Despite £3500 being a shed load of money, I could never drive daily for the same cost (factoring in parking and the congestion charge, and even taking off the days I'd be on holiday where I've paid to use the train). And my time is also worth money, which on a bad day had been as much as 3 hours door to door on a 25 mile journey.
I tried for a while and it was horrible as I couldn't be sure when I'd arrive at work or get home. Anyone saying they'll ditch the train for their car may well find it isn't a better option rather quickly.
It's the opposite for me. Even factoring in all of the costs such as MOT and road tax, driving is cheaper than getting the train and takes about 1/3 of the time. I would get the train if it was a feasible option.
Actually, if you drive to work you are paying far more than 100% of the cost of your journey. Motorists pay billions more in road tax and fuel duty than is even spent on the road network.
A 31% subsidy sounds about right. Why should low paid workers in shops and factories in the Midlands pay more tax so that well paid people can have cheaper commutes into London from their suburban home?
Its more than likely that the peak time commuter routes are profitable so the taxpayer is contributing nothing to them.
What the taxpayer is subsidising is the off peak travel and less well use routes.
It's the opposite for me. Even factoring in all of the costs such as MOT and road tax, driving is cheaper than getting the train and takes about 1/3 of the time. I would get the train if it was a feasible option.
If I didn't work in London and had to travel east or west, driving would beat the train for me too.
I now have to a do a fairly regular journey to somewhere that is quicker by car (20 mins) than rail (60-90 mins) and cheaper, because the train route requires going into London and back out. Therefore, bus, train, tube, train. And as it goes into London it's expensive too.
I think people need to pick the best option for them. For many people this will always be the train, but can't be all the time.
Its more than likely that the peak time commuter routes are profitable so the taxpayer is contributing nothing to them.
What the taxpayer is subsidising is the off peak travel and less well use routes.
A bit of both. There's a huge cost to maintain a railway to operate at near 100% capacity and then to try and create more capacity (while trying to keep things running throughout) and for all those trains that wind up filling up depots and sidings for most of the day.
But, yes, subsidising the lesser used routes is a definite cost but a worthwhile one which has many indirect benefits to the economy.
It wasn't a disgrace then however. Hindsight shows it was madness (but there were many duplicated lines from the disjointed nature of the original railway companies in competition with each other) but back then it was fair to assume that the car would stop anyone wanting to use a train ever again.
I'd like to see what else people are spending money on before their complaints are valid.
People can car-share and cycle to work for next to nothing. You can't expect the UK population to multiply without extra cost required for transport maintenance. It will keep going up until something breaks and they HAVE to think of alternative ways to get around.
But why should everything be geared towards forcing more and more people onto the motorcar on congested roads over combined long stretches?
Reducing the number of rail carriages on peak time train services (using 1 x 3 carriage train instead of using 2 coupled together, with the 2nd train now sitting in depot doing nothing causing even more horrific overcrowding) while extortionately increasing the rail fares, and also cutting back on parallel and connecting bus services is terrible . For the long distance commuter it's a complete nightmare now.
If I didn't work in London and had to travel east or west, driving would beat the train for me too.
I now have to a do a fairly regular journey to somewhere that is quicker by car (20 mins) than rail (60-90 mins) and cheaper, because the train route requires going into London and back out. Therefore, bus, train, tube, train. And as it goes into London it's expensive too.
I think people need to pick the best option for them. For many people this will always be the train, but can't be all the time.
I think for many people living inside of London, especially the north where the tube is extensive, I think train / tube will usually be the best option. But I'd be really surprised if it was the best for "many people" outside of major cities!
Nobody wants to see another Beeching style devastation. The Beeching cuts way back then was a total disgrace cutting off many a community.
That is exactly what Nottinghamshire County Council have done with subsidy reduction or axing. Its caused many a bus service to rural areas to be axed with no replacement leaving people stranded, employees forced to drive or lose their jobs and major inconvenience for passengers where much fewer services remain. All to placate public anger about public transport being subsidised by taxpayers (it does exist, more so than fare hikes) and probably allow councillors to have another nice hike to their pay. There is a fair amount of anger against the idea of subsidising public transport and its an easy target for cuts.
The same thing will happen with the trains, but they don't have the luxury of hiking fares across the board. I'd expect hikes on things train companies can hike (ie. car park charges) but we'll also see station closures, service axes or reductions, axe or reduction of cheaper off-peak and advance fares and job losses, as has happened with the buses.
It wasn't a disgrace then however. Hindsight shows it was madness (but there were many duplicated lines from the disjointed nature of the original railway companies in competition with each other) but back then it was fair to assume that the car would stop anyone wanting to use a train ever again.
It was a disgrace then and it remains so today.
The Road Haulage Association were major backers of the Conservative Party at the time and the Minister for Transport had a major shareholding in a road construction company. One of the reasons Dr. Beeching was chosen to head the Railway Board and compile his report, with a deliberately narrow, purely financial, constraint was because the government knew he could be relied upon to produce the "right" answer as far as Ernest Marples, the Minister for Transport, and the Road Hulage Association, were concerned.
