Is this the end of the drive in commute for some?
Source BBC news: tinyurl.com/n933cq
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Why should anyone want to go to the St.Pancras area rather than the edge of the City?.They would then have to take extra time/money to get back into Central London.
Edited by jc2 on 02/06/2009 at 09:12
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It's possible to go very rapidly from St Pancras into the city if that's your final destination.
The thing that makes me smile about this is that existing second class ticket holders have to pay an upgrade to travel on the new more rapid service but first class ticket holders don't.
People wind up using cars all the time because public transport takes, I'm afraid, every opportunity to wring the last few shillings out of the traveller.
Having said that, it is a fantastically rapid journey time and I'd use it if I lived around there.
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£26.60 = irrelevant for many.
I had a Dutch colleague visit the UK the other day for the first time, and who almost fell over when asked for £115 for a single fare from London to Harrogate! He has taken the ticket back to his office, where it is on the notice board and been the butt of jokes ever since.
Public transport in this country is a rip off.
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On holiday last year, it cost me about 12 quid for a 200 mile train journey between Bratislava and Prague. That's the same as it cost me to get the crumbling Silverlink from Kings Cross to Luton Airport!!
Prague to Krakow was 9 hours and cost £20. I could have stayed on the train for another 20 hours and ended up in Moscow!
Just been looking at train prices and they're mental - a single ticket to Manchester is £80 even in advance! It cost me less than half that to drive there, on my own, and that's in a fuel guzzling straight 6 merc with a 4 speed auto box!
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It does depend on the route - my train commute (peak time but with advance tickets) works out at 16p per mile at an average of over 70mph, and I couldn't work in the car.
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"it cost me about 12 quid for a 200 mile train journey between Bratislava and Prague"
And the average wage in Bratislava is about £400 a month. It's almost 6 times that here - 6*£12 is £72, not far off the £80 London to Manchester figure.
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My 2 x sons were coming from Aberdeen to Glasgow for the cup final last week - along with 4 x neighbours - train was £75 return on an off peak Saturday - outcome 2 cars and petrol costs of under £100 rather than £450 -
Public transport needs to be affordable for people to reduce car usage!
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It was common practice for Irish bound workers from London to pool resources buy a banger drive to Holyhead dump it and cross over as foot passengers. Sometimes cheaper than a one single ticket.
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>>On holiday last year, it cost me about 12 quid for a 200 mile train journey between >>Bratislava and Prague. That's the same as it cost me to get the crumbling Silverlink from >>Kings Cross to Luton Airport!!
>>Prague to Krakow was 9 hours and cost £20. I could have stayed on the train for >>another 20 hours and ended up in Moscow!
TBH neither of those are fair comparisons with the UK, Czech Republic and Poland are mega cheap even when compared with the likes of Germany, let alone the UK!
Last year we stayed just outside Dresden and used the train one day to get into the city centre, it cost us just over £5 each and the journey was about the same as Stourbridge to Birmingham over here... which is the same price!
My daughter went from Kiddy to Edinburgh and back for £38 earlier in the year,, my eldest and boyfriend £20 return Leicester to London, I supose some will say that they were expensive... personally I don't feel they were!
Walk up fares are expensive, I'll not argue with that, but if you are flexible there are some real bargains to be had.
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book in advance on tinternet folks .... going down to the smoke in july...virgin, manchester to euston £19.00 return...
last time I took the car about £50 in petrol, and parking in camden town is a pigging nighmare..
or if you fancy 6.5 hours on t coach, blackpool to london, national express £2.00 return, I doubt if I could get out of blackpool for £2 petrol....
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Myself, partner and two children went Bristol to Padington a few weeks back for £55 total. Not bad, and only 1hr 20 each way. More than the cost of fuel, but if I had factored in parking and time probably cheaper in real terms.
Ticket for one on the same route pre 9am weekday can be in excess of £100.......
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