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Last year GNER, or the people who own it, agreed to pay £100 million for the right to run trains up the East Coast Mainline for the next 10 years = £10 million a year. I don't know how many passengers they carry in a year but it is going to a lot of money per head that they have to recover. I use the trains a lot as I am able to book ahead. Typically I can get Grantham to Inverness return for £66, Grantham to Newcastle return £20 and Oakham to Birmingham return £7. At those prices I can't consider driving but I do agree that that the 'turn up and go'fares are very, very high
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Surely the consequence of high turn-up and go fairs is that they will not win new customers.
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Our perceptions of travel costs are hugely distorted.
Others have already pointed out some of the explanatory factors for the current ludicrous cheapness of air travel. Does anyone ever use their total car ownership and running costs when comparing the cost of a journey with that of the train ticket? Nah, we always think no further than the fuel cost for that journey, and few of us factor in the hassle & stress factor.
Nor do many people think in terms of total journey time when comparing train and plane options: you commonly spend more time getting to the plane and from it to your ultimate destination than you do in the air -- all that wretched waiting and walking, without which I for one can do.
I continue to believe that point-to-point (i.e. no extensive travelling at each end) journeys of between 200 and 500 miles ought to be won hands down by the train, other things being equal . . . but they ain't.
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I continue to believe that point-to-point (i.e. no extensive travelling at each end) journeys of between 200 and 500 miles ought to be won hands down by the train, other things being equal . . . but they ain't.
I've just checked a journey I do regularly - Newcastle to Bristol and return, at weekends.
It had never even occurred to me to use the train, but yes, lets see.. flight time is 50mins but there's a lot of waiting about. Easyjet flights cost about £40-45 return, including taxes.
Train would be.... £134 for a 'saver return' - and the shortest journey time is 5 hours, others up to 7 hours. (Open First return is about £435. Yes, POUNDS!)
If the train was steam hauled and gold plated, it still wouldn't be a viable option at those prices - even the lowest -and speeds, so certainly cattle class isn't going to take me anywhere soon!
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I've just checked a journey I do regularly - Newcastle to Bristol and return, at weekends. It had never even occurred to me to use the train, but yes, lets see.. flight time is 50mins but there's a lot of waiting about. Easyjet flights cost about £40-45 return, including taxes. Train would be.... £134 for a 'saver return' - and the shortest journey time is 5 hours, others up to 7 hours. (Open First return is about £435. Yes, POUNDS!) If the train was steam hauled and gold plated, it still wouldn't be a viable option at those prices - even the lowest -and speeds, so certainly cattle class isn't going to take me anywhere soon!
Virgin again!.
National rail show two completely different first open fares, that Neil quotes and another lower one. Even as a keen and regular user of rail travel I cannot begin to fathom it. And seven hours on a Sunday evening when everybody is trying to get home is 'avin a laff.
The Voyager train is no great experience either - the thirty year old IC125 beats in hollow for comfort.
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Our perceptions of travel costs are hugely distorted. Others have already pointed out some of the explanatory factors for the current ludicrous cheapness of air travel. Does anyone ever use their total car ownership and running costs when comparing the cost of a journey with that of the train ticket? Nah, we always think no further than the fuel cost for that journey, and few of us factor in the hassle & stress factor. Nor do many people think in terms of total journey time when comparing train and plane options: you commonly spend more time getting to the plane and from it to your ultimate destination than you do in the air -- all that wretched waiting and walking, without which I for one can do. I continue to believe that point-to-point (i.e. no extensive travelling at each end) journeys of between 200 and 500 miles ought to be won hands down by the train, other things being equal . . . but they ain't.
The trouble is that you are technically correct.
If you didn't own and run a car already the cost of train travel would probably be acceptable. The trouble is the government wants to try and dissuade people from using their cars and is not doing a very good job in the respect that for people who have cars are better off using them assuming they have already paid the running costs of the car anyway.
If the railways were run as a 'not for profit' operation with any profits ploughed back in to the rail infrastructure and operating costs. Unfortunately having gone down the route of outsourcing everything to organisations who need to make a healthy profit, no matter what, the utopia of public transport at reasonable cost will remain elusive.
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Roly is dead right.
To put it into a work context, I already own a car, and have to tax and insure it.