When you look at the way the figures were manipulated to show branch lines in the worst possible light, using figuers and statistics that were nonsensical, coupled with deliberate government policy to close lines as rapidly as possible before any protests could be organised show what a disgrace it was.
"Duplicate" routes is a perfect example, whilst two routes might have started off at the same point and terminated at the same point they usually went by very dofferent routes and served different communities. There were "duplicate" routes between Plymouth and Exeter for example, one went via Dawlish along the coast, the other via Okehampton. To save money one was closed, the Okehampton route. As a result there were no rail services west of Exeter for six weeks after the storms earlier this year. Yes, there were plenty of lines that needed to close, but much of what was eventually closed, especially in the late 60s and 70s, was completely unjustified. The Great Central line being the perfect example. If that had remained open, as it should have, the route for the proposed HS2 would already be there and only need to be upgraded at a cost considerably cheaper, and a lot less controversial, than HS2.
I know the history but still believe that people did think that roads were the future. People would have a car, goods would travel on lorries and vans, and buses and coaches could replace trains and be far more flexible.
Even with the huge increase in rail usage, mostly due to commuting and super cheap advance fares, there are loads of people that look down on public transport and would drive - and never use something as 'low' as a bus.
Transport in the UK seems to expensive compared to our European counterparts. I was reminded about this when I recently went travelling in Europe. Being a tourist and wanting to explore the city, I bought a travel card in each, for the central zones (1 to 2) or equivalent.
Here's a rough like-for-like comparison for each, walk up fare on a paper ticket like any tourist would buy...
(Home) London - £9.00 Zones 1-2
Paris - £5.42 (Paris Mobilis zones 1-2)
Budapest - £4.21 (covers all buses, trams and metro in city centre)
Berlin - £5.45 (zones a & b)
New York - $2.50 (£1.50) - covers the entire subway system.
I know the history but still believe that people did think that roads were the future. People would have a car, goods would travel on lorries and vans, and buses and coaches could replace trains and be far more flexible.
Even with the huge increase in rail usage, mostly due to commuting and super cheap advance fares, there are loads of people that look down on public transport and would drive - and never use something as 'low' as a bus.
Ernest Marples thought the future lay in roads because he had a vested interest in believing that. There were vested interests that also encouraged that view with a number of mis-information reports appearing in the media from the early 60s onwarsd. If you tell people the same myth often enough it becomes "fact" and then becomes "public opinion". The government were actively encouraging people off the railways and in to cars long before The Beeching Report, they were also leaking exaggerated reports of how severe the cuts were going to be so that when the report came out everyone would be happy as the recommendations weren't as "bad" as they had feared.
Even at the time people knew full well busses would never fill the gap left by the closure of the railways. It was simply used as an excuse at the time when people said that closing the railways would leave people in remote locations without access to public transport. It was never intended as a serious option.
With ever increasing congestion today there are many routes that were closed under, at best, dubious circumstances, that would be highly profitable today. It is getting harder and taking longer to drive in to many towns and cities today, the railway would have provided the perfect alternative. Bristol being a perfect example.
Ernest Marples thought the future lay in roads because he had a vested interest in believing that.
Of course, but it was an easy sell to people who must have also thought the motorcar was the future of, well, everything.
That of course helps the haulage industry, but most people weren't event thinking about that - they were just wanting new roads for them (and, sure, let lorries use them - who knew that one day we'd allow gigantic lorries to tear them up!).
My point is that back then, I think the romance of the railways was dying and the car gave everyone a personal freedom. People could easily become quite snobbish and look down on those who had to use a train and mix with others (well, unless going first class).
It was totally naive, and ultimately wrong, and in the 1990s, road congestion, increasing fuel costs, insurance, speed cameras and other anti-motorist policies must have helped the massive return to the rails, and consequently now we have massive investment in the railways and the reinstatement of many old lines, adding new tracks back that were ripped up (to save maintenance) and a restart of electrification that will take more diesel trains off the rails. More money being spent than goodness knows when.
I stick with the opinion that hindsight is a wonderful thing. We now know (and have known for some considerable time) that most of the closures were wrong, but at that very time it would have been easy to believe.
In fact, I only need to think back to when I started driving in 1991 and, bar using the tube in London - especially at night for pubbing/clubbing, rarely used trains at all for longer journeys. I had a car, I had my music, so why would I sit on a train?
These days, I still love driving but I generally plan our trips out starting by looking at the train. Only if it's not practical will I go to 'plan b'. I think more and more people think that way, hence the massive demand and the need for us to get on and open old lines, build new ones (such as HS2 and then HS3, Crossrail 2 and beyond) and introduce smarter ticketing that works nationwide on all forms of transport.
