Trains and fares

[Andy Burns]

zero

[Terry Casey]

If they wont accept the CC statement for the dates you were obvioysly in London on business, the obvious solution is to take taxis everywhere and get individual receipts.

I've only used my CC on Tfl buses a couple of times in a day, so haven't reached the cap, but I'm sure each journey was individually shown. Might have been different if I'd done a third (bus)journey in a day.

[Dave Liquorice]

F. that. I did look at what a taxi would cost from hotel to site, not much change from £30 each way. The tube fares came to £3.40 return.. . bear in mind I'm self employed so this is my money I'm sepnding not this is my money I'm spending not "the companies". B-)

The no account, last 7 days view, shows each journey and gives the option of .pdf or .csv download. with enough information to link the .pdf to your card.

What did suprise me is that the tube Barking to Bow Road, walk to Bow Church and then DLR to Pudding Mill Lane was charged as one rather than two "journeys". Yes I did beep in/out at each station. Are there variable(?) timeouts between known interchange places or is it a blanket say 15 min timeout from your last beep out before a "new" journey is deemed to have started?

Being able to walk up with a contactless card is a damn site better than having to get an oyster, load some money (how much?) on to it then get refund any unused money afterwards. The scanners could do with being quicker mind they do produce tailbacks at the exit gates as everyone pauses for that second. Don't get that delay with the good 'ole mag stripe on a bit of cardboard, and I was also surprised that there were still a significant number of people buying tickets.

[Terry Casey]

Ah, I must have understood your previous post. I thought you were talking about difficulties getting reimbursement from a company's finance depaertment.

If you look at the tube map:

you'll see that Bow Road/Bow Church is shown an an interconnection so yes, it would be charged as one journey. I don't know how much time is allowed for the interchange, though.

A recent change to bus travel can also save you money: if you change buses withing 60 minutes of boarding the first bus, only one flat fare is charged (but you still have to swipe your card on the other bus(es)).

When the Oyster scheme was being implemented, there was no publicity about it so all these circular objects were appearing on ticket gates and buses but nobody knew what they were for!

When the time came to test the Oyster system, TfL staff were issued with Oyster cards to use.

A story circulated about two employees who bought a bag of burger rolls, slit them and put the Oyster cards inside.

They then entered a busy tube station, munching on their 'burgers' until the first one reached the barrier, waved his 'burger' and, Hey Presto! the gates opened. Other passengers who dsaw this exclaimed 'Did you see that!', thus attracting more attention as the second man waved his burger for a repeat performance!

[michael adams]

Nobody would need to do much analysis DIY or otherwise to recognise that the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the resulting slump in heavy industry in the UK throughout the 1930's would have a profound affect on any of the big four, a large part of whose income derived from freight.

While anyone who could actually be bothered to find out, would learn that on average between 1935 and 1939 the GWR was paying the highest dividend of 2.75, the LMS 2.7, Southern perhaps surprisingly paid only 0.65 while the LNER paid nothing at all.

And most importantly in respect of your specific point above, that by the outbreak of war only the GWR was paying any dividend at all.*

Not in Wolmar, but I remember reading elsewhere that the LNER never ever showed a profit. Which may not have been an issue, as any holders would have already survived the Wall St Crash without the need to liquidate assets. And most shares will have been scrip issued in lieu of shares held in smaller companies prior to the amalgamation of 1923, many of which never showed a profit either.

But can plain facts ever trump ideology ? Somehow I doubt it.

michael adams

• All in "Fire and Steam" 2007 Christian Wolmar p.251.

[Robin]

I'm glad you've done that research. Facts always help. But please note

(a) I never denied the railways were in trouble in the 1930s: that was why the Salter committee was set up - although the key issue they addressed was unfair competition from road transport

(b) I wrote "were...delivering profitable railways" not "had delivered profitable railways". It was work in progress. And of course we'll never know what would have happened but for the war - the effects of which were felt well before declaration.

And I think it worth noting that while Wolmar has forgotten more about railways than I ever knew, he is not exactly a fan of capitalism (albeit also not a fan of Jeremy Corbyn).

