Mintona
Established Member
I’d like to commute by train but would require public transport to run all night to be able to do it due to shifts.
Driving down to Brighton or Margate is quicker (train takes twice the time!) and fuel costs are roughly similar (maybe slightly less) but sitting in the car park at Clacket Lane chugging tea as you try not to fall asleep from your walk and drive both ways makes you realise how helpful it is to just be able to get on the train and have a nap or just look out the window and listen to music etc.
That assumes that you need a car for other purposes. As the average car costs over £3,000/year all in.
Whilst it's possible to get this lower there's going to be few that can get it below £1,000.
Anyway for 8 miles each way you'd be better buying an e-bike and it taking you about 40 minutes if you let it do all the work. Alternatively using one train and cycling the difference, which would likely reduce the journey time to sub 30 minutes. Whilst it's still longer you'd be able to have a nice chunk of exercise on the way home without needing to go elsewhere.
With short distances and a change of train and/or the need for a bus public transport is always going to work out badly time wise.
Of course changing to working from home, even one day a week, is likely to change the maths. As the car wouldn't cost much less per year (mostly just fuel costs), but with rail you only pay for what you use.
Although season tickets work out less good value the fewer days you travel if you work Tue-Fri one week and Mon-Thurs the next you could still benefit from a weekly ticket.
For those who still need a car there's still many households where they could, for a lot less money, cope with just one car and use rail occasional with much more walking and cycling.
Jeez, just when the railways (dft and tocs) seemed to have moved away from all this essential travel business and basically yelling at people not to use trains, they're going to try and price people off even more.
With people piling onto beaches, into bars and packing onto planes (including middle seats) I wonder what the railway industry's (especially maybe the likes of lner, Avanti, xc etc ) medium and long term plan is because right now they're running a pretty successful marketing campaign to discourage a lot of people from using trains for an awfully long time.
Where did you get £3000 from I bought the car and given it a service + tyres for much less than that!
A bike isn't suitable at all especially for treacherous winter conditions, plus I can't ride it on a dual carriageway so the journey would be longer than that.
I said the average, clearly there's going to be some who do manage it for a lot less than that to make that the average, however there's those for whom it's a lot more than that.
Also that's all costs, so insurance, VED, parking, fuel, etc.
Whist not everywhere is suitable to be cycled, that's more the fault of the infrastructure not being suitable. There's should be no reason why a duel carriageway couldn't have an off road cycle lane to allow cyclists to use it.
Cheaper when you factor in the running costs of a car
Where have you got £3000 from? Seems like an overinflated figure plucked from the air.
If you include 10,000 miles a year in that cost seems reasonable. 45mpg at £1.20 a litre is about 12p/mile in petrol, so £1200. Add in £300 insurance, £1k/year in deprecation, £300 in services/mot and that's £2800 a year. Total 30p/mile.
Again you're comparing traveling by train if you don't own a car vs travelling by car
Compare traveling by train if you do own a car vs travelling by car
I do not want to book in advance to get very low fares, because it is too stressful. I am too far from a station to walk, and I do not trust trains or buses to get me to the starting point - unless I allow an hour or more for "failed connections". And nor do I want to drive to somewhere like Runcorn for a pre-specified train time, because one can never be certain that there will be no congestion or roadworks on the way, so time is again wasted by leaving home an hour or more earlier than necessary. The roads around the Widnes Runcorn bridge can be total h*ll at times.
Similar issues here, get the train into London before the last possible service (extra 30 minutes). Then allow a little extra in case the cab doesn't turn up at the booked time. With cabs at each end and the fare into London are added on an Advance fare needs to be VERY low to be competitive.I have a similar problem with low Advance fares. The bus from my village to the nearest railway station is only hourly. The bus arrives at the station at xx51 each hour. The train service for the unreserved first leg of any journey departs at xx58. From the bus stop there is a main road to cross and then lots of steep steps down on to the platform. The bus would not have to be many minutes late for the train to be missed. It’s too stressful waiting in the village for the bus knowing that even if the bus is only 5 minutes late it would mean paying for another full price train ticket. Therefore I have to add one hour to the beginning of my journey.
This is so true. It comes down to "The right tool for the job" and opening up options for people. Every single one of these comparisons is obsessed with the city centre journeys, where driving is usually not the right tool, but completely ignores the many more where driving is equally is good, let alone those where public transport just cannot compete. Which then turns into bashing the imaginary elite that dares to own a car, when reality shows this isn't the case for the vast majority of car owners. Running a car can be no more expensive (or even cheaper) than only using public transport. Its great that many people are able to live their entire lives where public transport works, but there is a huge part of the UK where this isn't cost/time effective, or even possible at all.It's rare in the UK. Despite the outlook of enthusiasts, most people here use trains either never or infrequently.
