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Persistent railway myths, misunderstandings etc.

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kristiang85

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Personally, going back to my Edinburgh to London example, if I'm given a £15 option on Ryanair or a £50 option on the railway, even with the extras like luggage and airport buses, I'd go for flying without question. It does help Ryanair sell decent coffee on board, not something I've found on the ECML. Put it another way, given the choice of a 737-800 or a 91 and MK4s, I'd jump at the chance to have a 737. No question!

£15 Ryanairs are very hard to get at peak times- e.g. Friday nights / Sun nights, when many are likely to need them.

As an example, this past weekend I did London to Edinburgh.

On the way up, I got the sleeper for £110. This was versus the £60 cheapest flight I could find, plus £15ish to get to Stansted, and then a night in a hotel in Edinburgh (£35), and the tram to get there from the airport (£6). That's £116 for flying, with only tiny handluggage, and not enjoying a nice evening of my own drink and personal space.

On the way back, I got Easyjet to Gatwick - so that's £50 flight (although I had to leave some luggage at my parents' to fit my hand limit), £35 taxi from Gatwick to BSK as it was too late for trains, and if my pareents hadn't dropped me off that would have been another £6 at least for the tram. Thus £91.

The way up, needless to say, was much more pleasant.
 
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Currently the plans are mainly for hybrid designs where you avoid local pollution at takeoff/landing by using electric power, but the rest of the journey would be conventionally powered.
There are already electric taxiing systems on airbus planes.
 

BigCj34

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See also changing franchisee

It looked like an exciting time in 2016 when Northern changed franchise, with refurbished and new trains, and extra services on many routes. The refurbishments are poor quality in a lot of cases, the extra services led to mass cancellations due to a lack of trains to run them, and RMT are routinely striking. At least there'll be new trains to replace the Pacers, assuming they don't just lock the toilet doors to meet the accessibility requirements.
 

c52

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I prefer to go by train from Surrey to Inverurie (N of Aberdeen) but it costs £116 return with a railcard and takes all day. Flying costs less than £50 as often as not (return) and for a 4 am start, we reach our destination by 9 am. It feels like a great extravagance to go by train. And flying, you spend £2.50 per head on coffee, but how much do you spend on coffee and food on a 10 hour train journey? At least £20 IME. A taxi to Gatwick is £12, or to our local station £7.

Advantages of the train are, of course, extra luggage and the ability to break the journey to visit people on the way home.

Of course, if there's no room for your hand-luggage in the plane, they take it off you for free and deliver it in the normal way, but if there's no room for luggage on the train, bad luck.
 

BigCj34

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I prefer to go by train from Surrey to Inverurie (N of Aberdeen) but it costs £116 return with a railcard and takes all day. Flying costs less than £50 as often as not (return) and for a 4 am start, we reach our destination by 9 am. It feels like a great extravagance to go by train. And flying, you spend £2.50 per head on coffee, but how much do you spend on coffee and food on a 10 hour train journey? At least £20 IME. A taxi to Gatwick is £12, or to our local station £7.

Advantages of the train are, of course, extra luggage and the ability to break the journey to visit people on the way home.

Of course, if there's no room for your hand-luggage in the plane, they take it off you for free and deliver it in the normal way, but if there's no room for luggage on the train, bad luck.

Contrary to what you wrote, it sounds like you prefer flying!
 

al78

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I prefer to go by train from Surrey to Inverurie (N of Aberdeen) but it costs £116 return with a railcard and takes all day. Flying costs less than £50 as often as not (return) and for a 4 am start, we reach our destination by 9 am. It feels like a great extravagance to go by train. And flying, you spend £2.50 per head on coffee, but how much do you spend on coffee and food on a 10 hour train journey? At least £20 IME. A taxi to Gatwick is £12, or to our local station £7.

You can keep your 4am start. If I am traveling from SE England to Scotland, I will either travel at times which don't involve sacrificing a nights sleep, or travel by sleeper.

As for food, you have to spend money on that however long your journey takes, the only difference is eating en-route or eating when you get to your destination, depending on the journey time.
 

kristiang85

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You can keep your 4am start. If I am traveling from SE England to Scotland, I will either travel at times which don't involve sacrificing a nights sleep, or travel by sleeper.