[michael adams]

Research ? Reaching out, taking one of the most popular works on a subject off of the shelf, as written by one of best known authors, skimming the index, finding the relevant page and copying bits out word for word isn't "research", in anybody's book. At the very least research involves taking obscure works by largely unknown or long forgotten authors, ideally written in a foreign language and copying very large chunks out of *those* out, word for word. Maybe with a bit of the good old compare and contrast thrown in for good measure,

Not really. There are convenient facts which can be guaranteed to get an airing and inconvenient facts which might never get to see the light of day. And with all such facts concerning a controversial topics, the first thing a person should ask is why am I being told this ? Or why is so easy (as in bold newspaper headlines) or so difficult to find out (the small print in the back pages of Private Eye). This really is very basic stuff you know, its almost remedial class standard.

Yes!!

I never said you did, Anyone who *did* claim the railways *weren't* in trouble in the 1930's would obviously be a half-wit; who'd clearly never heard of the Wall St Crash of 1929 and the profound effect it had on British Industry coal, steel, shipbuilding etc. and thus the railways during the 1930's.

Except they weren't. The LNER never ever made a profit, and according to Wolmar by the outbreak of war only the GWR was paying any dividend at all. The GWR with its monopoly on the route between London and Bristol and the West Country to say nothing of commuter traffic between Paddington Slough and all stations in between. How could anyone fail to make a profit in that situation?

" by the outbreak of war only the GWR was paying any dividend at all.*

The point I was making which seems to have escaped you is that following the slump caused by the Wall St crash things were bound to pick up by the mid 30's. But sadly they fell back again.

You mean the public wouldn't have bought cars, foreign holidays would have never taken off, and people would still be heating their homes with coal well into the 1970s? So that deliveries of domestic coal by rail from the colliery to the coal sidings at your local station wouldn't have dropped off to zero ?

As a result of his experience working as transport correspondent for "the Independent" in 1992-7 covering Rail privatisation Wolmar became highly critical of the whole process and its implementation for fairly specific, practical and non-dogmatic reasons; accountability for one. As were his fellow "anti-capitalists" Richard Ingrams and Ian Hislop among thousands of others possibly for other reasons as well.

In his critiques of capitalism Wolmar adopts exactly the same approach as do right wing think tanks by concentrating solely on the negative aspects. Thus saving capitalism appears to involve using obscene amounts of taxpayers money to bail out banks, pay bankers fat bonuses, and rescue pension funds run into the ground by tax dodging billionaires who it seems spend most of their time on their yachts in Monte-Carl.

So that's all right then.

Whereas British Rail sandwiches were often stale, the trains were often dirty, and sometimes late and so it had be broken up and privatised as soon as possible.

michael adams

...

[whisky-dave]

They weren't all there to make a profit but to proivide a service. Then we built motorways and people started buying cars.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

A private company building something just to provide a service? Which planet are you on today?

Cars were around rather before motorways. Not a chicken and egg thing.

[charles]

It was often a "feeder" srvice. Something that Beeching ignored.

[whisky-dave]

it wasn't just to provide a service for that line though it was the bigger picture.

The first railroad built in Great Britain was the Stockton and Darlington, opened in 1825. It used a steam locomotive built by George Stephenson and w as practical only for hauling minerals.

So who paid for it to be built ?

The railway system of Great Britain, the principal territory of the United Kingdom, is the oldest in the world. It was started with the building of lo cal isolated wooden wagonways starting in 1560s. The system was later built as a patchwork of local rail links operated by small private railway compa nies in late 18th century. These isolated links developed during the railwa y boom of the 1840s into a national network, although still run by dozens o f competing companies. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries , these amalgamated or were bought by competitors until only a handful of l arger companies remained (see railway mania). The entire network was brough t under government control during the First World War

Eggs were around long before chickens were. Without eggs they'd be no KFC.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Beeching did what he had to do.

Freeder lines were neither a service nort profitable.

Somwhere I have a picture taken on a bownie box camera c 1960 of a single tank engine and single coach backing into Sidmouth junction to be a 'feeder' to Sidford or Sidmouth - forget which.

My mother and I were the ONLY passengers.

The time taken to go from where we lived to sidmouth, by train was around 8-10 hours and involved three changes and a fair bit of luggage carting.

Once we had a car, it took 4-5 hours, with no luggage carting.

Beeching was totally correct to ditch that line