I’d take the train if….

Hi all
My opinion is we have been ripped-off by the government, how ever I would like to know why petrol /diesel is so expensive I was led to believe that the north sea oil/gas revenue was equal to if not close to cost of what we imported and that north sea oil was of a higher grade value than imported oil so worth more and even with a drop in the pound, before the pound dropped fuel was cheaper on the continent than here, and I am also led to believe that they don't have road fund licences as it is part of there fuel duty.

A J Young

If trains were economically viable, the seats more comfortable, they ran on-time, free train parking lots. I refuse to pay £8 to park my car for a day then pay £30 for a one hour journey into London. I can drive to Hounslow where it's £2.50 parking for the day and then about £8 for a 1-6 travelcard...Much better.

Fuel is now 105p on average now, years ago it was 15p

As a War Vet. since 1983 I now drive a converted Renault Kangoo. A little heavey on the petrol, but a boon to me as I am now fully independant and do not have to rely on others to get me in and out of the car.
I drive to see friends and relations and to do some shopping, but only about 5,000 miles per year. There is no bus or even a train service within 10 miles of me, so I have to rely on the car.
My wife shewed me the website which she saw in one of her magazines. The best site I have seen advertised for ages. Absolutely BRILLIANT. Keep up the good work.

Hello Maryline Lahaye,
A ma connaissance, nous nous sommes croisé une dernière fois sur le quai d'une gare le 31 juillet 1998. Are you my ex-Juliette. Do you need prams ? Can you contact me ?
feronma@msn.com

British Rail system is absolutly a nightmare. look at the prices gone so high and the srvice you receive is completlely bollucks. I am student and i have to pay £30 everyday to get to my uni

I would take the train but i cant because i live 30 miles from where i work so its too expensive,
its always late,
i would have to get a taxi from the station to work, further expenses,
its a very very long walk from my house so there is more costing in taxi fares.
why dont the goverment make it cheaper and more reliable?????

I live in Brentwood, Essex 3 miles outside the London zonal area and my annual travelcard is £2.5k compared to the next station Harold Wood which is in zone 6 and has a fare of £1.7k.......how do ONE justify such a huge discrepancy for such a short distance? In addition the 18 mile journey to London takes 40 minutes as the operator sees fit to stop the tain at all 12 stops........the station one back from London (Shenfield) is 20 miles from London but has a journey time of only 25 minutes as it is non-stop to Stratford/Liverppol Street, but the sting is the £3k fare for a travelcard.......I am an advocate of public transport when it offers value for money and a fast alternative to the car, but in mine and my girlfriend's it would cost nearly three times as much to use a train as a drive and take twice as long!

I have been travelling around London by public transport for over 10 years and yes there are very difficult days along with very good days. At the same time I have used a car and found public transport system, although littered with touble, is a faster system on the whole. Ofcourse there are arguments against this with the cost forever increasing but the cost of running a car increasing too. At the end, it is your own choice which you prefer and which is most relevant for you.

South Eastern Trains ran a very good service after taking over Connex.
Now they have been replaced by Go Via.

Today for the last one month the trains are always arriving atleast a minute or two late.
Since the last two weeks, the evening train is arriving atleast 10 minutes late.

But they have stopped giving the 5% discount on renewal of season tickets.

The trains are so crowded, you cannot get a seat anymore.

Please all of you who read this, submit your complaints to Go via, London Transport Users Committe, TFL, and the mayor
It is often difficult to get into the train.
New trains are there with fewer seats - People feel sick standing on the long journey

For all this we have to pay a 7% increase next year

My family and i like travelling a lot and i was just wondering if anybody can tell me whether or not you can use your fredom pass or oyster card on the train and tube going to places outside of london, such as places like Coventry and Brighton?

Can you use the cards on the buses and the train and tube while you are in thoughs particular areas. or do i have to pay money to use the transport or would i have to simply get a cab, to get about?

Do children under the age of 16 have to pay on the buses or is it free with their child oyster cards?

Too many comments state as a fact things which are a matter of opinion.For example:STATEMENT: trains are lethal and are always crashing killing thousands of people. FACT: Train crashes in Britain are rare and only a tiny number of people have been killed in recent years whereas THOUSANDS of people are killed EVERY YEAR in ROAD accidents and hundreds of thousands of people are injured. Train crashes receive massive publicity because they are infrequent.FATAL road crashes occur every day and those involving injury practically every minute. Because they are so commonplace they are seldom reported. People are also sometimes assaulted in their own cars - at traffic lights etc, or in car parks so they are no safer than buses or trains.