As for food, you have to spend money on that however long your journey takes, the only difference is eating en-route or eating when you get to your destination, depending on the journey time.

Indeed. And I'd far rather eat my own train picnic than an expensive airport meal.
 

Esker-pades

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I find the first class train food offering better than the aircraft meals I'm served. I have the luxury of booking in advance and using a railcard, so for between £40 and £45, I can put my suitcases with all the stuff I require for uni on a train, sit down to a full English breakfast and relax for just over 4 hours (London to Edinburgh).
I dread to think how I would cope with all the flight stuff. I'll probably have already exceeded that price with excess baggage charges because I'm outrageous enough to need to have stuff when I get to the other end of the country
 

xotGD

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Of course, if there's no room for your hand-luggage in the plane, they take it off you for free and deliver it in the normal way, but if there's no room for luggage on the train, bad luck.

Oh, yes, almost every day I see passengers having to leave their luggage behind on the platform because there is no room for it on the train. What rot.
 
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All transport systems are bad for the environment. The environment would be best served by everyone staying at home and working by telephone or its modern equivalent. (I am not advocating that by the way)

This is a myth in itself, or at least disputed. Everyone working from home would mean far more small-scale domestic heating systems in use. The environmental benefits of telecommuting are not clear.
 

dcbwhaley

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This is a myth in itself, or at least disputed. Everyone working from home would mean far more small-scale domestic heating systems in use. The environmental benefits of telecommuting are not clear.

In my experience people working at home tend to keep their heating on a lower setting, because they are paying for it. Offices tend to be too warm because the occupants are not paying so choose to wear summer clothing all year round.
 

Ken H

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In my experience people working at home tend to keep their heating on a lower setting, because they are paying for it. Offices tend to be too warm because the occupants are not paying so choose to wear summer clothing all year round.
or they work in bed!
Of course no-one does that, do they?

or is that why pubs and cafes are full of people playing with lappys. nice warm place to work buy a coffee every hour. There was a bloke on a skype conference call in the caff the other day.
 

dcbwhaley

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or they work in bed!
Of course no-one does that, do they?

or is that why pubs and cafes are full of people playing with lappys. nice warm place to work buy a coffee every hour. There was a bloke on a skype conference call in the caff the other day.

But if people work in the, has to be heat, cafe rather than spending two hours a day commuting the environment can only benefit. And your argument about using small scale domestic heating only applies if the house would otherwise be empty.
 

Western Lord

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But if people work in the, has to be heat, cafe rather than spending two hours a day commuting the environment can only benefit. And your argument about using small scale domestic heating only applies if the house would otherwise be empty.
Even if the house is empty I imagine that most people leave their central heating on all the time, other wise when you get home the house is stone cold and will require much greater levels of heating to try and warm it up again. Once you've warmed up the place and everything in it it requires relatively low levels of heating to maintain an acceptable temperature, warming it up again after a cold soak is more expensive.
 

al78

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In my experience people working at home tend to keep their heating on a lower setting, because they are paying for it. Offices tend to be too warm because the occupants are not paying so choose to wear summer clothing all year round.

It is arguably more energy efficient to heat one office housing six people than it is to heat six individual houses for the same six people, unless those houses had other occupants at home during the day who would be using the central heating anyway.

In my experience, offices, and buildings used by the public in general are overheated because women tend to feel the cold more than men (such as in my bridge club), elderly people are less able to cope with cold weather, and my workplace is populated by a lot of people who originate from warmer climates, so aren't as hardened to UK winters.
 

sprunt

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Even if the house is empty I imagine that most people leave their central heating on all the time, other wise when you get home the house is stone cold and will require much greater levels of heating to try and warm it up again. Once you've warmed up the place and everything in it it requires relatively low levels of heating to maintain an acceptable temperature, warming it up again after a cold soak is more expensive.

