Just had some guard try to charge me and my other half £13.80 for a one way train journey.
Like f*ck, so I asked for a return duo ticket that I know only costs £7.20.
Eventually only paid £5.60 (WKK to DRT) .
Everyone else on the same journey paid nothing (unless they had paid up front) as he was unable to collect any other fares due to the time spent arguing with me.
Sounds correct (assuming that's for both) for "anytime day single"
The whole rail network suffers from lack of quality staff training and to be honest the fare structures are so confusing I doubt they really understand any of it. Something needs to be done to control the companies to make sure everyone is doing the same thing so to speak. does it really cost more to run trains on different services often over the same bits of track. I think not. Brian
Be quite easy to work out an average cost per mile and charge accordingly. But then no more special offers for weekend excursions etc on routes which may be busier during the week and so on.
Of course competition over the same route improves both services and costs. We're told. Something absolutely proved by privatisation. All those previously state run industries now run faultlessly.
Be quite easy to work out an average cost per mile and charge accordingly. But then no more special offers for weekend excursions etc on routes which may be busier during the week and so on.
Of course competition over the same route improves both services and costs. We're told. Something absolutely proved by privatisation. All those previously state run industries now run faultlessly.
Privatisation != competition.
And you're old enough to remember how profoundly shit BR was.
Plenty private companies are shit too. Usually down to poor management and lack of investment. And a government can usually borrow money more cheaply than a private company.
But you have to remember one of the main reasons the railways were nationalised. They weren't profitable enough under private ownership. And were set to fail totally.
The result of years without any significant investment in the infrastructure, although they at least could point to the war as the reason for that.
Might that not have something to do with the fact the railways had been in state control from September 1939? During that time government had decided how much was spent on maintenance, rolling stock etc (ie v little). Can you point to evidence that the companies, with the help of the government action on the Salter report, were not delivering profitable railways until the war intervened? Or provide some research and analysis you've DIY'd?
I have never had a problem before although usually I have looked up the prices before I set off - well not the Underground as I just use my Oyster card and apparently that just works out the cheapest fare unless it misses you leaving a station.
Even before WW2, there were many lines that didn't make a profit. Some never did from the day they were built.
Even in the Victorian era in many cases it wasn't about getting from A to B but more a case of making money on the stock market investing in new railway shares - until the bubble burst.
but they often acted as feeders to the profitable routes. "Loss leaders" in modern parlance.
But the railways were becoming more profitable, helped by government action to level the playing field between rail and road. Eg the big changes in road taxes following the Salter committee's report which concluded road freight was ?using the common highway for private profit, while endangering public safety, amenity, and capital.?
Plus ca change...
Some were never meant to. There was a line in Brighton, built from Kemp Town (a posh bit) to the main line (and thus into central Brighton) which was built in 1869. It's entire purpose was as a spoiling tactic to stop the construction of a line into Kemp Town from near Beckenham, and the nominally independent company was actually supported by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, who would have been affected by the line from Beckenham.
It involved a long tunnel, a bridge, and a massive viaduct (total length of line less than 1.5 miles). It cost a fortune.
The line never made money and passenger traffic stopped in 1932. Goods trains ran until 1971, and were only viable because they served a coal yard.
(I am not a railway anorak; I know this because the tunnel ran under our house and we could hear the trains; also, I frequently walked past the railway yard)
I wonder what reason most of our roads were built for in the first place, the carrying of goods or people?
I know the canals were initially for working boats and how mainly used for recreation and similar with many railways which were only installed (at the time) to carry workers and materials / goods to / from mines and industrial plants etc.
I also understand some railways were built to take people to the holiday resorts (or even to establish a holiday resort in the first place).
What doesn't make mechanical sense to me is moving a locomotive around on the back of a truck (I understand it's often cheaper but it's shouldn't be should it)?
It makes some sense to move a vessel by road if it's easier to do (quicker / shorter / cheaper) than to sail it there. ;-)
And then you have vessels that carry vessels. ;-)
And by that I really meant like this:
Rather than this:
Cheers, T i m
Whereas in fact road freight was using the common highway for the purpose for which it was built: transport.
And they "fixed" that by subsidising the inefficient rail system.
Plus ca change ...
The fact is that no mode of transport has an inherent right to exist. The canals were the bees knees for a few years, smooth and reliable compared to the roads as they then were, in the early 1800s. Then the railway came along and that was basically it for the canals.
Bloody clever of local authorities (and the Romans?) to anticipate the increases during the 20s and 30s in the size of lorries and volume of freight carried.
You are of course entitled to argue the Salter Committee were wrong. But I think it worth noting it was agreed unanimously by all 4 members from the rail industry and all 4 from road haulage. And of course they showed their workings.
But I am sure you'd be very popular with some if you unwound the action the government took and eg abolished fuel duties, differential VED and limits on drivers' hours.
Railways only resally ever made sense as a way of transporting people and goods between large production centres and large populations centers.
If everyone lived in a few massive cities, they would be perfectly OK
The problem was and is to this day, that if you don't have source and destination near staions on a single line, the process of finding a route and connections is massive, and te delays exceed anything a road has to offer.
Plus of course the opprtunity cost of using a car at 50p a mile for several occupants when its likely that the train fare will be easily double that for a single person... plus the bus or taxi or tube costs...for the last few miles.
Railways need to do packet switched waggons with very low spacings between trains all automated with drive on drive off capability to be any where near a solution for many journeys
Thanks to the massive investments made by the privatised companies.
There are plenty of archive news items made in the 60's and 70's where commuters into London are complaining about dirty and unreliable trains, fare increases and bolshy staff.
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