Where is The Green Party?

Norman_Castle

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

Your being somewhat ambiguous with your answer there but fear not I've rephrased for you....

"How dare anyone wants to go from Chepstow to Bangor"

No ambiguity. The car magazine has chosen a route that suits the car. They've judged it on time and money. What about cutting congestion, pollution, environmental impact, very little impact on that route. The ability to work or sleep while travelling?

Not sure of the Green parties agenda but I suspect they want to increase the usability of public transport rather than force people to use a lesser option.

Mr_Singleton

Am currently in central London and it completely gridlocked. Makes you wonder why car drivers put themselves through such agony.

As I've already said pick a 100 mile or so route and we'll see if the car or Public Transport 'wind

I'd love to use.public transport but understanding why people don't would go a long way in getting people to.

elverson

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

The city car did the trip 50 minutes quicker than the train and was 325% cheaper.

How did they work that out? The car pays you money to drive it?

Xbigman

Presumably they mean the train is 325% dearer than the car. As you rightly point out, it makes no sense stated the other way around.

As for the green party, yes they want cheaper more wide ranging public transport but a big part of their plans is forcing you onto public transport by banning a lot of car access and taxing the nuts off car users. That might be better in a lot of ways but it won't be cheaper if you own a car.


Darren.

[Deleted User]

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

Makes you wonder why car drivers put themselves through such agony.

Because motor transport is too cheap.

giraffe69

When I go to London (about two hours on the train plus 15 mins to the station) it costs around £36 return using an old man's rail card. By car the time is not much different and at a little over 50mpg the diesel would cost around £27. Cheaper thus far but add on any charges for parking, congestion charge, depreciation, tax, servicing, repairs etc and the equation changes. There is also a utility factor. You can do some work on the train, answer emails, watch a film, read a book etc. More relaxing I'd suggest and if your journey is screwed up by leaves on the line or signalling problems then you get some of your money back if the delay is significant. I still drive if my journey doesn't fit train times e.g. seeking to get back late is a non starter.
In shorrt there are times when public transport is better and times when the car is better. All I'm saying is that you are presenting slanted and inaccurate examples to seek to prove something of little import.

Johnmcl7

I live in Scotland and the train prices are often crazy here, while you can get cheaper prices if you're very flexible over the date and time but that's not really viable most of the time. I really don't understand how the fares can be so high given the trains are highly efficient with the amount of people they can carry plus the trains themselves aren't new nor is the infrastructure. Some of the taxi drivers here do door to door journeys to airports at other cities (200 mile trip) for a fraction of the cost of the train.

I was recently away for the weekend and preferred to take the train but the single outgoing journey cost more than the petrol I'd need for the entire trip, with the other singles added the whole trip by train was going be around three times the cost of petrol. My car is not fuel efficient and I was travelling on my own, with a fuel efficient car and a couple of people the train price gets much more ridiculous.

I've also been looking at a trip to London which is a hefty nine and a half hour journey which will set me back around £150 if I book in advance, £300 if I want to take the sleeper and share a very small cabin with a stranger or £400 if I don't want to share. A flight would be a £60 return (with baggage) and takes one and a half hours.

If the train was fast and comfortable then you could perhaps accept that cost but it's the opposite, they're old DMU's designed for high density so they're not particularly pleasant to ride on with the noise and vibration of engines right below your feet and they're not fast either even excluding that they're not door to door.

A further frustration is that I find it difficult to get bikes booked onto trains, I've built up my bike riding so I can easily do decent distances on it making it useful for train journeys as I can get where I want to go easily. The train companies don't make it clear from the outset if the bike reservations are full or not and trying to find that information out usually involves phone calls and long live chats as the websites give conflicting information. Even then I'm not convinced these systems are correct as they claim many of the trains are fully booked so either a lot of people are booking the bikes and not turning up (as when I've tried to travel there's been no sign of any bikes) or the booking systems aren't reliable. Trying to book the bike on a single trip is a challenge, trying to get it on along trip with multiple train companies is just a joke.

As an aside, when I finally managed to get the bike booked on a particular trip, forked out a huge premium to use the train I had a truly delightful journey between a group celebrating a 30th and a group celebrating...well I'm not sure what but apparently I'm naive in thinking heavy alcohol consumption shouldn't start first thing in the morning.

A train service by design should be fast, comfortable and cheap but while I'd prefer to use the train more, I'm not prepared to fork out a huge premium for a slow, uncomfortable journey with very limited luggage.

Kite2010

Private transport being cheaper* & faster than public transport shocker!

Although I would like to see you attempting to drive from Central London to the centre of Glasgow in 4 and a bit hours.

MothballsWallet

I'd like to see Autocar run the following routes and see how long it takes them:

• Moscow to Pripyat (Chernobyl)
• Moscow to Orenburg

I wonder how many of Autocar's staff have seen Die Hard 5?

Mr_Singleton

Kite2010 wrote: »

I would like to see you attempting to drive from Central London to the centre of Glasgow in 4 and a bit hours.

Ok I'll bite..... your right there is a (theoretical) time saving using the train but drill down into it and what do we find?

The train line.com is telling me that going tomorrow morning will cost £226.25 or up to £310.50 for a convenient time.

Just think if we both went together at 'a convenient time' Virgin would be relieving us of over £620. The car (albeit slower) would be about £52 each.

For the sake of completeness Ryanair would charge £163.50