We have a love hate relationships with railways in this country. People are far less tolerant of delays on the train. It's almost a national obsession to moan about the train service.
Season ticket holders always moan about what they pay which on face value is a huge amount up front but when you break it down per journey you generally see that they're travelling for less than the price of an off peak ticket. People would kick off far more about petrol prices if they had to buy it all up front once a year!
Then there's the delays. Drive into a city centre during rush hour and you'd generally be satisfied if you arrive within half an hour or so of the predicted time. Travel by train and people complain if the train's 5 minutes late.
I'm not trying to say everything's perfect with our train service, far from it. Companies like Northern, GTR, Hull Trains leave a lot to be desired and do need to do better. The fact is journeys made by rail have doubled since privatisation....
Season ticket holders always moan about what they pay which on face value is a huge amount up front but when you break it down per journey you generally see that they're travelling for less than the price of an off peak ticket. People would kick off far more about petrol prices if they had to buy it all up front once a year!
Then there's the delays. Drive into a city centre during rush hour and you'd generally be satisfied if you arrive within half an hour or so of the predicted time. Travel by train and people complain if the train's 5 minutes late.
I'm not trying to say everything's perfect with our train service, far from it. Companies like Northern, GTR, Hull Trains leave a lot to be desired and do need to do better. The fact is journeys made by rail have doubled since privatisation....