New York - $2.50 (£1.50) - covers the entire subway system.
In London, tourists will now likely have a tourist Oyster (chances are they'll buy before they even get here) so I doubt many people still pay the horrendous cash-fares. They'd probably wonder what a paper ticket was!
I would say that London buses are an incredible bargain though. Many buses travel incredible distances and for a fixed fee.
People outside of London (or any other area with a similar setup) must be so angry to have to pay so much to travel just a few stops in some cases (depending on the fare stages or zones). By me, there's the ridiculous situation where a bus will cost me £3.30 return for a 10 minute journey, that by train costs £1.80 return! When buses cost almost twice as much as a train, you know something has seriously gone wrong.
The bus is also only every 30 minutes, and stops in the evening with no service on a Saturday or Sunday. The train runs from 5am to 1am, seven days a week, with a train every 20 minutes at worst, and maybe every 10 at best.
Soon I'll be able to use Oyster on the train, while the bus still requires exact money only (and someone that doesn't travel a lot won't have a clue what the fare is, so will probably not even bother).
Of course, but it was an easy sell to people who must have also thought the motorcar was the future of, well, everything.
That of course helps the haulage industry, but most people weren't event thinking about that - they were just wanting new roads for them (and, sure, let lorries use them - who knew that one day we'd allow gigantic lorries to tear them up!).
My point is that back then, I think the romance of the railways was dying and the car gave everyone a personal freedom. People could easily become quite snobbish and look down on those who had to use a train and mix with others (well, unless going first class).
If that were true then how does it explain the skewed figures used to "justify" many of the closures? Many things that had been implimented, or could be implemented cheaply and quickly, that would save the lines ear-marked for closure were ignored. The cost figures for maintaining the lines were vastly over-inflated. If there was a public appetite to close the railways such methods wouldn't have been needed, they were used precisely because there was so much opposition at the time.
If "back then" the romance of the railways was dying, people would have been lining up to cheer the closures, except that on virtually every line that was closed that was far from the case. No social or economic factor was taken in to account when a line was scheduled to be closed, something that affected many areas, especially those reliant on tourism, for a number of years.
The Road Haulage Association were major backers of the Conservative Party at the time and the Minister for Transport had a major shareholding in a road construction company. One of the reasons Dr. Beeching was chosen to head the Railway Board and compile his report, with a deliberately narrow, purely financial, constraint was because the government knew he could be relied upon to produce the "right" answer as far as Ernest Marples, the Minister for Transport, and the Road Hulage Association, were concerned.
When you look at the way the figures were manipulated to show branch lines in the worst possible light, using figuers and statistics that were nonsensical, coupled with deliberate government policy to close lines as rapidly as possible before any protests could be organised show what a disgrace it was.
"Duplicate" routes is a perfect example, whilst two routes might have started off at the same point and terminated at the same point they usually went by very dofferent routes and served different communities. There were "duplicate" routes between Plymouth and Exeter for example, one went via Dawlish along the coast, the other via Okehampton. To save money one was closed, the Okehampton route. As a result there were no rail services west of Exeter for six weeks after the storms earlier this year. Yes, there were plenty of lines that needed to close, but much of what was eventually closed, especially in the late 60s and 70s, was completely unjustified. The Great Central line being the perfect example. If that had remained open, as it should have, the route for the proposed HS2 would already be there and only need to be upgraded at a cost considerably cheaper, and a lot less controversial, than HS2.
Creating this HS2 luxury for the rich while at the same closing other stations and branch lines that are more essential and a lifeline leaving the rest to suffer from becoming a backwater is disgraceful
They think that fares can be hiked so much that they will create the pressure pot effect making it so unattractive to travel by train that they force more enough people off the trains giving them the excuse to shut the interchange stations for the branch line. Meaning that the branch lines have to close as well, as the interchange station got most of their passengers from the branch lines. Most still generally travel by train beyond the interchange station to the terminal station.
I am not arguing with you that the way it was handled WAS manipulated by someone with an agenda, just that it was incredibly easy to sell to people.. and not everyone would have been against it.
Just as people today moan about paying for things they don't use, they would have done back then. If you were going to buy a car, why would you want to pay for running trains for a handful of people?
Totally selfish, sure, but there have always been selfish people.
We are quite lucky that most railway services are protected. Train operators can't just decide to stop running trains to a station, or decide to end services at 9pm instead of midnight (or whatever). They must agree to terms laid out in a franchise, and while they may have some flexibility on timetabling (which still has to be approved) and what stock will be used, will be bound to provide a certain level of seating and so on - and pay penalties if they don't.
It's buses that are the most f'd up, with hardly any regulation at all. Buses that could really help serve the railway better if properly integrated, but because of their unregulated setup - there's rarely the same level of anger in the media, and no organised pressure groups to try and fix things - as many problems are very localised. Again, selfish people won't care about the axing of buses in another town if they have theirs. At least not until they move, or need to go there.
