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Try www.flybe.com. They'll take you most places in the country with an airport for about £30, or £50 return. Taxes etc included.
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Ryanair Blackpool (10 mins away) to Stansted £25 return when you can cop the giveaway flights, which is surprisingly often. Train to Euston unthinkable even though we're on main line.
But surely the point is that, as Two Jags tells us, that we have to get out of our cars and use public transport. RR has Done The Right Thing snd can experience a little glow of satisfaction.
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Public transport in this country leaves alot to be desired. Its diabolical, i think everyones had an experience like u Retro, i know i have... the flying option is a good idea...
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Daughter uses local bus service to get to college (5 miles). She has a season pass.
They are very unreliable time-wise, going early, late, not at all, but never on time. She wrote to complain.
She got back a nice letter explaining about traffic and rush hours etc, together with two free tickets to use anytime.
So, that'll be anytime they decide to invalidate her season pass I suppose...
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Did you manage to get there Retro?
I would recommend always travelling to Victoria Coach Station / Gatwick Airport / Heathrow by train , whichever is most convenient and then taking the coaches, Speedlink, National Express etc seem to have pretty frequent services and you have the bus company offices there on site.
Alternatively if you have a couple of million quid spare I can sell you a very nice ( only one careful owner - honest ) helicopter and you can take half a dozen mates to Sheffield with you.
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Public transport is HUGELY subsidised by the government and local authorities, and there is very little accountability, so really they are just sponges for soaking up out money for left-wing community cohesian initiatives.
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Heathrow Central Bus Station, any time of day but especially after dark...
Makes me shiver just thinking about it.
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Retro,know exactly how you feel about bus services. A couple of years ago my mother was getting the coach from Sunderland to Edinburgh, we were at the station in good time, a coach pulls in with Glasgow as destination, obviously we thought this is probably the coach stopping at Edinburgh en route, so I went and asked the driver who said no the Edinburgh one is following. Guess what no coach was following the idiot driver was driving the Edinbrugh coach. Personnally I would rather walk than set foot on a coach no matter how far the distance.
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Retro, the best thing to do in these situations IMHO, is to rent a small car from a large chain that has an office at your destination, then drive it there, and drop it off. It will only cost you around £30 and is very convinient.
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Public transport is HUGELY subsidised by the government and local authorities, and there is very little accountability, so really they are just sponges for soaking up out money for left-wing community cohesian initiatives.
Is there something wrong with subsidising public transport? What is the option for people who don't have and, maybe, don't want a car? The answer is certainly not more cars on the road. Certainly public transport is in need of improvement but that doesn't mean it is a bad idea.
Public doesn't mean publicly owned, by the way, so a great number of these operators will be private businesses. I wonder how many of the owners are left wing?
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Is there something wrong with subsidising public transport?
Only that once upon a time we had a number of completing privately owned and run PT operators, so we didn't need to subsidise.
Then we went all socialist and nationalised rail and bus services. Obviously we wanted a good local bus service so we gave it to local authorities to run. That was a good idea.
Over the intervening decades, we have forgotten how to run PT efficiently and for profit. Hence the performance we get from rail operators, NE, etc etc.
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There are surely enough private operators around that have made a more than decent profit over the years since bus transport was deregulated (Stagecoach?). As for efficiency, well, if buses leave before they are due to, that is down to the human factor and it is not hard to identify. Of course it should be dealt with and not allowed to be repeated.
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Can't boast of having had much trvail with buses, I don't use them that much. But, my teeth are smooth from being gritted too often when I commuted by train into Manchester.
One day, after going from platform to platform as directed by the loudspeaker system, and waiting in misery because the train wouldn't start, I saw the platform manager cry !
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>> Is there something wrong with subsidising public transport?
I'm old enough to remember when buses were run by the local authority - damn good they were too.
Then some 'bright young thing' eager to make a mark in Westminster had the idea of 'deregulation' of bus services (i.e. = removal of standards).
Most busses these days seem to be run by Stagecoach or Arriva - neither of which are noted for their left-wing sympathies. There is also a hotch-potch of smaller outfits trying to make a fast buck - mainly with prehistoric busses cast-off by the bigger operators.
The European model of public transport uses tight regulation and integration of services. The PT in major German cities is so good it makes you want to weep.
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I agree with most of the above. I used to have to go to Aberdeen regularly. So I thought the Inter City from Kings Cross would be a good idea. Oh dear, oh dear! It takes nearly 8 hours and costs £125 on a white saver ticket - whatever that meant. I can drive it in 7 hours on a Friday night leaving London in rush hour.
Something drastic really needs to be done to get me out of my car.
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\"Nothing less than 8 cylinders will do\"
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The PT in major German cities is so good it makes you want to weep.
And in France. But like Germany they started in 1945, and we've a hell of a way to go to catch up.
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I can drive it in 7 hours on a Friday night leaving London in rush hour.
