Commuting 60 miles: it should be cheaper by train than by car

[HSTEd]

Wast here ever a "golden age" where train travel was generally cheaper than motoring? I'm happy for there to be some subsidies but given the large amount of jobs in the modern railway industry, is it reasonable for the general taxpayer to cover the cost of these professional salaries so that the minority of people who take the train can do so at a marginal cost equivalent to a tank full of petrol?

In addition the modern railway industry has not really been particularly good at adapting to reduce this cost base.

A fully modernised railway would likely employ a fraction of the staff our one does.
Even the rather unimpressive ROC programme is unlikely to be completed in my lifetime.

 

[JohnMcL7]

Equally your £3k could also get you a car which SEEMS decent for few months then develops a major fault leaving it beyond economical repair. If you can afford it PCP or lease is the safe, reliable car option from a financial perspective so is a better comparison when weighing up the pros and cons of a hypothetical commute by car or rail.

Your assumption is that if you buy a brand new car you're guaranteed it will never go wrong and therefore always get you to work is simply not true, a new car means any big repairs shouldn't cost you anything as it's done under warranty but that argument doesn't work from a financial perspective because you're guaranteed to lose out hugely on depreciation whereas you're not guaranteed to have to pay out on repairs on a second hand car. I have an older car now and one of the reasons for that is because it's mechanically simple, no turbocharger, no Exhaust Gas Recirculation system (EGR), no Dual Mass Flywheel (DMF), no Diesel Particulate filter (DPF), no Selective Catalyst Reduction system (SCR) and not even a timing belt so like many Japanese cars of its type, it's had no major or even minor issues. One of my previous cars which was also one of the newest I've owned had a single sensor fail which put it into limp home and rendered the car useless which can happen at any point in the car's life.

On top of all that a brand new lease car makes even less sense if hammering the car with a lot of miles as that's going to make hefty depreciation even worse.

 

[JohnMcL7]

You take the train:

• Some is paid to sell you a ticket
• Some is paid to drive the train
• Some is paid to "conduct" the train
• Some is paid to clean the train
• Some is paid to control the signals
• Fuel costs money
• Leasing the train costs money
• Leaving aside a percentage to cover "delay repay" costs money
• Maintaining the track costs money

Sometimes that can be several people required to perform those tasks, generally above the average UK salary (say over £25k - not intending to get into an argument about staff wages, just pointing out that there are a lot of highly skilled professional jobs in the railway industry). The ticket price is intended to reflect these kind of costs

If you drive then you are either doing all of those things yourself (driving, cleaning), or they are things paid for by general taxation (traffic lights, road maintenance) - other than fuel. And the fuel costs for a modern car are going to be relatively low (given improvements in mpg) compared to a train that may still be running a diesel engine from thirty years ago and therefore not very energy efficient.

So, if you are only comparing the price at the petrol pump with the cost of a train ticket then it's a bit like complaining that Air B&B is cheaper than a hotel (when a hotel means paying for receptionist/ cleaner/ security etc, rather than just renting a place).

I'm all for train travel being "affordable", but when you consider how many jobs there are to make sure that your journey works, I'm surprised that people are surprised at the fact that train travel generally costs more than you performing the majority of those tasks yourself.

I'm not sure why you should be surprised, your examples imply all these jobs are labour intensive but it's the complete opposite with many of these jobs being one to many, many people. Also you do contradict yourself by not only mentioning items that car owners have to pay for but also have to pay vastly more for, unfortunately not only does fuel cost money for cars but I strongly disagree with your assertion that an old diesel can't manage the MPG of a modern vehicle. VW dieselgate was the tip of the iceberg with most companies lying through their teeth about mpg and emission figures so the huge mpg improvements just don't exist in real driving, if I had to choose any of my cars for fuel efficiency it would be an old VW PD diesel from the 90's as that thing could manage consistently high mpg whereas its common rail successor throttled by a DPF couldn't get close. Even an old diesel DMU diesel leaking fuel should still be much more efficient than me on my own in a 35mpg car yet my car is vastly cheaper than train journeys.

Cars aren't free either by the way, you need to pay for them too in most cases and even my old car is several decades newer than any of the trains that run up here so they've plenty time to run off their depreciation.

These days I would actually prefer to travel by train especially as I can travel a decent distance on bike these days so the train is a perfect partner. However the cost by train is so absurdly expensive not just looking at my fuel costs but my running costs (which I'd be able to pay off with just a couple of long trips) that I can't justify it when that's comparing standard-class seating which is in no way comparable to the fairly luxurious ride the car offers.

Your Air B&B comparison doesn't work either, they are slightly cheaper but you're still paying for much the same as they do still need cleaning and other services plus fundamentally it's a similar experience to a hotel in that you go to a building and stay there. A train is on the other hand is fundamentally different, I can't take a train from my door step not can I tell where the train to go or when to go I'm constrained by the train so for that significant lack of flexibility,convenience and comfort it's quite reasonable to expect to pay less when on top of that the costs don't scale either despite your claims however at times it's many times more to take the train.