No wonder even now many people still think the car is king and wonder why anyone would take a train.
I am not arguing with you that the way it was handled WAS manipulated by someone with an agenda, just that it was incredibly easy to sell to people.. and not everyone would have been against it.
Just as people today moan about paying for things they don't use, they would have done back then. If you were going to buy a car, why would you want to pay for running trains for a handful of people?
Totally selfish, sure, but there have always been selfish people.
We are quite lucky that most railway services are protected. Train operators can't just decide to stop running trains to a station, or decide to end services at 9pm instead of midnight (or whatever). They must agree to terms laid out in a franchise, and while they may have some flexibility on timetabling (which still has to be approved) and what stock will be used, will be bound to provide a certain level of seating and so on - and pay penalties if they don't.
It's buses that are the most f'd up, with hardly any regulation at all. Buses that could really help serve the railway better if properly integrated, but because of their unregulated setup - there's rarely the same level of anger in the media, and no organised pressure groups to try and fix things - as many problems are very localised. Again, selfish people won't care about the axing of buses in another town if they have theirs. At least not until they move, or need to go there.
No wonder even now many people still think the car is king and wonder why anyone would take a train.
It's disappointing that buses and trains have always been run as parallel public transport services with no intended connection and having to pay separate tickets to use 2 different modes (apart from Carlisle and Berwick upon Tweed to the Scottish borders where there has been no train for years in the Scottish borders and a connection between bus and train is supported).
The "connecting" bus (if you can call it that) in most cases takes far long to get you to/from the train station stopping every 2 or 3 lampposts plus stopping at traffic lights and being held up by traffic and/or roadworks, and the nearest bus stop to the train station is a hell of a distance away and no integrated ticket. Makes it hellish to travel by public transport.
But far too few councils are keen to take on the task of even providing a comprehensive public transport information service as it is let alone going on and providing integration between bus, train, ferry etc.
Ernest Marples thought the future lay in roads because he had a vested interest in believing that. There were vested interests that also encouraged that view with a number of mis-information reports appearing in the media from the early 60s onwarsd. If you tell people the same myth often enough it becomes "fact" and then becomes "public opinion". The government were actively encouraging people off the railways and in to cars long before The Beeching Report, they were also leaking exaggerated reports of how severe the cuts were going to be so that when the report came out everyone would be happy as the recommendations weren't as "bad" as they had feared.
Even at the time people knew full well busses would never fill the gap left by the closure of the railways. It was simply used as an excuse at the time when people said that closing the railways would leave people in remote locations without access to public transport. It was never intended as a serious option.
With ever increasing congestion today there are many routes that were closed under, at best, dubious circumstances, that would be highly profitable today. It is getting harder and taking longer to drive in to many towns and cities today, the railway would have provided the perfect alternative. Bristol being a perfect example.
The Road Haulage Association were major backers of the Conservative Party at the time and the Minister for Transport had a major shareholding in a road construction company. One of the reasons Dr. Beeching was chosen to head the Railway Board and compile his report, with a deliberately narrow, purely financial, constraint was because the government knew he could be relied upon to produce the "right" answer as far as Ernest Marples, the Minister for Transport, and the Road Hulage Association, were concerned.
When you look at the way the figures were manipulated to show branch lines in the worst possible light, using figuers and statistics that were nonsensical, coupled with deliberate government policy to close lines as rapidly as possible before any protests could be organised show what a disgrace it was.
"Duplicate" routes is a perfect example, whilst two routes might have started off at the same point and terminated at the same point they usually went by very dofferent routes and served different communities. There were "duplicate" routes between Plymouth and Exeter for example, one went via Dawlish along the coast, the other via Okehampton. To save money one was closed, the Okehampton route. As a result there were no rail services west of Exeter for six weeks after the storms earlier this year. Yes, there were plenty of lines that needed to close, but much of what was eventually closed, especially in the late 60s and 70s, was completely unjustified. The Great Central line being the perfect example. If that had remained open, as it should have, the route for the proposed HS2 would already be there and only need to be upgraded at a cost considerably cheaper, and a lot less controversial, than HS2.
David Henshaw's book, The Great Railway Conspiracy: The Fall and Rise of Britain's Railways Since the 1950's shows this in great detail.
This.
I've posted a brief answer below, but this is better.
The same thing will happen with the trains, but they don't have the luxury of hiking fares across the board. I'd expect hikes on things train companies can hike (ie. car park charges) but we'll also see station closures, service axes or reductions, axe or reduction of cheaper off-peak and advance fares and job losses, as has happened with the buses.
You're unlikely to see station closures these days. It's a lengthy process and very good reasons need to be given. If anything, there will be station openings. That is the general trend these days.
It wasn't a disgrace then however. Hindsight shows it was madness (but there were many duplicated lines from the disjointed nature of the original railway companies in competition with each other) but back then it was fair to assume that the car would stop anyone wanting to use a train ever again.