I might need to travel from say Norwich to Birmingham. I can take the laugably named "Sprinter" at some expense (can't remember how much)or i can drive and recover 40p a mile from my employers. No brainer. It will be cheaper for the client as he will be paying for less of my time.
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I get really frustrated about this arguement. The fares for turn up and go are normally for people like myself. I work for a large multinational and we are told to get our tickets on the day. There is currently a cost saving exercise going on and this will be changing. You (the general public) should not really care about this. Air travel is also verrrry expensive to turn up and go plus trains going on routes to major cities generally go when you need them and are more frequent than planes. YOU PAY FOR CONVENIENCE AND FREQUENCY get over it. This is not a utopia and if you want the old wasteful days back of British rail where everbody has to pay for it fair enough but i dont. My answer is if you cant afford the train book in advance or get a coach.
All people do nowadays is moan that they have it bad. Get some perspective on life.
You will be happier
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over it. This is not a utopia and if you want the old wasteful days back of British rail where everbody has to pay for it fair enough but i dont. My answer is if you cant afford the train book in advance or get a coach. All people do nowadays is moan that they have it bad. Get some perspective on life. You will be happier
What a wonderful representation of our public transport system. How dare we peasants expect to travel on a train and pay reasonable fares?
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Get a coach. Do you have the right to use the train no that is not the way it works. People want to pay minimal tax and get everything. You can have better services but you will have to pay for them. Vote Lib Dem.
Why do you decide whats reasonable??????????
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You (the general public) should not really care about this.
Speaking on behalf of my fellow proles, I beg to differ. When I use my car it's often a spur of the moment thing. If the government want me out of the car and onto a train, they're going to have to do better than this. Air travel, yes I book in advance because the sort of place I have to go by air means that the trip is a big deal. But if I wanted to pop to Reading to do some shopping it'd cost me a magnitude more on the train.
YOU PAY FOR CONVENIENCE AND FREQUENCY
We might pay for it, but we don't get it. My car is far more convenient (ie it takes me from my house to my destination) and there's always one leaving exactly when I need it.
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My car is far more convenient (ie it takes me from my house to my destination) and there's always one leaving exactly when I need it.
... and it doesn't cost twice as much if you want to take your partner.
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Weigh up the options and choose the best option for you.
If people us the service and it makes the desired margin it will stay.
SUPPLY AND DEMAND.
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I was talking about the convenience and frequency of the train compared to air as I think is obvoius.
With regard to the car it would take an ENORMOUS investment to make the train comparable in price to the car and I personally think that most people would still drive cos it gives full freedom.
If it cost the same to drive and use train and there was no need to use the train (to do work on) would you use the train. I prob wouldnt as in my car I can listen to my music and sing along. I can set off when I want. I can turn round and go home.
Again this not a utopia. Live with it the world is fair
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Calm down Andrew, it's only a discussion forum where each is entitled to his views... and no more politics please
smokie, BR Moderator
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I was not advocating the vote just trying to get the point across.
Did not men to offend just feel that the press in this country report 10% of a story to inflame the public who bdont always get the full facts.
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In 1995 I came back to the UK from Australia for a month. Being on my own I didn't want to hire a car so I tried using public transport to get around. The trains were so expensive that I tried the coaches. Coach London to Glasgow was GBP25 and that was fair but when I tried to go by bus from Glasgow to Harrogate it was expensive and inconvenient. Harrogate to Evesham was even worse. By the end of the month I had come to the conclusion that it was cheaper to hire a car for a month than to try to use the trains and much more convenient. That was before the days of advance booking on the Internet. It might be better now. Everytime I have been back since then I have hired a car at the airport and dropped it off when I leave. It is expensive but the alternatives are much worse.
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The railway is actually something of a public transport success story. More journeys are made now than in the fifties when the network was much larger, car ownership lower and industrial towns emptied to the seaside once a year. With laptops and mobile phones travel time is productive time,business recognises that benefit. You no longer see many business travellers reading the paper!. I'll bet the OP's train was pretty well full.
Much as I moan about Virgin the fast line out of Euston is, at the peak, running at max capacity. Better signalling might improve the flow rate a bit but not much, 3 minute headways at 125mph is proably as good as you get. The trains are as physically big as they can be and still fit in the tunnels and can only grow by a carriage or two in length before hitting the limits of platforms and power supply. The only realistic solution is a new TGV type line to the North; and not in my back yard!
The only way to ration capacity is, like city centre parking (motoring link, by price.