You don't need to leave it on all the time though - mine is timed to turn on half an hour before I typically get home from work, which is plenty of time to warm the flat up.
 

al78

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Even if the house is empty I imagine that most people leave their central heating on all the time, other wise when you get home the house is stone cold and will require much greater levels of heating to try and warm it up again. Once you've warmed up the place and everything in it it requires relatively low levels of heating to maintain an acceptable temperature, warming it up again after a cold soak is more expensive.

This is a myth. The energy input required to heat a home is proportional to the heat loss from the building integrated over the day. The heat loss is dependent on the thermal conductivity of the walls, roof and floor of the building, the surface area of the walls, roof and floor exposed to the outdoor temperature, and the temperature difference between the inside and outside. The thermal conductivity and size of the building is fixed, so the only thing you can influence is the temperature difference. The heat loss from the building is proportional to the temperature difference. Having the heating on all the time maintains a high temperature difference between inside and outside, which results in high heat loss, that heat must be replaced by the central heating. If the heating is switched off during the day when no-one is at home, the interior of the house cools down, the temperature difference decreases, and the heat loss decreases until either the heating is switched on again, or the house has cooled to the outside temperature. In the situation where the heating is switched off during the day, the integrated heat loss over the day is clearly less than if the heating is on all day. Therefore if the heat loss is lower, the heat input demand on the central heating is also lower.

Another way of looking at it is that no-one I am aware of leaves their oven on all day long so it is always at the right temperature for cooking.
 

Deepgreen

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That the increase in rail passenger numbers is because of privatisation. I would argue there would have been an increase regardless of how the railways are structured due to an increase in population and more mobility generally.
Yes! The most prevalent and mis-guided claim of modern times regarding the rail sector. Not only probably wrong, but impossible to substantiate.
 

Western Lord

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This is a myth. The energy input required to heat a home is proportional to the heat loss from the building integrated over the day. The heat loss is dependent on the thermal conductivity of the walls, roof and floor of the building, the surface area of the walls, roof and floor exposed to the outdoor temperature, and the temperature difference between the inside and outside. The thermal conductivity and size of the building is fixed, so the only thing you can influence is the temperature difference. The heat loss from the building is proportional to the temperature difference. Having the heating on all the time maintains a high temperature difference between inside and outside, which results in high heat loss, that heat must be replaced by the central heating. If the heating is switched off during the day when no-one is at home, the interior of the house cools down, the temperature difference decreases, and the heat loss decreases until either the heating is switched on again, or the house has cooled to the outside temperature. In the situation where the heating is switched off during the day, the integrated heat loss over the day is clearly less than if the heating is on all day. Therefore if the heat loss is lower, the heat input demand on the central heating is also lower.

Another way of looking at it is that no-one I am aware of leaves their oven on all day long so it is always at the right temperature for cooking.
I have proved to my own satisfaction that having heating on at a relatively low level all the time is cheaper than turning it full on to warm up a stone cold house.
 

Ken H

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This is a myth. The energy input required to heat a home is proportional to the heat loss from the building integrated over the day. The heat loss is dependent on the thermal conductivity of the walls, roof and floor of the building, the surface area of the walls, roof and floor exposed to the outdoor temperature, and the temperature difference between the inside and outside. The thermal conductivity and size of the building is fixed, so the only thing you can influence is the temperature difference. The heat loss from the building is proportional to the temperature difference. Having the heating on all the time maintains a high temperature difference between inside and outside, which results in high heat loss, that heat must be replaced by the central heating. If the heating is switched off during the day when no-one is at home, the interior of the house cools down, the temperature difference decreases, and the heat loss decreases until either the heating is switched on again, or the house has cooled to the outside temperature. In the situation where the heating is switched off during the day, the integrated heat loss over the day is clearly less than if the heating is on all day. Therefore if the heat loss is lower, the heat input demand on the central heating is also lower.

Another way of looking at it is that no-one I am aware of leaves their oven on all day long so it is always at the right temperature for cooking.
when I work at home, i turn off the upstairs rads with the thermostatic valves. Or i light the multifuel stove in the living room. I dont heat the whole house. And my walls are 18" thick stone. But there again, its a mid terrace. Last house was a brick end terrace and I never felt warm there.
 