People for whom it does work out almost always fall into one of two categories:
- Commuters within London and the South East, whose road journeys would have been appalling
- Long distance passengers travelling on a direct intercity train between major railheads, with a car journey and station car park at one end and often a taxi at the other. Principally this is wealthy people
Commuting into other cities makes up a remarkably small proportion because they have such a low market share, rural journeys or journeys between towns on trains barely register. So to sum up the question: not actually much.
That's exactly what happened to me when I was commuting by public transport daily for 6 weeks. During that time I did almost no leisure bus/train journeys because the working week left me so fed up of public transport. The commute was a bus-train-bus move, and it was the long bus sections that were causing problems when trying to connect to a 2tph rail service to/from Acton Main Line. The train itself was very nice, nowhere near the level of busy that the other peak services on the line (those from the West Drayton direction) usually are. But in the morning it required a bus journey to Southall Station that took anywhere between 10 and 25 minutes (the latter timings making it faster to walk!), and on the way back the bus to Acton Main Line Station took anywhere between 30-60 minutes. I did sometimes go via Zone 1 but the trains were extremely busy there so I hated that option. Total journey time about 60-70 minutes when things worked, but often extended to 80 minutes, and several times in the evenings it crossed 90 minutes.Moving forward I'd like to use trains 2x a week for commuting (I'm 10min away from Manchester) or every other week. Couldn't put up with it every day now. Using trains every day for work blunts/borderline removes the appeal of using them for leisure, as I'm sure you'll no doubt have experienced. Were you commuting from Helsby every day or did you live closer to MAN at the time? Helsby is a fair way - like western Surrey/eastern Hampshire or St Albans/Hitchin to London I think!
This is why I got a car in February. Yes that £2,500 would have allowed a lot of holidays and many people my age (25) would definitely have done that, but I went for a different option that worked better for me. Certainly would have been nice to make up for the lack of holidays during my teenage years (as my dad knew that saving up for driving lessons was more important) and university years (not enough money), but Covid has made holidays less of an option anyway!Most people don't own a car because it is the most cost effective thing to do. They own a car in order to have the convenience of having their own car. And in many cases they are happy to spend more to have a 'nice' car.
Which then turns into bashing the imaginary elite that dares to own a car, when reality shows this isn't the case for the vast majority of car owners. Ru
When you already own a car, it pretty much is. Other variable costs are minimal.The problem is that the general perception is that cars cost what the fuel costs to get about
Most people don't own a car because it is the most cost effective thing to do. They own a car in order to have the convenience of having their own car. And in many cases they are happy to spend more to have a 'nice' car.
Observations from family members who continue to travel in peak periods ,show continuing light loadings (at best 50% on Thameslink Midland on a few trains) , and empty off peak - largely.
Whilst people I talk to "miss" office contacts etc - there is no massive desire to go back to the old 5 day a week - but some sort of compromise 1/2 days a week. Maybe some of it "off peak"
One observation is (locally) zero use of station car parks - a maximum of 15 cars noted at Hemel Hempstead yesterday. A catastrophic non regulated revenue flow for some operators.
I don't think I know anyone who wants to work 100% from home, who does not aleady do so, but you are absolutely right that a significant number of people would like a compromise; I created a thread and the results were interesting:Observations from family members who continue to travel in peak periods ,show continuing light loadings (at best 50% on Thameslink Midland on a few trains) , and empty off peak - largely.
Whilst people I talk to "miss" office contacts etc - there is no massive desire to go back to the old 5 day a week - but some sort of compromise 1/2 days a week. Maybe some of it "off peak"
One observation is (locally) zero use of station car parks - a maximum of 15 cars noted at Hemel Hempstead yesterday. A catastrophic non regulated revenue flow for some operators.
Many people within the rail industry really aren't keen to have your custom; that needs to change.I have a similar problem with low Advance fares. The bus from my village to the nearest railway station is only hourly. The bus arrives at the station at xx51 each hour. The train service for the unreserved first leg of any journey departs at xx58. From the bus stop there is a main road to cross and then lots of steep steps down on to the platform. The bus would not have to be many minutes late for the train to be missed. It’s too stressful waiting in the village for the bus knowing that even if the bus is only 5 minutes late it would mean paying for another full price train ticket. Therefore I have to add one hour to the beginning of my journey.
And I, for one, won't be shedding any tears. For too long people have been milked for designing to leave their car at the station and choosing the environmentally friendly option. At the very least car parking rates should have been regulated like fares.A catastrophic non regulated revenue flow for some operators.
And I, for one, won't be shedding any tears. For too long people have been milked for designing to leave their car at the station and choosing the environmentally friendly option. At the very least car parking rates should have been regulated like fares.
The notion that parking at some of these rural outpost stations should be chargeable (as Greater Anglia have done at nearly all their stations in the last few years, as the money began getting tight) is frankly absurd, and I'm sure it needlessly puts some potential passengers off bothering.
Not what most people get though, is it?
Currently there is no incentive to use the train, case in point myself and my father need to travel from Newcastle Central to Droitwich Spa. For a standard ticket one way for the two us comes to just under £645 which is beyond extortion.