It was still a bad decision, because the track beds could have been safeguarded in case they were required again in the future. In many cases, however, they were not and have been used for other purposes and/or built over, making re-instatement of these routes much more difficult.
It is estimated that a third of the network that was removed, on the recommendation of Beeching, should not have been removed.
And if you want to point fingers, Ernest Marples is the main culprit for all this happening, as he had a vested interest in the road network.
Sorry but unfortunately my work didn't stop just because sport was on. They shouldn't be selling tickets when there's no capacity on the trains. Many people were left at stations unable to get on.
That happens every day in London. People deal with it.
Unless seat reservations are made compulsory, how can TOCs know how busy a particular train is going to be. And the only way to book a seat reservation is to buy your ticket in advance, i.e. not on the day you intend to travel.
I spent £75 for the pleasure of having to stand from Aberdeen to Glasgow after they crammed lots more people on during the commonwealth games. First Scotrail are a disgrace on that line.
Of course it will be more busy during an event like that. How are they in general day to day service.
Despite extra revenue from more passengers, you also increase costs because you need to provide more paths in the peak, upgrade signalling and extending platforms, plus acquire new trains that only get used for a fraction of the day, yet still cost millions.
A bit of both. There's a huge cost to maintain a railway to operate at near 100% capacity and then to try and create more capacity (while trying to keep things running throughout) and for all those trains that wind up filling up depots and sidings for most of the day.
My summer holidays have occurred at monthly intervals for that reason. I've been buying monthly season tickets. I'm not sure if that saves money over an annual ticket but then I'm reluctant to commit to a year's travel anyway.
Do a bit of research and you'll get your answer. I'm not spoon feeding you.
I doubt you're that bothered anyway, as you appear to be affluent.
I know the history but still believe that people did think that roads were the future. People would have a car, goods would travel on lorries and vans, and buses and coaches could replace trains and be far more flexible.
Even with the huge increase in rail usage, mostly due to commuting and super cheap advance fares, there are loads of people that look down on public transport and would drive - and never use something as 'low' as a bus.
If people want to be car snobs, it's their problem. Sod the environment eh!
Creating this HS2 luxury for the rich while at the same closing other stations and branch lines that are more essential and a lifeline leaving the rest to suffer from becoming a backwater is disgraceful
They think that fares can be hiked so much that they will create the pressure pot effect making it so unattractive to travel by train that they force more enough people off the trains giving them the excuse to shut the interchange stations for the branch line. Meaning that the branch lines have to close as well, as the interchange station got most of their passengers from the branch lines. Most still generally travel by train beyond the interchange station to the terminal station.
HS2 for the rich? Are you serious? With the capacity HS2 offers, there will be scope to offer far more affordable tickets for long distances than ever before.
The only loser will be the short haul airlines.
First class might cost a fortune just as it does today, but so what? No operator can run trains carrying fresh air, so they'll fill seats with advance tickets. The railway has operated 'yield management' since the 80s and that's NOT going to change.
Councils in places like Peterborough and Milton Keynes are behind HS2 because they will benefit massively, and neither will have a station on HS2. Why? Because once those express trains that don't stop aren't needed on the WCML (and to a lesser degree the ECML), these stations and others along the line can get more services. Thus, plenty of people nowhere near HS2 will see a massive improvement in services, and also more chance of a seat as those long-distance travellers to Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow won't be filling it up.
HS2 and other new lines are a great thing. It's about capacity. It will allow more freight onto the rails, taking more lorries off the motorways. It will be faster too, and the biggest cock up by the HS2 planners was initially selling it on speed. Any new railway is going to be faster by design, but it isn't about shaving off a few minutes here and there - it's about the bigger picture.
More lines are being reinstated because there's the demand, and demand seems to be growing all the time. But there's always going to be a mix of limited budgets in any given year, and also the equipment and manpower to do work - so a lot of the work can't be done all at once. Electrification can't be done quicker because there's only so many people and equipment capable of doing it, for example.
The vast majority of the money spent on a rail ticket goes to Network Rail. If we actually want more money spent on the railway to re-open even more old, closed, lines (including compulsory purchasing land that has now severed these lines in places) then fares would need to go up EVEN more.
Creating this HS2 luxury for the rich while at the same closing other stations and branch lines that are more essential and a lifeline leaving the rest to suffer from becoming a backwater is disgraceful
They think that fares can be hiked so much that they will create the pressure pot effect making it so unattractive to travel by train that they force more enough people off the trains giving them the excuse to shut the interchange stations for the branch line. Meaning that the branch lines have to close as well, as the interchange station got most of their passengers from the branch lines. Most still generally travel by train beyond the interchange station to the terminal station.
Sorry, but that post is nonsense. Can you name me any branch lines that are likely to close now or in the near future anywhere on the national rail network?
In the case of an advanced ticket, yes. I should have pointed out this exception, so apologise. But in this case, you do of course have a seat.