I could understand the costs a bit better if it was a modern, fast and comfortable railway system but it's none of those things and to see someone defending the system as the way it should be is well...more than a bit surprising.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I could understand the costs a bit better if it was a modern, fast and comfortable railway system but it's none of those things and to see someone defending the system as the way it should be is well...more than a bit surprising.

Few bits of it are all three of those things, but the WCML, ECML and GWML are certainly fast and modern (try driving London-Manchester legally at anything like that time) and while views on seats differ the TOCs have realised that legroom and tables are actually fairly important so comfort overall is increasing, and we've even got the likes of the Class 397 which returns to the sort of layout you got in Mk1 and Mk2 coaches for those who like that.

On the European stage it really isn't bad and has considerable advantages over some of the systems, and will even more so once HS2 is added.

 

[JohnMcL7]

Few bits of it are all three of those things, but the WCML, ECML and GWML are certainly fast and modern (try driving London-Manchester legally at anything like that time) and while views on seats differ the TOCs have realised that legroom and tables are actually fairly important so comfort overall is increasing, and we've even got the likes of the Class 397 which returns to the sort of layout you got in Mk1 and Mk2 coaches for those who like that.

On the European stage it really isn't bad and has considerable advantages over some of the systems, and will even more so once HS2 is added.

That is a fair point but coming from further north we don't have any of those but we still have the high ticket costs, I'm sure it's the same for many areas.

 

[Harpers Tate]

That looks like a pretty good, thorough, way of accounting for costs.

One little niggle: You also need to take account of the £20 180 of cash that you didn't have between buying the car and selling it for that amount two years later......

Correct, but not included because, in fact, in my case, the capital was in an investment fund that actually fell, ever so slightly, in value during the two years, so it was, in fact a tiny advantage to have spent it. Trivial amount either way, as you say.

 

[Bald Rick]

Moderator note: split from www.railforums.co.uk/threads/26-30-railcard-survey-plans-to-bring-in-new-restrictions.202607/#post-4501773

My commute works out cheaper to drive in my car than to use the Train for a roughly 60 mile round trip. It shouldn't work out like that; something is wrong .

Why not? Price is just one part of the equation people (unconsciously) use when choosing transport mode. It’s a lot cheaper to drive from St Albans to St Pancras than to get the train, but there’s a reason why practically no one of the 10-15,000 people who do the return trip every day do so.

 

[cb a1]

Moderator note: split from www.railforums.co.uk/threads/26-30-railcard-survey-plans-to-bring-in-new-restrictions.202607/#post-4501773

My commute works out cheaper to drive in my car than to use the Train for a roughly 60 mile round trip. It shouldn't work out like that; something is wrong .

If commuter trains were all running carrying mainly fresh air, then we'd know they were too expensive. Comparing one person's journey against a whole system isn't particularly informative.

For me, the train is cheaper because:
a) I can sleep.
b) fuel + car parking costs > cost of season ticket never mind various other marginal costs of tyres, etc.
c) I can drink alcohol.
d) If really pushed, I can work.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

I would love to use the train to go to work, it doesn’t cost me anything.

However, for some of my shifts, starting as early as 04:15 the earliest train doesn’t get me to work until 7am, and the N21 night bus now only runs on Friday and Saturday meaning for most of my early shifts I have no choice but to drive.

Same with late shifts, if they finish later than the 22:45 departure home, I’m driving! (Now there’s a 00:01 departure, that has eased a little)...

It’s also not as simple as turning up for the train, I still have to get to the station, first buses of the day do not get in to Durham with sufficient time to catch the train and being first of the day cannot be relied upon, car parking isn’t free in the city and not being LNER staff I can’t park at the station unless I pay, the nearest I can get any free parking is a 20 min walk away near to my daughters secondary school but that also involves a steep climb up Redhills Bank to get back to my car (the terrace to the left before the viaduct approaching Durham, it’s steep!) mind the station approach isn’t exactly tame either, but it’s only about 1/3 the length and less of an incline than redhills.

 

[PeterC]

If commuter trains were all running carrying mainly fresh air, then we'd know they were too expensive. Comparing one person's journey against a whole system isn't particularly informative.

For me, the train is cheaper because:
a) I can sleep.
b) fuel + car parking costs > cost of season ticket never mind various other marginal costs of tyres, etc.
c) I can drink alcohol.
d) If really pushed, I can work.

City centre parking normally tips the balance in favour of public transport. When I was commuting parking plus congestion charge tipped the balance massively in favour of the train.

 

[underbank]

However, for some of my shifts, starting as early as 04:15 the earliest train doesn’t get me to work until 7am, and the N21 night bus now only runs on Friday and Saturday meaning for most of my early shifts I have no choice but to drive.

Same with late shifts, if they finish later than the 22:45 departure home, I’m driving! (Now there’s a 00:01 departure, that has eased a little)...

Yep, we need a proper 7 day service that starts early enough and finishes late enough to be useful for far more people. Same with the Manchester Airport services - I've never been able to use it as the earliest service doesn't get me to the airport in time for the morning peak departures, and the latest services don't leave late enough for the late evening arrivals, especially since we're told we have to allow for delays/cancellations etc.