Well there was the Two Together Railcard last year, perhaps that might make a reappearance?
Unfortunately, it does rather arbitrarily discriminate against the unattached section of the population.
Well there was the Two Together Railcard last year, perhaps that might make a reappearance?
We'd have a far better service than we do now put it this way
This sort of cherry-picked fallacy gets wheeled out regularly too. If you're organised and flexible you get advances for £16 per person per journey or £64.
Throw in £30 on the car journey for the two days' insurance and VED (and yes they are part of the cost of the journey, although not perhaps the marginal cost),
another fiver on petrol burnt in traffic jams or driving in towns (as you never really get the published mpg), and suddenly it's £111
We'd have a far better service than we do now put it this way
The roads are nationalised and are falling to bits because of a lack of funding to repair them. How to you know the railways wouldn't go the same way??
Perhaps that's why we're seeing the level of improvement that we currently are? A good railway is always going to cost lots of money to run, no matter how efficient it is. Who runs it is irrelevant, what matters is how well the money is spent.Goatboy said:The funding for the repairs to the railways is already publically provided so whats the difference?
The rail network isn't a true private enterprise at all, it's a massively state funded and government directed enterprise with private sector players in it.
The taxpayer has never paid as much to the rail network as it currently does.
The funding for the repairs to the railways is already publically provided so whats the difference?
The rail network isn't a true private enterprise at all, it's a massively state funded and government directed enterprise with private sector players in it.
The taxpayer has never paid as much to the rail network as it currently does.
The roads are nationalised and are falling to bits because of a lack of funding to repair them. How to you know the railways wouldn't go the same way??
The M6 toll road is in pretty good nick and a great road to drive on (if a little costly). Oh wait, that's privately run isn't it!
The M6 toll road is in pretty good nick and a great road to drive on (if a little costly). Oh wait, that's privately run isn't it!
Without wishing to open a can of worms for our motorist chums, is it the private ownership of the M6 toll road that leads to it being in pretty good nick - or rather is it more to do with the unique way in which travellers pay for it through a system of tolls
Yea, good luck with that. If you are booking less than 2 weeks to go you'll never get anywhere near that, infact XC Advances on this route are often barely cheaper than the walkon fare. Plus many people go away for the weekend - I do - I can forget XC Advances at ANY price on the train I use most often. It's walkon, a combination of split tickets or the car. Currently, the train wins - just - because my split combo is the same price as the car but I don't need to faff with driving. If it gets much more expensive, the balance swings.
They are already paid - sunk costs. The VED and insurance bills is paid whether you leave the car in the station carpark or drive it to your final destination. Only marginal cost matters unless we are arguing you could sell the car and just use trains.
Even if they were not, since when was VED and insurance £15 a day?! That'd be £5.5k a year! Perhaps if you are 17, insuring a Supra Turbo, but for Mr Average, a 37 year old accountant from a leafy suburb, thats so OTT its laughable.
I used actual mpg not published MPG (I agree, published MPG is rubbish). A midsize family diesel hatch will easily get about 45mpg on an Exeter to Birmingham run.
It doesn't cost £110 to drive a Golf diesel or something from Exeter to Birmingham and back, inclusive of parking. Infact it doesnt even cost half that.
Unless you get a good deal on an Advance (Which, on some routes I agree, is a very easy thing to do, but others not so much) or you get creative with your ticketing then medium and long distance rail is very often noticeably more expensive than using the car if there are two of you and not much cheaper, if at all, if there is one of you.
Obviously there are occasions when the train is cheaper - when I find them, I'm very happy and I leave my car parked on the drive and take the train. I like travelling by train. But these occasions are becoming rarer which in a world of £1.40 a litre fuel is just bizarre.
My point was not trying to say that my numbers were right and yours were wrong, merely that in a scenario with as many variables as this, either of us can easily produce numbers that suit our own point of view. And so can the news media.
Big variations in fares for fixed distances are always going to happen on the railways, unless the industry moves to a rigid price-per-mile scheme. This might actually be worse as it wouldn't take into account how well used each route actually is, and would penalise passengers on quieter but longer routes whilst (arguably) undercharging for shorter high-density services.Goatboy said:This is mostly because rail offers hugely inconsistent value on fares rather than because either side is cherry picking. There are some fares which offer great value for money and make taking the car a really daft thing to do. This is great. Local journeys in the South West with a local railcard is one of these scenarios. It's absolutely excellent and really encourages people to avoid road use.