Nevertheless, people can buy walk up tickets and stand squashed up next to you. Something that can't be done on Eurostar and many European Intercity services.
I am not sure we want to do that here. It would clearly be great for comfort, but also reduce the amount of people that could travel and stop you just turning up. The reduced passenger numbers would also hit revenues, so fares would likely go up for the lucky ones able to secure a seat.
In the case of an advanced ticket, yes. I should have pointed out this exception, so apologise. But in this case, you do of course have a seat.
Nevertheless, people can buy walk up tickets and stand squashed up next to you. Something that can't be done on Eurostar and many European Intercity services.
I am not sure we want to do that here. It would clearly be great for comfort, but also reduce the amount of people that could travel and stop you just turning up. The reduced passenger numbers would also hit revenues, so fares would likely go up for the lucky ones able to secure a seat.
Overcrowding is not a new problem on some trains. I remember catching a train from London to Oxenholme (continuing on to Glasgow) and it was standing room only in standard class, so as it was a weekend, we upgraded to first class for a tenner. This was in the mid 1980's.
Comments
It's the opposite for me. Even factoring in all of the costs such as MOT and road tax, driving is cheaper than getting the train and takes about 1/3 of the time. I would get the train if it was a feasible option.
Its more than likely that the peak time commuter routes are profitable so the taxpayer is contributing nothing to them.
What the taxpayer is subsidising is the off peak travel and less well use routes.
If I didn't work in London and had to travel east or west, driving would beat the train for me too.
I now have to a do a fairly regular journey to somewhere that is quicker by car (20 mins) than rail (60-90 mins) and cheaper, because the train route requires going into London and back out. Therefore, bus, train, tube, train. And as it goes into London it's expensive too.
I think people need to pick the best option for them. For many people this will always be the train, but can't be all the time.
A bit of both. There's a huge cost to maintain a railway to operate at near 100% capacity and then to try and create more capacity (while trying to keep things running throughout) and for all those trains that wind up filling up depots and sidings for most of the day.
But, yes, subsidising the lesser used routes is a definite cost but a worthwhile one which has many indirect benefits to the economy.
I would never wish the railways only to provide a peak time service for commuters but no service for the rest of the day on certain routes.
Nobody wants to see another Beeching style devastation. The Beeching cuts way back then was a total disgrace cutting off many a community.
But why should everything be geared towards forcing more and more people onto the motorcar on congested roads over combined long stretches?
Reducing the number of rail carriages on peak time train services (using 1 x 3 carriage train instead of using 2 coupled together, with the 2nd train now sitting in depot doing nothing causing even more horrific overcrowding) while extortionately increasing the rail fares, and also cutting back on parallel and connecting bus services is terrible . For the long distance commuter it's a complete nightmare now.
I think for many people living inside of London, especially the north where the tube is extensive, I think train / tube will usually be the best option. But I'd be really surprised if it was the best for "many people" outside of major cities!
The same thing will happen with the trains, but they don't have the luxury of hiking fares across the board. I'd expect hikes on things train companies can hike (ie. car park charges) but we'll also see station closures, service axes or reductions, axe or reduction of cheaper off-peak and advance fares and job losses, as has happened with the buses.
It was a disgrace then and it remains so today.
The Road Haulage Association were major backers of the Conservative Party at the time and the Minister for Transport had a major shareholding in a road construction company. One of the reasons Dr. Beeching was chosen to head the Railway Board and compile his report, with a deliberately narrow, purely financial, constraint was because the government knew he could be relied upon to produce the "right" answer as far as Ernest Marples, the Minister for Transport, and the Road Hulage Association, were concerned.
When you look at the way the figures were manipulated to show branch lines in the worst possible light, using figuers and statistics that were nonsensical, coupled with deliberate government policy to close lines as rapidly as possible before any protests could be organised show what a disgrace it was.
"Duplicate" routes is a perfect example, whilst two routes might have started off at the same point and terminated at the same point they usually went by very dofferent routes and served different communities. There were "duplicate" routes between Plymouth and Exeter for example, one went via Dawlish along the coast, the other via Okehampton. To save money one was closed, the Okehampton route. As a result there were no rail services west of Exeter for six weeks after the storms earlier this year. Yes, there were plenty of lines that needed to close, but much of what was eventually closed, especially in the late 60s and 70s, was completely unjustified. The Great Central line being the perfect example. If that had remained open, as it should have, the route for the proposed HS2 would already be there and only need to be upgraded at a cost considerably cheaper, and a lot less controversial, than HS2.
David Henshaw's book, The Great Railway Conspiracy: The Fall and Rise of Britain's Railways Since the 1950's shows this in great detail.
Even with the huge increase in rail usage, mostly due to commuting and super cheap advance fares, there are loads of people that look down on public transport and would drive - and never use something as 'low' as a bus.
