Thanks Focus, that would make the trip cheaper, the card would pay for itself on that journey alone. I just can't stomach the thought of changing trains twice with the bags and little 'uns, especially when a rail replacement bus is on the cards. Yuck. My fantasy of getting a single train almost door to door has been well and truly shattered.
So the car wins this battle.
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I'm taking my son from Reading up to my parents in the Lake District (Kendal) in the summer hols and was thinking of taking the train, but like yourself decided it looked too much like hard work.
IIRC there used to be a number of direct services between Reading and Oxenholme, but they appear to be few and far between now, especially coming back.
Having said that, for my 3 day a week commute between Reading and Bath the train wins easily, no contest.
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its the beeching effect
gets us all in the end
we have some nice cycle tracks near me though because of it
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Unless you are travelling to or from London on East, West or former GWR lines, long distance cross country rail travel is still pretty poor in this Country as fast trains still have to mix it with slower commuter traffic.
20 years ago I could get from my local station to Leeds, then direct to Cardiff in less than 4 hours on a spacious and comfortable HST.
I now have to change at Leeds then Bristol or Leeds then Manchester, sit on awful DMUs for most of the trip and it now takes 5 hours.
It's almost as quick to go Leeds - London - London - Cardiff, yet this trip is 100 miles further.
I am grateful we have a three year old who will happily sit and watch the world go by - once she has woken up of course, as the first 1-2 hours of any journey is her nap time!
Edited by daveyjp on 20/04/2009 at 14:18
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Just on cost alone it pays to take the car (as you save fuel but other overheads, insurance, tax, tax, tax, depreciation etc) are being paid even if it sits there.
The train WILL break down, miss connections, and you sit with the great unwashed and other nutters.
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With respect when did you last use the train? At one point I was getting 4-6 trains a week, last year I must have got on about 150 trains and only twice they were delayed and even then it was a matter of minutes.
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I know you're not asking me, but it must depend upon which lines you use. Most times I use the Reading-Paddington line the train is delayed, and ends up sitting outside Reading or Paddington waiting for platform space. I know that's going to be addressed by the proposed improvements at Reading (they can't come quickly enough, Reading is a tremendous bottle neck for train traffic), but the fact remains that the national picture is patchy at best.
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Yep I have always suspect that a lot of the fuss about poor trains is from the South East and to be fair most the trains I get are on the fairly modern Cheshire lines.
A lot of fuss is made of the TUV and the german trains (forget its name) but I have also been on a lot of trains in Europe and found reliability to be no better or worse but the coverage is a lot more patchy but that is just my personal experience.
I do believe what we have now is ten times better than the British Rail or even Railtrack days.
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Most times I use the Reading-Paddington line the train is delayed and ends up sitting outside Reading or Paddington waiting for platform space.
...whereas going the other way, Reading to Bath (and back), it's very rare that I get significantly delayed.
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I think it is important not to let bad experiences put you off in the future because you can get some fantastic detals and very good services. Manchester to London is the best example, two hours and you can get tickets each way for less than £10. The trains are three to the hour and have 9-11 carraiges each, compared to five years ago we had one train of 11 carraiges every 90 minutes and the cheapest tickets were around £30 after all the discounts.
I went to Southport on Saturday in the end and got the train up, £9.50 return took an hour each way, the trains were tatty old Sprinters and class 142s but it was a lot less stressful than worrying about all the cameras on the East lancs and it was probably quicker plus no worry about car parking in a very busy sea side town.
Some train journeys are far too expensive and things still need much improving but in my life time I have seen trains go from the last effects of the Beaching cut backs to now when everything has improved.
I like to think that 21st century society is about knowing when to take the car and when to leave it at home. In the OPs case I can clearly see why the car is the easier option and of course when you have to make changes at different stations the chances of being late increases.
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Maybe the answer lies elsewhere.
Perhaps the doctor could recommend some sort of sedative for your child or recommend a course of action that would eventually overcome the aversion to car travel?
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You know, I hadn't thought of that, Mike. Thanks.
