Rail fares up 50% in ten years

lvader

My experience is that British trains on the whole are more reliable than those in Germany. The aptly named ICE trains often rum late and pretty much completely fail in temperatures above 30c.

How does the 50% increase in ten years compare with petrol?

Treadmill

The_White_Horse wrote: »

they need to sack most of the greedy drivers and staff. half the reason for the high fares are their astronomical wages and huge holiday allowances. the job could be performed by a trained monkey and should really be automated anyway. slash the staff and their salaries/pensions. that would be a decent start.

And you think that doing this would cut rail fares ? one word naive.

There are lots of jobs unfilled on the Railway because people don't like to work shifts, strange logic to think that you could fully staff the railway by paying LESS.

zagfles

ruggedtoast wrote: »

And the most expensive in Europe unsurprisingly. They say that £100 will get you just over 100 miles in England

Really? Last time I travelled by train I went from Manchester to Watford (about 180 miles) and it cost £25.

zagfles

lvader wrote: »

My experience is that British trains on the whole are more reliable than those in Germany. The aptly named ICE trains often rum late and pretty much completely fail in temperatures above 30c.

How does the 50% increase in ten years compare with petrol?

Or even inflation. RPI over the last 10 years was 38%, so that means prices have gone by less than 9% in real terms in 10 years. But that doesn't make as good a headline, does it?

CLAPTON

Treadmill wrote: »

And you think that doing this would cut rail fares ? one word naive.

There are lots of jobs unfilled on the Railway because people don't like to work shifts, strange logic to think that you could fully staff the railway by paying LESS.

could you point us to a website that shows all those jobs?

dtaylor84

There was a brief comment from a First Great Western spokesman on the news on ITV earlier:

Fare prices still remain great value for money, so if you're traveling from Bristol for example, if you're a commuter a season ticket will cost you 16p/mile on a daily basis. Now you're not going to get anywhere near
that on a car."

Well, my car costs about 12p/mile (fuel alone, admittedly). What's more, it can carry five people!

A._Badger

What is being carefully avoided is confronting the possibility that a 19th century invention is no longer a cost effective means of transport in the 21st.

Rail worked when labour was cheap and there was no real alternative. Neither of those two conditions apply now.

I suppose I should add that I have no axe to grind - I use trains and enjoy train travel. It's just not a very efficient means of shifting people around..

Treadmill

CLAPTON wrote: »

could you point us to a website that shows all those jobs?

Network Rail are showing 172 job alone, the tocs and focs have similar numbers and look on The Railway People site, I work on the Railway and can tell you that the Railway has been consistently understaffed in all areas for the 15 years I have been on, good news for me because I'm hoovering up the overtime.

grizzly1911

lvader wrote: »

How does the 50% increase in ten years compare with petrol?

2002 - 2012
Petrol
Pump Price 73.2 - 136 (86%)
Duty/VAT 56.7 - 81 (43%)

Diesel
Pump Price 75.3 - 142 (89%)
Duty/VAT 57.1 - 82 (44%)


http://www.ukpia.com/fuel-prices-historic-data.aspx

ruggedtoast

zagfles wrote: »

Really? Last time I travelled by train I went from Manchester to Watford (about 180 miles) and it cost £25.

You can look up the prices yourself on National Rail. There is one train at 10.27am doing that route that costs £38. The rest cost between £64 and £170.

The latter is working out almost £1 a mile. Rubbish.

I have to go up to Scotland this month. I thought I'd take the train and avoid all the faffing about with airports. The cheapest quote I got for rail was £360. The flight costs £100.

Its useless, what kind of sensible mass transit system costs more than flying.