Yet there are other scenarios where the cost of rail travel just boggles the mind - in both directions. I once travelled from Birmingham to London, via Virgin, for £7.50. Comically cheap, ridiculously so in fact. I'd have considered it good value if it was double that and happily paid it. But then I try and buy an offpeak single for a 5 mile journey from Malvern Link to Worcester and it's a fiver...
My point was not trying to say that my numbers were right and yours were wrong, merely that in a scenario with as many variables as this, either of us can easily produce numbers that suit our own point of view. And so can the news media.
That doesn't quite make sense, but I can confirm CDRs are typically about 10p more than a CDS, yes (but they're now known as Off Peak Day).I was also told ( and if someone can confirm that this is right please ) that in the days if the Cheap Day Return is was only a 10p difference between a single and return ticket ?
The main view that came up on Twitter from T'North is that passengers dont mind paying extra for travel is there is a good standard of stock and services around.
I was also told ( and if someone can confirm that this is right please ) that in the days if the Cheap Day Return is was only a 10p difference between a single and return ticket ?
The main view that came up on Twitter from T'North is that passengers dont mind paying extra for travel is there is a good standard of stock and services around.
I was also told ( and if someone can confirm that this is right please ) that in the days if the Cheap Day Return is was only a 10p difference between a single and return ticket ?
I've posted this before; the whole "above inflation increases are needed to fund infrastructure improvements" does seem to be a lot of hot air.
Services, from my limited experience, were regularly shortformed in 2010 and I have no doubt that if I wandered along to Patchway or Filton Abbeywood next week I'd still find the same culprits (particularly the 7.36a.m or whatever it is these days service to Bristol) shortformed.
There's only so many times you can lie before you get caught out.
The easiest way to get close to that would be to replace new stock with new stock and then cascade down with the oldest stock dropping off at the bottom. That is similar to the what happened when the 185s were introduced and Northern got extra 158s as a result, putting them on to what were previously class 155 and 156 diagrams, with the 156s making their way on to what was previously class 150 diagrams and the 150s replacing 142s, with some 142s finishing up in storage. However, obviously when that happens people question why they are getting the cascaded stock and not new stock,
The roads are nationalised and are falling to bits because of a lack of funding to repair them. How to you know the railways wouldn't go the same way??
I'm not sure that you can pick and choose what to include in motoring costs. It's a bit misleading to compare a rail journey that includes a contribution to access charges, leasing, maintenance, staff costs etc etc etc , but ignore car excise duty (because it's already been paid)
This might help.
http://www.theaa.com/resources/Documents/pdf/motoring-advice/running-costs/petrol2013.pdf
So if you average 10,000 miles a year in a Focus, you'll be paying about 70p per mile for your journey - about £230
It's not misleading at all - it's entirely appropriate. There are fixed costs involved in both rail and road. For a car owner, he pays the fixed costs whether he takes his car or not.
There are only two numbers which matter to a car owner when deciding whether to use his car or use rail:
a) How much does the rail ticket cost me?
Track access charges, blah blah blah are all irrelevent to this question. The amount of money the car owner will pay is the price of the ticket he requires to make the journey. Thats it.
b) How much will it cost to use my car?
This doesn't include his insurance or his excise duty - its prepaid. It includes only marginal costs - the fuel he will use for the journey, the proportion of the tyres he will wear out, etc.
The 70p a mile for a Focus figure is completely misleading in this context because it's not as if he'll save that 70p a mile if he parks his car on the drive. He's still paying for that car even if he doesn't use it.
Why do you think that a train fare (where you need to pay for a driver, you need to pay for a Conductor, you need to be for signalling staff, you need to pay for a ticket office, you need to pay for the infrastructure, you need to pay for the leasing of the train etc) should always be cheaper than a car (where you discount all of these costs as "fixed" and therefore ignore them)?
I've posted this before; the whole "above inflation increases are needed to fund infrastructure improvements" does seem to be a lot of hot air.
Services, from my limited experience, were regularly shortformed in 2010 and I have no doubt that if I wandered along to Patchway or Filton Abbeywood next week I'd still find the same culprits (particularly the 7.36a.m or whatever it is these days service to Bristol) shortformed.
There's only so many times you can lie before you get caught out.
Goatboy said:The main benefit of electrification is reduced operating costs.
Will these be passed on?