Ernest Marples thought the future lay in roads because he had a vested interest in believing that. There were vested interests that also encouraged that view with a number of mis-information reports appearing in the media from the early 60s onwarsd. If you tell people the same myth often enough it becomes "fact" and then becomes "public opinion". The government were actively encouraging people off the railways and in to cars long before The Beeching Report, they were also leaking exaggerated reports of how severe the cuts were going to be so that when the report came out everyone would be happy as the recommendations weren't as "bad" as they had feared.
Even at the time people knew full well busses would never fill the gap left by the closure of the railways. It was simply used as an excuse at the time when people said that closing the railways would leave people in remote locations without access to public transport. It was never intended as a serious option.
With ever increasing congestion today there are many routes that were closed under, at best, dubious circumstances, that would be highly profitable today. It is getting harder and taking longer to drive in to many towns and cities today, the railway would have provided the perfect alternative. Bristol being a perfect example.
Of course, but it was an easy sell to people who must have also thought the motorcar was the future of, well, everything.
That of course helps the haulage industry, but most people weren't event thinking about that - they were just wanting new roads for them (and, sure, let lorries use them - who knew that one day we'd allow gigantic lorries to tear them up!).
My point is that back then, I think the romance of the railways was dying and the car gave everyone a personal freedom. People could easily become quite snobbish and look down on those who had to use a train and mix with others (well, unless going first class).
It was totally naive, and ultimately wrong, and in the 1990s, road congestion, increasing fuel costs, insurance, speed cameras and other anti-motorist policies must have helped the massive return to the rails, and consequently now we have massive investment in the railways and the reinstatement of many old lines, adding new tracks back that were ripped up (to save maintenance) and a restart of electrification that will take more diesel trains off the rails. More money being spent than goodness knows when.
I stick with the opinion that hindsight is a wonderful thing. We now know (and have known for some considerable time) that most of the closures were wrong, but at that very time it would have been easy to believe.
In fact, I only need to think back to when I started driving in 1991 and, bar using the tube in London - especially at night for pubbing/clubbing, rarely used trains at all for longer journeys. I had a car, I had my music, so why would I sit on a train?
These days, I still love driving but I generally plan our trips out starting by looking at the train. Only if it's not practical will I go to 'plan b'. I think more and more people think that way, hence the massive demand and the need for us to get on and open old lines, build new ones (such as HS2 and then HS3, Crossrail 2 and beyond) and introduce smarter ticketing that works nationwide on all forms of transport.
In London, tourists will now likely have a tourist Oyster (chances are they'll buy before they even get here) so I doubt many people still pay the horrendous cash-fares. They'd probably wonder what a paper ticket was!
I would say that London buses are an incredible bargain though. Many buses travel incredible distances and for a fixed fee.
People outside of London (or any other area with a similar setup) must be so angry to have to pay so much to travel just a few stops in some cases (depending on the fare stages or zones). By me, there's the ridiculous situation where a bus will cost me £3.30 return for a 10 minute journey, that by train costs £1.80 return! When buses cost almost twice as much as a train, you know something has seriously gone wrong.
The bus is also only every 30 minutes, and stops in the evening with no service on a Saturday or Sunday. The train runs from 5am to 1am, seven days a week, with a train every 20 minutes at worst, and maybe every 10 at best.
Soon I'll be able to use Oyster on the train, while the bus still requires exact money only (and someone that doesn't travel a lot won't have a clue what the fare is, so will probably not even bother).
If that were true then how does it explain the skewed figures used to "justify" many of the closures? Many things that had been implimented, or could be implemented cheaply and quickly, that would save the lines ear-marked for closure were ignored. The cost figures for maintaining the lines were vastly over-inflated. If there was a public appetite to close the railways such methods wouldn't have been needed, they were used precisely because there was so much opposition at the time.
If "back then" the romance of the railways was dying, people would have been lining up to cheer the closures, except that on virtually every line that was closed that was far from the case. No social or economic factor was taken in to account when a line was scheduled to be closed, something that affected many areas, especially those reliant on tourism, for a number of years.
Creating this HS2 luxury for the rich while at the same closing other stations and branch lines that are more essential and a lifeline leaving the rest to suffer from becoming a backwater is disgraceful
They think that fares can be hiked so much that they will create the pressure pot effect making it so unattractive to travel by train that they force more enough people off the trains giving them the excuse to shut the interchange stations for the branch line. Meaning that the branch lines have to close as well, as the interchange station got most of their passengers from the branch lines. Most still generally travel by train beyond the interchange station to the terminal station.
Just as people today moan about paying for things they don't use, they would have done back then. If you were going to buy a car, why would you want to pay for running trains for a handful of people?
Totally selfish, sure, but there have always been selfish people.
We are quite lucky that most railway services are protected. Train operators can't just decide to stop running trains to a station, or decide to end services at 9pm instead of midnight (or whatever). They must agree to terms laid out in a franchise, and while they may have some flexibility on timetabling (which still has to be approved) and what stock will be used, will be bound to provide a certain level of seating and so on - and pay penalties if they don't.