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What we must all remember is that the railways in this country are being run in a more business-like fashion and this is governing how the train firms price their tickets.
The long distance operators are copying the airlines and adopting "yield mamagement" systems where the price of seats is governed by factors like supply and demand and how far ahead you book.
The train firms need to raise cash in any way they can because they are now paying huge sums to the government in order to secure an operating franchise. Last year GNER agreed to pay £1.3 billion to the government in order to secure the East Coast franchise. First Group has just successfully bid for the Thameslink/Great Northern franchise but it's paying over £800 million for the privilege.
That is why some GNER tickets rose substantially earlier this week (according to the Guardian a Newcastle-Kings X business saver ticket was hiked by 28%) and it also means that, increasingly, passengers travelling on longer trips will only secure a good value fare provided they book ahead.
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The fares for turnup and go are normally for people like myself. I work for a large multinational and we are told to get our tickets on the day.
I work for a large multinational also, but you are forgetting that not everybody who uses the train is on expenses like us !
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"we are told to get our tickets on the day." That's one badly run business. I'd expect one of my employees to have to explain to me face to face why he/she didn't buy in advance when the cost differential is so great.
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Well Mr NSar, Sir, You phoned me up at 20:00 last night and told me to be at Acme co in Birmingham at 09:00am the next day.
Now unless you want to pay me overtime for searching the web and phoning up in my home time, or breaking the european working time directive by driving for 6 hours I suggest you stick it in your pipe and smoke it.
Sir
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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tvm can you explain this european working time directive ?
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That's one badly run business. I'd expect one of my employees
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if you can come to that conclusion on just one short sentence, here is the conclusion i come to from your very short sentecne is that:
your experience of the business world may be very very limited.
as to why things are the way they are, simple - british way of funding public/private monopoly enterprises. (incidentally, another deep rooted reason can be found by those who are really that interested by searching for parliamentary debates on why british firms still produce and use bitumen roofing felt materials ! ).
andrew-marc: you are on the right track but talking to the wrong audience.
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I know. This is a motoring website. I think this site is very useful and like I said earlier if you dont just read the propaganda that publications like the sun (highest readership in the country) put out you get the full story and are then able to really form an opinion. I dont think you should voice an opinion about something where all you have done is read a headline because ghe point of the headline is to sensationalise and thereofore draw you in.
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"we are told to get our tickets on the day." That's one badly run business. I'd expect one of my employees to have to explain to me face to face why he/she didn't buy in advance when the cost differential is so great.
Most of the public sector would expect staff to use cheap fares where available or explain why not
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I was once attending an exhibition at Excel in Docklands. Day return rail fare £180 return (no cheapies as leaving before 9.30am), air fare £130 return, the air travel also meant I could stay in London longer. I was told I had to go by rail as going by air looked too 'flash' regardless of it being cheaper! I went by air anyway and claimed the £130.
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I was told I hadto go by rail as going by air looked too 'flash' regardless of it being cheaper! I went by air anyway and claimed the £130.
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Crikey, what decade/century were your bosses brought up in !! Its the first time I have heard air travel regarded as flash since the 70's !
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Like the person said earlier Where i work plans often change at short notice so unable to no point buying in advance. If you can buy in advance and dont its your own fault.
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A company that tells its employees to buy something at a greater cost than could be had by buying even a day prior is acting foolishly
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I see many things in this thread except motoring. While it was transport-related it was bearable. Now it's drifting into how to run your business it isn't.
Please return to transport, and preferably motoring, or it'll get locked.
smokie, BR Moderator
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Ok I'll drag it back transport - I have an 19 mile journey to work. If I take public transport it takes 1 hour 45 minutes using two buses or a bus and a train costing a minimum of £20 for the return journey and includes a 10 minute walk at each end. By car it takes me less than 25 minutes (predominantly motorway) at an average 39 mpg and I get to go door to door. Sorry, it's no contest - car every time.
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A company that tells its employees to buy something at a greater cost than could be had by buying even a day prior is acting foolishly
In defence of the original statement, in the sort of business I work in, plans change at very short notice, so attemting to buy non-refundable rail-tickets in advance would ultimately waste quite a bit of money, this is why my companies policy is that air tickets have to be the more expensive but flexible variety.
I think the original point of this discussion should be why any rail ticket is expensive, and not the intricacies of non public- sector company policy.
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