STATEMENT: Bus and train companies are only interested in profit. Well maybe but do motor manufacturers work for the sheer pleasure of giving a kindly helping hand to their fellow human beings ? I was not aware of that but maybe I have not been fully informed. Perhaps all those affluent motor dealers and oil company executives obtain there income from some other source ? Maybe all those road construction firms employ voluntary labour who turn out in the middle of the night and at weekends to dig up the roads for want of something better to do ?

SOME trains are very good in France, especially from Paris or other big towns, just like in Britain, but many rural trains and buses (if they exist) are very poor and vastly inferior to what is provided here in the UK. French railways are heavily subsidised - just like ours - but the French Government seems to know how to get a good deal from its service providers, unlike our Government which does not have any knowledge of these matters and gets conned every time, whether it is building roads, railways, hospitals, schools or computer systems.

There does not seem to be much to choose between motoring enthusiasts and rail enthusiasts when it comes to cloud cuckoo land.

I would use more public transport if it was cheaper than using my car.

For example if I want to visit my parents in London it takes less time using public transport than a car by about 15mins - that sounds good. However, as soon as two or more of us travel this way the cost becomes much greater than using my car. And I am talking about the actual cost in ££s (not green house gases). Most people here have quoted the amount spent on petrol only when comparing to the cost of fares but this is not a fair comparison.

To get a better comparison add up the cost of Insurance, MOT, tax, servicing, breakdown cover and DEPRECIATION for one year. Divide the number of miles you travel in the year into this total. You will be horrified at this extra cost per mile to add on top of your petrol if you have a newer car. For me as my car is old this is 12p a mile. (With a new car you can easily go over 30p a mile if you travel about 10,000 miles a year). My petrol cost is about 10p a mile.

So my cost using a car to get to parents and back, round trip of 30 miles, is £6.60. With one person it costs a few pence more than public transport Off Peak so I use public transport as its faster too. With two or more people the car wins hands down on cost and we will take longer but that is OK as we save massively. Perversely during rush hour its CHEAPER to take the car for ONE person. Something is seriously wrong with public transport pricing.

The real cost will be different for each person and I suspect some will find they are spending more than they think using the car. You may even find that public transport is cheaper sometimes.

Unlike the UK in France there are reduced fares available at ALL times on the train - what a sensible idea. You simply buy a rail card for your age group. It's a smaller reduction during rush hours but that seems fair. If you have three or more children you get even more reductions as you are a 'family nombruese', this includes reductions and even refunds on other public transport. Trains are cheaper and rarely late and stations have places to lock up your luggage - on the down side there are more strikes and late at night is worse than in the UK.

I live near Sheffield, all of the train services I could use to get between local towns use very old, dirty noisy rolling stock which are undesirable despite many being refurbished. However the links between Sheffield and London/York are fast and comfortable and in my experience reliable. The pricing system is confusing and is no more of a lottery than the budget airlines which i suspect many of the previous critics have used at some point during their lives.

The supertram has been an undoubted success in providing comfortable local public transport, ironically it was the environmentally correct brigade that stopped its expansion because a handful of roadside trees would have to be cut down for the works. Not to mention the middle classes that only cared about the value of their homes, not that theyl be worth anything when those 4 litre cars the same people drive result in turning some such areas into flood plains.

bottom line is, theres a whole lot of hypocrycy in alot of posts, there is only one realistic solution that can provide everything needed from a public transport system .....

Increased usage of light railway systems (trams, underground, monorails, whatever fits the bill best in each area), such light railways would also function well in rural areas. Fully integrated with bus services (preferably electric but we cant be too picky now can we, yes the technology is there for electric busses, they are used in Paris) then fully integrated with national rail services, each main line should have 7 rails...

3 each way, one for goods trains, one for mid speed local services and one for high speed national services with a spare so track maintenance doesnt disrupt services.

increased services, better quality rolling stock, high visibility policing at all stations at all times, on train staff trained to be able to deal with ANY possible medical, security or safety situation and stricter legislation on behaviour on public transport, drunks arnt allowed on planes, why should they be allowed on trains or busses?

but to top it all off, the single most important factor in improving local train (and bus) services is better town planning, if we made all new developments have comfortable bus shelters and their road networks designed in such a way that bus routes could serve the whole estate without driving round it forever, maybe even leave a gap for possible light railway systems in case as a country we decide we can afford to do something about the problem.

if we lay down the foundations to improve the situation, future governments will be more inclined to implement the solution.