It's buses that are the most f'd up, with hardly any regulation at all. Buses that could really help serve the railway better if properly integrated, but because of their unregulated setup - there's rarely the same level of anger in the media, and no organised pressure groups to try and fix things - as many problems are very localised. Again, selfish people won't care about the axing of buses in another town if they have theirs. At least not until they move, or need to go there.
No wonder even now many people still think the car is king and wonder why anyone would take a train.
It's disappointing that buses and trains have always been run as parallel public transport services with no intended connection and having to pay separate tickets to use 2 different modes (apart from Carlisle and Berwick upon Tweed to the Scottish borders where there has been no train for years in the Scottish borders and a connection between bus and train is supported).
The "connecting" bus (if you can call it that) in most cases takes far long to get you to/from the train station stopping every 2 or 3 lampposts plus stopping at traffic lights and being held up by traffic and/or roadworks, and the nearest bus stop to the train station is a hell of a distance away and no integrated ticket. Makes it hellish to travel by public transport.
But far too few councils are keen to take on the task of even providing a comprehensive public transport information service as it is let alone going on and providing integration between bus, train, ferry etc.
This.
I've posted a brief answer below, but this is better.
You're unlikely to see station closures these days. It's a lengthy process and very good reasons need to be given. If anything, there will be station openings. That is the general trend these days.
It was still a bad decision, because the track beds could have been safeguarded in case they were required again in the future. In many cases, however, they were not and have been used for other purposes and/or built over, making re-instatement of these routes much more difficult.
It is estimated that a third of the network that was removed, on the recommendation of Beeching, should not have been removed.
And if you want to point fingers, Ernest Marples is the main culprit for all this happening, as he had a vested interest in the road network.
Untrue.
Seat reservations are sometimes compulsory.
That happens every day in London. People deal with it.
Unless seat reservations are made compulsory, how can TOCs know how busy a particular train is going to be. And the only way to book a seat reservation is to buy your ticket in advance, i.e. not on the day you intend to travel.
Of course it will be more busy during an event like that. How are they in general day to day service.
What are you on about.
Do a bit of research and you'll get your answer. I'm not spoon feeding you.
I doubt you're that bothered anyway, as you appear to be affluent.
If people want to be car snobs, it's their problem. Sod the environment eh!
HS2 for the rich? Are you serious? With the capacity HS2 offers, there will be scope to offer far more affordable tickets for long distances than ever before.
The only loser will be the short haul airlines.
First class might cost a fortune just as it does today, but so what? No operator can run trains carrying fresh air, so they'll fill seats with advance tickets. The railway has operated 'yield management' since the 80s and that's NOT going to change.
Councils in places like Peterborough and Milton Keynes are behind HS2 because they will benefit massively, and neither will have a station on HS2. Why? Because once those express trains that don't stop aren't needed on the WCML (and to a lesser degree the ECML), these stations and others along the line can get more services. Thus, plenty of people nowhere near HS2 will see a massive improvement in services, and also more chance of a seat as those long-distance travellers to Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow won't be filling it up.
HS2 and other new lines are a great thing. It's about capacity. It will allow more freight onto the rails, taking more lorries off the motorways. It will be faster too, and the biggest cock up by the HS2 planners was initially selling it on speed. Any new railway is going to be faster by design, but it isn't about shaving off a few minutes here and there - it's about the bigger picture.
More lines are being reinstated because there's the demand, and demand seems to be growing all the time. But there's always going to be a mix of limited budgets in any given year, and also the equipment and manpower to do work - so a lot of the work can't be done all at once. Electrification can't be done quicker because there's only so many people and equipment capable of doing it, for example.
The vast majority of the money spent on a rail ticket goes to Network Rail. If we actually want more money spent on the railway to re-open even more old, closed, lines (including compulsory purchasing land that has now severed these lines in places) then fares would need to go up EVEN more.
Sorry, but that post is nonsense. Can you name me any branch lines that are likely to close now or in the near future anywhere on the national rail network?
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/14/pdfs/ukpga_20050014_en.pdf#page=24
In the case of an advanced ticket, yes. I should have pointed out this exception, so apologise. But in this case, you do of course have a seat.
Nevertheless, people can buy walk up tickets and stand squashed up next to you. Something that can't be done on Eurostar and many European Intercity services.
I am not sure we want to do that here. It would clearly be great for comfort, but also reduce the amount of people that could travel and stop you just turning up. The reduced passenger numbers would also hit revenues, so fares would likely go up for the lucky ones able to secure a seat.
Overcrowding is not a new problem on some trains. I remember catching a train from London to Oxenholme (continuing on to Glasgow) and it was standing room only in standard class, so as it was a weekend, we upgraded to first class for a tenner. This was in the mid 1980's.