Playing with trains/ HS2 & 3

[MrGongGong]

Quite - although I'd rather thought that £150k p.a. was the cost of a first class season ticket on it.

Anyway, your point about affordability of fares is a valid one, especially given the usually vastly greater cost of train travel as compared to most flights. I had to go from Bristol to Glasgow and back recently; the all inclusive cost of the flights was under £100 and the comparable train fare was a whisker under £300, which is an even bigger joke when you consider that the flight time is less than an hour in each direction whereas the fastest train service takes more than 5½ hours in each direction. OK, train is city centre to city centre and you don't have so long a wait for train check in as you do at the airport, but the overall journey duration is still very much greater by train and the trip is at least three times the price!

I don't think you are comparing like with like
I quick look at train fares shows that to pay £300 you would have to go first class
so are you suggesting that Queasy Jet is the equivalent ???


But the point is taken

[ahinton]

I don't think you are comparing like with like
I quick look at train fares shows that to pay £300 you would have to go first class
so are you suggesting that Queasy Jet is the equivalent ???

But the point is taken

That's true but (a) at least a low cost flight only provides marginal discomfort for less than an hour (which is why comparing like with like one would really have to look at first class train fares) and also (b) even standard class is dearer - and who in his/her right mind would want in any case to be trapped on a slow train or more from Bristol to Glasgow for almost a quarter of a day when there's no need to do so?!

[teamsaint]

I think that one part of the issue on pricing is that, quite rightly, we regard rail transport as a public service. Its just as important for people on £15/20/30k a year to get to their place of work in the morning as it is for the highly paid exec.
so we think that pricing should reflect this, although it doesn't tend to in reality.

Air travel is , again perhaps rightly, regarded as a luxury, or as a quite reasonably subject to the laws of the economic jungle, and we tend to accept this.

I don't know if this is how things should be, but I do know that the (quasi) market forces at play in the rail industry are a disaster.

[teamsaint]

That's true but (a) at least a low cost flight only provides marginal discomfort for less than an hour (which is why comparing like with like one would really have to look at first class train fares) and also (b) even standard class is dearer - and who in his/her right mind would want in any case to be trapped on a slow train or more from Bristol to Glasgow for almost a quarter of a day when there's no need to do so?!

there are trains from Bristol to glasgow?!
Blimey.

[eighthobstruction]

Birmingham....Bull Ring!!!!

Lets slow everything down and have some Sustainibility....

Chug Chug You Fat Controller....£3

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's interesting just how much many southerners are squealing. Yet the South has exploited the North and Scotland for most of the last hundred years, and perhaps longer.

[teamsaint]

It's interesting just how much many southerners are squealing. Yet the South has exploited the North and Scotland for most of the last hundred years, and perhaps longer.

may be true, but there are plenty of exploited southerners too,
(look at house price to salary ratios ).

We are all in the pockets of the banks.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Its good to see that the French continue to do the right thing:

http://parisbytrain.com/files/2009/01/tgv_map.jpg

Compare with this soggy compromise:

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/United-Kingdom-HS2-Route-Map1.jpg

[subcontrabass]

Are you quite sure about that, Steve? I only ask because Boris was on the screen just now huffing and puffing about it being a disgrace if this connection was not in the plans. He isn't always up to speed on these matters, of course...

The maps for the first phase include a linking track from somewhere north of Euston to join HS1 just to the east of St Pancras.

[MrGongGong]

Its good to see that the French continue to do the right thing:
http://parisbytrain.com/files/2009/01/tgv_map.jpg

That Boulez certainly makes the trains run on time !!

[Serial_Apologist]

That Boulez certainly makes the trains run on time !!

That's complete Boulez, as you know!!!

(Time to put my Patti in the oven...)

[ahinton]

I think that one part of the issue on pricing is that, quite rightly, we regard rail transport as a public service. Its just as important for people on £15/20/30k a year to get to their place of work in the morning as it is for the highly paid exec.

For one thing, not everyone regards these things in the same way but, having said that, all public transport is to some degree a public service, be it air, coach, train or whatever. However, just as you can't put on a concert at Wigmore Hall, sell all the tickets and so much as break even, you can't run a train service and expect that, even if you fill every seat on every train, you'll break even. Running a train service costs a fortune in the building of track, stations and the like, rolling stock, maintenance, staff costs including administration and marketing and all the rest; if the fares don't cover all of this (which they never can), who's going to pay for it and with what? If you increase taxes enough to guarantee doing this throughout the country by means of taxpayer subsidy, you'll end up bankrupting some of the employers and then there will be less jobs for people to need trains to get them to.

Air travel is hardly a luxury compared to train travel when comparable journeys on the latter usually cost so much more than on the former. Of course air travel competes with train travel only on longer distance journeys, but it's no luxury, as anyone who's travelled on any of the low-cost airlines knows well!

All public transport is subject to the laws of the econonic jungle, but only because it can't be provided without money! And, since running air, rail and coach services involves procurement, I don't see how it can escape market forces either, to the extent that the providers are all players in the market place who trade with other players in the same market place.

[Stunsworth]

I quick look at train fares shows that to pay £300 you would have to go first class

A second class day return tomorrow from Manchester to London is £296

[MrGongGong]

A second class day return tomorrow from Manchester to London is £296

But £230 if you buy two singles

its madness indeed !


you could go first class one of the legs for less than the £296 daft

[ahinton]

Fine - but it's all much less if you fly!

I'm not against train travel - far from it, indeed, I'm all for it - but when the prices compare to air travel so badly, the "choice" is obvious, unless one can afford to regard train travel as a luxury that's nevertheless within one's budget...