Not bad - must be 550 miles -ish. Now, 7 into 550 equals 78 to 80 ish. Pretty good average speed especially leaving London in rush hour when M1, M6, M40 etc are clogged. It's taken me 4 hours to go 100 miles from Midlands to Leeds on a Friday evening before now.
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Oops, sorry about bus company name being mentioned. Didn't think...pretty angry at the time!
Thanks for everyones support. Got there, got car, got home and went to the pub. Just got in and now going to bed!
Journey up was usual stop start, but heh I had the choice of my own radio stations and the options to stop for a coffee and the loo when I chose.
I think the government has given up on bringing public transport up to a service level and down to a price that would appeal to most people and is therefore hammering the car to bring car driving down to the level of inconvenience and cost achieved by public transport.
Helicopter-------Lets have a go in the copter(only joking)! Passed my R22 test 5 years ago. Also done just under 5 hours on the Jet Ranger. Haven't been able to afford to fly for just over a year but am getting revalidated next month on the R22 after a long slog scraping the cash together.
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<< I am so angry I could explode!
I hope I'm not driving past when you do ~ I've only just washed my car! ;-)
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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I couldn't agree more about services before deregulation (under Thatcher, of course). I have some limited experience of buses in N Italy, namely part of the South Tyrol and Lake Garda. Both have excellent bus services. Likewise, the boat service around Lake Garda.
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BTW, I meant deregulation under Thatcher, and not the bus services, which largely went to pot after deregulation.
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I actually enjoy travelling by bus or coach. Having said that, I don't do so very often now because it takes up more time and costs more than using my car which does 50+ mpg.
cheers, Sofa Spud
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I am also fit to be tied.
Dozens of people round here drive every day to the station 4 miles away, to commute into London. There are no buses to the station. There is absolutely no point trying to push people onto public transport when they need a car in order to use the train; many families either have to have 2 cars, where one would do, or one car has to make 2 trips to the station every day - bonkers.
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It's called an Integrated Transport Policy, and I remember a glorious epidsode of 'Yes, Minister!' which succinctly explained why we'll never have one. Sir Humphrey appears to have been right.
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I'd forgotten that - from "The Bed of Nails":
Jim Hacker: "And after all, we do need a Transport Policy."
Sir Humphrey: "If by 'we' you mean Britain that is perfectly true, but if by 'we' you mean me and you and this department, we need a Transport Policy like an aperture in the cranial cavity."
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had to use the train on thursday same scenario picking up a van in swindon, bristol parkway to swindon cost £10.40 which i thought was ridiculous then the train is delayed ok not by much but while i was waiting every train into bristol parkway was delayed every single one of them . however when i got to swindon i used the local bus service and i must be honest it really wasn't that bad honestly swindon seems to have a reasonable bus service with some special shortcut roads only for buses(i mean new roads specially built for buses not old roads with restrictions that only buses can now use them) i was impressed and it cost £1.30 anywhere in swindon which was cheap enough . ...cheers...keo
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swindon seems to have a reasonable bus service with some special shortcut roads only for buses(i mean new roads specially built for buses not old roads with restrictions that only buses can now use them)
Erm, well, not stricly true. At least, it wasn't true on Thursday evening at about 6:00pm. A car can travel down these roads, it's just not allowed. Now if you'd said "only buses may now use them" you'd have been right.
Still, it got me where I needed to be 5 minutes sooner than if I'd gone all round the houses.
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nd sorry but the one i was one was weird this was like a back lane designed for buses it was strange to say the least looked new it was behind an industrial estate if that helps with local geography...cheers...keo
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I'd forgotten that - from "The Bed of Nails":
That's it! And if I remember rightly, Hacker nevertheless set about trying to establish one.
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"The Bed of Nails":<<
"Transport Supremo?! Transport muggins!"
"This hideous appointment has been flying around Whitehall like a grenade with the pin out"
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OHMYGOD, I had to do a double take when reading this as it is exactly the same as my daughter, except she got no freebies!, You dont live near Southampton by any chance do you?
The worst thing is the buses leaving early, whats the point in a timetable, you have no chance, buses, pah!
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Drink Lager, Talk Piffle !
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Obviously should have included Smokies post before sending the above, doh!
>>>Daughter uses local bus service to get to college (5 miles). She has a season pass.
They are very unreliable time-wise, going early, late, not at all, but never on time. She wrote to complain.
She got back a nice letter explaining about traffic and rush hours etc, together with two free tickets to use anytime.
So, that'll be anytime they decide to invalidate her season pass I suppose...
OHMYGOD, I had to do a double take when reading this as it is exactly the same as my daughter, except she got no freebies!, You dont live near Southampton by any chance do you? The worst thing is the buses leaving early, whats the point in a timetable, you have no chance, buses, pah! -- Drink Lager, Talk Piffle !
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