My daughter travels to college in Newcastle every day. The journey is about 36 miles, which normally takes about 1 hr to drive as she has to cross the city centre. It costs about £8 per day for diesel and £4 to park. The train takes 20 minutes (plus a 5 min walk) and costs £11.
The train wins!

if.... it wasn't so expensive!

To be honest I complain about the public transport around here but it's much better than that where I grew up.

There I would have to walk 1 mile to catch a bus into the local town (10 miles away) I could then catch another bus to the train station (another 10 miles) and assuming I wanted to go back home that day I would have to get straight back on that bus to go home as there was only one bus into and out of the town each day.

I only really found this a real problem as a teenager as the place to be back then was the city the train station was in, meaning I lost out on any possible social life I could have had.

In a rainy stormy weather, I am undecided which commuting method I should choose to travel 110miles to submit my Open University final assignment!

Using my car (family car) : Exhausting, tiring, takes 2h, dangerous driving conditions, costs £40

Using the train : Comfortable, takes 3 1/2h, relatively safe, costs £30 (with a rail card)

What are your thoughts? - Can you help?

Fact since the railways were privateised so much tax payers money has been spent on it that the entire uk rail network could have been renewed with modern signals thus ensuring trains run on time .

Our governtments transport policy seems to be, rather than trying to modernise public transport they're trying to make car usage more expensive than public transport. Therefore forcing us to use it, trouble is some of us cant due to the nature of our work.

I whole heartedly agree with this post, train fairs are way too expensive and sometimes fares are confusing most of the time.

Air conditioning is a must on long journeys, I know some Virgin Trains have them but adding them to all the trains will increase the fares again to buy, install and maintain them !

I actually like train travel, very smooth and quick, we definately need more trains which are frequent

Nearly all our main lines run from North to South. When Beeching removed most of the East West Lines that was when goods were moved onto the roads.
East West lines should now be restored for passenger use only and if goods only rail lines ran from say the main docks (ports) parallel to motorways and there were central hubs located at strategic points in the UK where goods could be offloaded onto local transport and delivered locally, it might be possible to have cheaper passenger train services and far less congestion, road surface damage and pollution on the overcrowded roads.

I think all the government people including the top guy should give up driving first. To show the people good model.
Why they are using cars? I wonder.
In Japan where the public transportation is so well organised, the train runs ON TIME. Then the bus stopps near the station, and comes few minutes after the train schedule so the people does not have to run to the bus station. May be the price is not so cheap but reliable. How can you expect business man to take train when the train he usualy takes might not come because the conductor did not show up on time. What kind of excuse is that? One can not risk getting a salary cut because the conductor just did not feel like waking up. There have to be a major revamp of the whole train service to earn people's trust. And well co-ordinated bus service is a must to persuade people to use puplic transportation more.

I fully agree with "Angela Bruce, 23rd August 2006 3:07pm". I do a similar journey during the week. If I was to use buses and trains I would never be in work till around 9:30 a full hour after I am supposed to start.

I worked in Germany for a year and did a similar journey (approx 30 miles). I didn't have the use of a car and had to use the train every day. The full cost for a MONTH of travel was £40 and that included travel around the whole network at any time. The large majority of trains were on time and had only a fraction of the problems that the UK has.

Maybe we should look at the German rail network to solve our problems.

Official annoucement from South West Trains (taken directly from their web site on 28/06/06):

Important information
Tuesday 29 August
There will be NO TRAINS at all on many routes and about one in 10 of our normal trains on others, therefore we advise you NOT to travel on our services.

The very limited train and express bus services we expect to run on Tuesday 29 August can be seen here:

Haslemere-Guildford-Woking-Waterloo
Waterloo-Basingstoke-Salisbury-Southampton
Waterloo-Surbiton-Hampton Court
Waterloo-Woking-Guildford-Haslemere

A spokesperson suggested staying at home for the day! Fine if you don't have a hospital appoinment in London, a funeral to attend, or a vital buisness meeting etc. The mind set seems to be one of fitting your life around the transport system. Rather than the transport system meeting the needs of the travelling public.

The train is a mjuch nicer way to get to work, you have time to read etc and you do not have to drive. I use trains as often as I can for travelling but cannot to work as especially within the same city the train stations are sparce and does not make sense!!

.... it wasn't so expensive!

I would use the train more if it was cheaper, i travel from London to Plymouth and can drive it in the same time as the train, but its cheaper to drive by about £15. I would like to be able to make the journey by train and be able to relax as i drive for a livivng, but with the added cost of getting to the station and from the station upon my arrival adds more to the cost to this journey.