:-)
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Easy enough in theory, start off with 15 min journeys (stop before WWIII starts), reward the little tyke for good behaviour, repeat a couple of times, then stretch the journey time by 5-10 mins and start again.
Probably will result in screaming until puking once or twice mind...
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Makes sense, TOB, sounds similar to controlled night time crying.
Might try it, cheers.
:-)
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The daughter of one of my wife's numerous cousins could only go to sleep when being driven around in a car. They used to have to go out in the middle of the night and drive her about until she lost consciousness.
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>>its the beeching effect
>>gets us all in the end
>>we have some nice cycle tracks near me though because of it
BB on a bike!!!
The mind boggles. ;>)
Edited by bathtub tom on 20/04/2009 at 15:15
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...Perhaps the doctor could recommend some sort of sedative for your child...
Alanovich,
Dipping the child's dummy in brandy obviates the need to consult a quack.
PS. If it's not obvious already, I know nothing about childcare.
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I think use of public transport is be encouraged, particularly on bank holidays.
If more people used trains etc. there would be more room on the roads for my car.....
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I think use of public transport is be encouraged particularly on bank holidays.
Until they sort out 50 years of underinvestment I doubt that'll be the case for quite a while, Humph!
Personally until they've sorted out the track I'd tend to avoid any long rail journeys on bank holidays and weekends... may be a year or two yet, though it is getting better...
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SWMBO used to have a large sherry before feeding. But if kiddie then woke up, she wouldn't.
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My Mum used to take Cream Label Stout when feeding us bairns. The doctors used to recommend it for its iron content. I blame her for my liking of Guinness these days. Is Cream Label Stout still available, I'd love to buy her some to take to Carmarthen as a surprise!
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When I was a child, my grandmother sometimes gave me a glass of Mackeson Milk Stout mixed with an equal quantity of cow's milk.
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At my last school the First Eight (rowing) used to get half a pint of Guinness each at dinner. It was supposed to make them heavier (and stronger of course) but everyone knew it was just a privilege really. Used to make us terribly envious.
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If I use the train it's mainly at the weekends and seems to be disrupted regularly by engineering and having to take rail replacement buses.
I know they have to do engineering sometime and I don't know if other countries have this problem or if it's just the UK?
I live in Eastbourne and my experiences are from Eastbourne to London or Brighton and back.
To be honest, just for convenience I'd rather drive than train it.
Last time I looked return to Brighton was £7. More than two people going over it's better to drive and park in a multi storey. Last train back from London to Eastbourne is just before midnight, so for going to a music concert in the capital it's easier to take the car and park at an underground station.
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I got caught out by rail replacement buses getting from Brighton to Reading a few weeks back on a Sunday. I was on a stag party so the car had to be left at home. It took about 3 and a half hours, including a blooming awful wait for a bus at Gatwick to just to get us to Reigate. Pain in the neck.
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I know they have to do engineering sometime and I don't know if other countries have this problem or if it's just the UK?
Just us if my experience of northern mainland Europe is anything to go by... the problem has always been than we want everything on the cheap and instead of steady investment like the rest have europe has done with their railways we just pared the system to the bone... its probably been the one main advantage with privatisation that the private companies would not put up with what BR did and have forced the Gov to spend monies... I seriously doubt if BR still existed we would have the improvements we are now getting... but that is a contencious point and not car related...
Edited by b308 on 20/04/2009 at 19:37
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>The daughter of one of my wife's numerous cousins could only go to sleep when being driven around in a car. They used to have to go out in the middle of the night and drive her about until she lost consciousness.<
That's exactly what I used to have to do with my son (now 37 and with two sons of his own) when he was a baby! I used to have to do it at 11am every morning though. To get him off to sleep in the evening, when I was producing newspapers, my wife used to leave the vacuum cleaner on at the bottom of the stairs...
The brandy idea may be useful too. A friend of my father's used to say his father fed him a tot of whisky every night to send him off. I always laughed until I met his father, who was well gone 90, and he insisted it was true!
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