The only thing worse is the sleeper. As a Scottish taxpayer I feel like I'm paying hand over fist for rich people to go to London on a service which you'd struggle to describe as comfortable. If we have that much spare cash (and the new even crazier tax bands suggest we don't) then they should pay for the rosyth-zeebrugge ferry to start again. Paying LNER and the sleeper to play trains with a random mix of plank seats and pointless double beds isn't a good use of my money.
Although of course your mentioned examples and alternatives here are mostly all talking about different tax pots which aren't transferable. By tax bands I assume you mean income tax, which is collected by NMRC but goes entirely to the Scottish Government. Therefore it is not subsidising LNER, as that is an English TOC subsidised by Westminster. Of course LNER is a poor example of this anyways because it is the closest to turning a profit, and does so in some periods, so the subsidy is relatively low. I think you also ignore that it provides an essential service to many not privileged enough to travel without the railway.
they seem to want to offer a hugely subsidized half-assed alternative to airlines, but the service isn't good enough to be competitive and they don't want to be cheap or pleasant enough to be a real public service.
To maybe play devils advocate a little, although it's still an important point, is this ticketing change not trying to be like the airlines? LNER is constantly critisised for not living up to airlines, through high prices and overcrowding. However when they try to fix this, through dynamic pricing in this trial, and compulsory reservations, they get criticised for attacking people's rights. The only solution to this is to spend more subsidy to artificially further lower ticket prices, buy more trains, have more staff, but you are also against that. So the question is how do you see the railway? Non existent? You seem to be against the only two directions possible to take?
Is your solution giving up caring for the climate and going back to unsustainable short haul flights?
I feel like I'm paying hand over fist for rich people to go to London on a service which you'd struggle to describe as comfortable
If it's so uncomfortable, so much more expensive than the plane and takes longer why are people taking it, and LNER trains constantly leaving full?