I agree with the person that said they would use trains if they allowed bikes on at all times.

It would be good to add a carriage, or section-off half a carriage for cyclists. This could be specially designed to allow the easy storage of bikes (just as some, but very few, buses have a special area without seats for buggies or wheel chairs).
The train system is so disjointed that you need a bike to join the gaps from the start of the journey, to the end and sometimes even in-between.

Seeing as the mayor is so keen on us using bikes in London he should try to make the use of trains easier not more difficult by penalising those of us trying to make a difference.

I love travelling by train and most of experiences have been good - even though I mainly remember the bad. Iwould travel by train more if........
.........it wasn't so expensive (cheaper to go into the city by train than car - but most long distance journeys are extorionate) the trains ( and buses) should be subsidised by more public money - this woudl even things out with car travel
.............it was cleaner - both on trains and stations - we need more litter bins and smoking shoudl be banned anywhere on stations that would make a big difference

It is not only railways that have gone to the wall but the rest of Public transport.
It was said that it would give the public more chose. That has now been found to be a fools dream.
Outside oof London the is no control of Pubilc Transport. If Bill Smith wants to runs buses on route 1 he has to run them the same time as another company who also runs Buses on that route. Crazy too many companys chasing less and less people.

I dont think the general issues of transport in the UK can really be tackled until it is taken out of the political agenda. We need a long term integrated transport strategy that includes not only trains but the infrastructure to link public and private transport. If that means nationalisation then ok with me. Trains / train taxis / interlinked bus services, it seems it's just too easy instead for a government to say - lets tax petrol some more and get people off the roads. Sorry guys, it wont happen. The train services in this country are a disgrace. On the ones I have been on, only in India and North Africa are the services worse in the UK, but then they are cheaper, so arguably better value..

In general I enjoy train travel, and being fortunate enough to live near to the East Coast Main Line have access to a fast and efficient service to Scotland and London. The main problem is that unless you are able to plan your journey well in advance and specify the exact train services you are going to use and purchase a ticket commensurate with said plans, the prices over long distances are prohibitively expensive. The result is that many people will choose to use their car. There is no logic in the governments policies, (surprise surprise), in that they implore people to abandon their cars and use public transport but are unwilling to fashion a rail fare structure that encourages this.

I'm retired and could use the train but it is far too expensive. No direct bus to the station so I'd either have to pay for a taxi (£10 each way) or pay the outrageous fee for parking my car.

Iwould like to add to that wish list
if they had demolished the train stations, including my local station

I already use the train if I go to London (from Banbury) as we are lucky
enough to have Chiltern Railways here running into Marylebone. They
are superb, and quicker than the car. sadly they do close Marylebone
station occasionally for rebuilding work, but otherwise they are good.
They run to time, are comfortable, and speedy.

Took the train back from London tonight and there were no spare seats in standard class but (as usual) loads in first class. Why is it that long distance trains appear to have half the coaches as first class and half standard class? My company paid for my ticket so not too bad for me but I wouldn't have paid the £100 it cost for an open return to go between Nuneaton and London (200 miles, approx). Finally found a seat that was supposedly reserved in the Quiet Carriage and then had numerous idiots yacking on their mobile phones and listening to music at full volume. Never saw the train manager (which at least means I can re-use the ticket ;-) ). By contrast it's going to cost me £30 to do a round trip of 300 miles up to northeast Lancs this weekend by car, I can go when I want and I get a peaceful journey.

If my local station was safer and manned as long as trains are running. If it was more easily accessible to prams and pushchairs and if Oyster cards were accepted or at least if there was someone there to sell me a ticket!!!

Hi Roger, i just your note, did you know (I might be slightly out of date here now) but if you used the Thames Link and got off at Mill Hill Broadway, they have no facilities for disabled, the staff there cannot assist if someone were to turn up in a wheel chair, the only way you would be able to get down the stairs is to have to call the London Fire Brigade or hope that commuters would assist, the later unfortunately is quite rare!

i worked in The Netherlands for a year and a half and used their public transport system which was wonderful, not to mention the separate cycle lanes for mopeds and cycles and bus lanes which would not affect normal car flow.

When I have been on holiday in Europe Spain, Germany etc their train systems have been amazing and inexpensive compared to that of London.

I used to commute to central London daily and often experienced delays, often I would find that I had to wait for the next train, buses etc. i now drive as I no longer work in London which is fantastic and a lot cheaper then using public transport and it takes about an hour and a half, the same journey by train would take 2.5 hours and then I wouldn't be able to work after a certain time as trains would stop running to London!

