Unless all the above "vested interest" are smashed, then rail will continue to be subsidised heavily to even begin to "compete" with other forms of transport.
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The Railway privatisation was a horrible botch job when John Major was trying to appease arch-Thatcherites and look radical. Frankly the Railways never were privatised, because if they were then we wouldn't be throwing billions of public money at HS2 and nor would the State have such an influence over Rail fares.
The Railways are not proof of the private sector being 'worse' than the public, it's just proof that everyone (private or public) will take free money if it's offered.
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The Railway privatisation was a horrible botch job when John Major was trying to appease arch-Thatcherites and look radical. Frankly the Railways never were privatised, because if they were then we wouldn't be throwing billions of public money at HS2 and nor would the State have such an influence over Rail fares.
The Railways are not proof of the private sector being 'worse' than the public, it's just proof that everyone (private or public) will take free money if it's offered.
Railways have existed in the UK since 1825, that's 188 years - they were only nationalised from 1948 to 1994, just 46 years only a quarter of the total.
The problem is that private railways aren't profitable and state railways need to be subsidised - our current system is a business model that doesn't work.
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I think we have the "worst of all worlds" - IMO poor management (worst of the private sector working in essentially a public sector environment with no direct competition in most cases) + heavily-unionised "workers" (strike at a drop of [any] hat, unproductive, not inovative, [IMO] makes a big thing about safety but covers up own failings) = (undeserved) high salaries & perks, low return on investments (by taxpayer), high costs generally, low staff morale (there are still a good number of good staff) and poor services.
Without the many vested interests, who have no interest in working as a team and providing a decent service at a reasonable cost, then the roads and airports will keep their crowns at the top spot for moving goods and people around the nation. Even as someone who is right-of-centre politically, I still am happy to have some state subsidy for railways if it is spent well (not currently), as it a social service (like local buses, which in their case are a lifeline for many elderly or poorer people) that reduces greatly the amount of traffic and pollution in towns and cities.
I have no particular "conflict of interest" given that over the years I've worked in various places, travelling by both car and public transport in equal measure (and for leisure), choosing whatever gave the best value for money journey (not necessarily the cheapest - normally time/convenience was key) in each case.
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The Railway privatisation was a horrible botch job when John Major was trying to appease arch-Thatcherites and look radical. Frankly the Railways never were privatised, because if they were then we wouldn't be throwing billions of public money at HS2 and nor would the State have such an influence over Rail fares.
The state influence over fares is limited to commuter/season rates plus, due to backbench amends in 1993 Savers. The rest are market driven.
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I find it amusing that under so-called privatisation, private sector companies have to earn the contract to provide the train service, bus route or whatever it may be.
Do you know who awards the contract and sets the terms of it?
Yeah, the Government.
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The Victorians did just that, when people didn't have cars - and Dr Beeching closed the village stations down in the 1960s because they lost money.
I heard that they used to send officials out to the rural stations and check numbers of passengers AFTER the peak period, to justify shutting those stations down.
Maybe they were losing money, but I think it's a tragedy to destroy countless miles of track that took many thousands of hours of man power to build, and if they decide to replace it now, will no doubt cost the earth. It was a public service, and badly affected many places than were situated along those lines.
The roads are of course completely conjested now.
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r the OP's journey compares to flying? There are a few local airports in the south west. Similar problem to the train regarding luggage I suppose, but less changes (taxis at each end).
Why have we not evolved a useful airbus service? There seems to be as much if not more hassle getting on one as there was when trains were first invented when buying a ticket was a major and lengthy event. There are no proper platforms at airbus stations and they persist in often only using one door per carriage.
It's high time we had a 'circle line' hopping round London, Norwich, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, [Exeter], Southampton, both clockwise and anticlockwise, walk on/walk off, cabin luggage only.
There is a huge amount of inefficiency and absurdity at 'airports' - the last one I went to [Innsbruck] involved a groundbus ride for the 50yds from the airbus to the 'terminal' !!
Apologies if not 'motoring' but it is really, if you think about it.
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Why have we not evolved a useful airbus service? There seems to be as much if not more hassle getting on one as there was when trains were first invented when buying a ticket was a major and lengthy event. There are no proper platforms at airbus stations and they persist in often only using one door per carriage.
Air Anglia ran such a service successfully in the seventies. Norwich,>Leeds, >Edinburgh, >Aberdeen. In some years it went on to Stavanger. Another service went via Humberside, Teeside and Newcastle.
North Sea oil/gas provided a base load of passengers. The Fokker F27 Friendship provided the means.
Landing fees, taxes, security and high fuel costs on sectors with no cruise segment would kill such a project dead these days.
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