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when I work at home, i turn off the upstairs rads with the thermostatic valves. Or i light the multifuel stove in the living room. I dont heat the whole house. And my walls are 18" thick stone.
My house is the same construction, but it's detached and insulated to the hilt. I work from home all the time.

I have a multifuel stove which is ridiculously efficient, burning a bucket and a half of anthracite in a 24 hour period (or logs), both of which cost far less than having a gas boiler roaring away. Therefore I work in the same room as the stove (the warmest in the house, natch) and leave the internal doors open. I only ever need to resort to the central heating during the coldest part of the winter. At night I bank the stove up to keep it going untl morning and if I get a bit chilly... I put an extra layer on. Simple.

As with everything, I suspect it's horses for courses. In my case my environmental footprint is undoubtedly much smaller than if I commuted.

I remember when I worked in an office and the place was permanently roasting, largely due to what was deemed 'acceptable' work attire being suited (pardon the pun) far more to appearence than keeping people warm. And they left the lights on 24 hours a day.
 
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My house is the same construction, but it's detached and insulated to the hilt. I work from home all the time.

I have a multifuel stove which is ridiculously efficient, burning a bucket and a half of anthracite in a 24 hour period (or logs), both of which cost far less than having a gas boiler roaring away. Therefore I work in the same room as the stove (the warmest in the house, natch) and leave the internal doors open. I only ever need to resort to the central heating during the coldest part of the winter. At night I bank the stove up to keep it going untl morning and if I get a bit chilly... I put an extra layer on. Simple.

As with everything, I suspect it's horses for courses. In my case my environmental footprint is undoubtedly much smaller than if I commuted.

I remember when I worked in an office and the place was permanently roasting, largely due to what was deemed 'acceptable' work attire being suited (pardon the pun) far more to appearence than keeping people warm. And they left the lights on 24 hours a day.

That's fair, we are definitely talking about averages here. But on the other hand, you have the environmentally 'bad' kind of telecommuter: they have a relatively senior job, so they work from home a couple of times a week. Because of this, they still have an office at work, which is empty (and heated) much of the time, but they also get a bigger house to allow them to work at home, which means they live far from home in a more car-dependent rural area. The bigger house itself increases the carbon footprint, but because their hours are flexible they don't mind a longer commute on the days they do go in. On the days they work from home, they take a lot of little trips out, perhaps to the shops in the car, so they get out of the house and run errands using the time saved by not commuting.

This describes many of the academics I know!
 

Ken H

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uni


That's fair, we are definitely talking about averages here. But on the other hand, you have the environmentally 'bad' kind of telecommuter: they have a relatively senior job, so they work from home a couple of times a week. Because of this, they still have an office at work, which is empty (and heated) much of the time, but they also get a bigger house to allow them to work at home, which means they live far from home in a more car-dependent rural area. The bigger house itself increases the carbon footprint, but because their hours are flexible they don't mind a longer commute on the days they do go in. On the days they work from home, they take a lot of little trips out, perhaps to the shops in the car, so they get out of the house and run errands using the time saved by not commuting.

This describes many of the academics I know!
people at work 'nip out' at lunch for all sorts of stuff.
 

HH

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As one of those who now is a part-time commuter, I am pretty certain that I am helping the environment. My journey requires a long journey by car and train; my office has hot desks and so we are able to have a smaller office (we have downsized) due to those of us who don't come in 5 days a week. At home I have a small study, unless it's very cold, wrapping up warmly and keeping the door closed is enough - body/computer heat the room sufficiently, given the residual heat from early morning CH, when there are 3-4 of us in the house. I generally don't "just nip out and do shopping, etc.", either at home or in the office, because I'm usually too busy. If I do have to nip out, e.g. for a medical appointment, I inevitably end up working late. I envy those who can work from cafes, but I find them cramped and noisy and the WiFi slow.

BTW my home desk is bigger, my home computer is faster, the printer is in arm's reach and I need less time to make a tea or got to the toilet. And I get interrupted less; I'm definitely more productive, even without the extra hours I can work due not commuting. The main reason I need to go into the office is client meetings, although many shorter meetings are conducted by Skype these days.
 
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