Why is our public transport so inefficient, costly, congested and dirty compared to those abroad?! Every year we're told that the price increases are to improve services, every year motorists are made to paid ridiculous amounts in various taxes all of which seem to go into bottomless pits with nothing to show for it.

I (as everybody I assume) would be more then glad to pay additional taxes, not as a motorist but through other means if the cost of travelling using public transport was reduced and we had better services, why don't the government try charging extra taxes to everybody, use this money to reduce the cost of travelling regardless of the time of day, and even make travelling free at certain times of the day for everyone, not just specific groups?

Hey, why not have a week in the year where all public transport is free in London? This can be paid for by the taxes that we all seem to pay? It can be thoguht of as giving something back to the people. The government would probably get that money back in other ways ... e.g. during school holidays families going out and spending more at attractions around London, eating out etc (It would make the London mayor a bit more popular). who knows, it might result in prices coming down to encourage people to use public transport more; and the planning that would go into setting this up may be adoptable to improve efficiency?

- or maybe I am living on cloud 9!!!

I would use trains all the reasions you say plus better for disabled sa i am disabled.

I regularly use the train from St Albans into London. The cheap fare with a Senior Railcard IS economic but my complaint is the restriction of cheap return travel imposed by First Capital Connect (and other companies). Return is not allowed between 1620 and 1901. There are loopholes because of the hurried and ill-thought way in which this was introduced but an enormous amount of ill-feeling has been generated. The reason given is to reduce the overcrowding during that period. Laudible, but a much more effective solution would be to run only 8-carriage trains on the fast route during this period.
I do not use the trains for occasional longer journeys. I would not cope with transffering luggage between bus, two trains and bus with varying distances between each leg. Apart from which the rail fare for two people is rather larger than the motoring costs.

Prohibitive prices.

I can jump in my car anytime I want to go anywhere in the country, from door to door.

To go to London for a family of four would cost me about £25 from home, plus driving to nearest tube plus parking car, total £35 - so why even try the train. Sadly enjoying London is too expensive so rarely go.

Local buses are £1 single to go two miles, trains are £3 to next stop.

To see family in the West Country from West London, when I want to go is £60 return each, plus £10 taxi to get there. Family of four £250 for a weekend away! In the car - £25 total

Until the rail network is re-nationalised and subsidised - forget it.

I am a night shift worker living in a rural community, the only trains that travel to my timetable are goods trains.
Ah...now theres a thought !

I Have no car and have recently moved to london. I use the train all the time down here and it has some great deal for getting around london. However when I go back home the train is not in the town centre which makes everyone avoid the train. The train and all other public transport is more expensive than travelling in london. I think all public transport should adopt the oyster card system which makes it cheaper for people to get around. there are some people who will never leave their cars but I think this will help.

I normally travel to work by car/motorbike - it's direct, and I dont have to pay through the nose for a service which may not run at all, may be late, may be packed, may be occupied by people on their phones saying 'Im on the train!', may be filthy, smelly and I would probably have to stand for 40minutes.
I have travelled throughout Europe using public transport and its excellant - busses, trains, trams etc all seem to run regularly and cheaply - why is it so expensive here - whats the difference?
Also, with current airline prices I can fly to the south of Italy for the same price as a Milton Keynes to London peak ticket (not including the underground) Daft isnt it !

It costs me the same to drive to work so either way its the same price, but as I will explain the driving beats the train!

The station is quite near me so that is fine, however in the winter, or when its chucking it down, its not fun trying to get to work looking semi-respectable. Once I get to the city I work in I have a good several mile trip to make, which is a £1 each way in the bus.

I used to use the train/bus, but I find driving is much better, I can take the motorway in the morning, and go back the country route at night, which only takes 10minutes longer based on a clean run on the motorway.

So I agree the public system is a farce and I will not use it unless I have to.

What about...

Travelling alone and you want to go to the loo but you're carrying laptop & other valuables, you need to leave something behind to show the seat is occupied and can you really trust the guy sat opposite you?.....

Then there's the one about that kid who for no reason at all walked down the ailse and slashed a girls throat with a knife as he passed her, and stabbed her boyfriend if I remember rightly...

Oh yeah and there the horrendous cost...

Sorry, I feel much safer in my car.....

Trains like other public transport is only there to make money for the operator. I would like to use the train to get from Preston to Manchester Airport for the first plane in the morning to Amsterdam. The first train would get me to the airport 1 hour after the plane leaves. Public transport only runs during normal working hours. Not when it is needed.