Did unregulated rises of that magnitude occur this year?
You'll probably recall that prior to the MML electrification announcement in quite a few posts you bemoaned the fact that all the North of England improvements were elsewhere and that there weren't any real plans for Sheffield.
Many places still aren't set to get any real improvements except for possibly a little extra capacity from cascaded 1980s DMUs released by electrification projects
Note I couldn't find a similar thread in existence for this year's fare rises. Apologies if I've duplicated the topic!
another price rise once again with the "promise" of a better service. Been traveling the same train for 10 years now, not once seen a better service that's improved for me personally - still smelly, manky toilets on all northern services and crackling information tannoys on stoke to Manchester services.
Time to bring back british rail.
Or from having some of the most modern trains in the UK doing other Manchester to Stoke services (220s, 221s and 390s)?
cjp said:Being given out at 8am this morning at Paddington by Unions was . . . .
a little card - made some sense to me, more now I hear the news
Um, there's a breakdown in the article you just posted......:
Um, it's a break down showing the public where their fare money goes. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not sure why you're trying to add stuff that has nothing to with anything to it?Looking at these figures they seem to exclude the additonal cost of funding NR directly from DfT (the "Network Grant") and other taxpayer support.
"Where the ticket money goes" is not the whole story by any means, it's just ATOC's view of life.
We don't need to go "further down this road" we need to back track the other way.Patrick Macloughlin talked today about a 2/3 1/3 split between the farepayer and taxpayer being the current funding position.
I think when Labour started this line of thought the figures were 1/4 3/4, and the target was to reverse this to 3/4 1/4.
So still a bit further to go down this road.
another price rise once again with the "promise" of a better service. Been traveling the same train for 10 years now, not once seen a better service that's improved for me personally - still smelly, manky toilets on all northern services and crackling information tannoys on stoke to Manchester services.
Time to bring back british rail.
It's just something that people like to bandy around, like it's some kind of magic bullet that would "fix" everything, completely forgetting that when we had BR it suffered from no end of complaints.In what way would bringing back BR improve your service?
It's just something that people like to bandy around, like it's some kind of magic bullet that would "fix" everything, completely forgetting that when we had BR it suffered from no end of complaints.
Indeed its almost like BR could solve all the problems with the network overnight at the moment.
It'd be impossible to improve the service on every single line in the country in the short term
You've not benefitted from the extension of most Northern services beyond Macclesfield to Stoke?
Or from having some of the most modern trains in the UK doing other Manchester to Stoke services (220s, 221s and 390s)?
Good point - we get to travel on swish 12 year old Voyagers, so to be honest a 10% rise would be fair.
Let's also remind ourselves that TOC's don't set the level which regulated fares on average are set at.
This one gets wheeled out every year, and the answer isn't different. Higher costs due to fragmentation, ancient infrastructure, better-paid staff, and demand management for a start.This morning's Today programme on Radio 4 featured a commuter who is paying £5,600 for an annual season ticket from Bedford to London. For that she gets the right to travel at any time between those two stations on FCC's shabby, overcrowded trains.
In Germany, for almost exactly the same amount, you could buy a first class Bahncard 100, giving unlimited first class travel across the entire country for a year.
Why are the UK's trains so expensive?
Well there was the Two Together Railcard last year, perhaps that might make a reappearance?I think the point about the Bahn Card is a valid one, particularly in the light of ATOCs continued failure to come up with a national railcard !
Well for a start it would cut out the 5%+ or whatever profit is being creamed off overseas and there would be more of a motivation to run the railway in the interest of the passengers.Thankyou for sharing that, although I am concerned that unions are handing over such sweeping generalisations to the public, as if a publicly owned system is the cure-all for the ills of the railways.
Here is an example - an offpeak journey from Exeter to Birmingham for two adults.
Rail: £84.70 x 2 = £170
Road using the UK's best selling car - the Focus @ 45mpg = £46 + lets say £20 for 2 days parking = £66. Lets add another tenner for misc wear and tear (Though a 300ish mile journey wont cause that) and its £76.
Even if you go alone it's still cheaper to burn petrol, emit CO2 and sit in your private bubble to your own timetable.
That'll really help encourage people to leave the car at home, won't it? And no, I won't include the road tax etc in that cost because most people already have a car and will incur these costs anyway even if they leave it at home.
Fare rises of this magnitude give no incentive to have a radical overhaul of the cost base. Most people have had little or no increase in their salaries over the past four years. Something will give in the near future.
In what way would bringing back BR improve your service? To make a statement like that you clearly know exactly what BR would do, how they would make your service better??