Commuters suffering prolonged as NAO says no to more rail capacity

[[TW]Fox]

Are you suggesting I don't have a brain?

Where the hell did that come from?

I suggest you spend some time googling the popular term 'no brainer' if you even considered thats what I meant.

Peak time travel will always be expensive - its supply and demand. Deal with it, or use the trains offpeak.

I have in front of me a return ticket to London Paddington which cost a whole £44 - in First Class. For a 400 mile round trip. I did the same trip in the car last weekend and it cost me 70 quid in petrol. The train, therefore, is often astonishingly good value.

 

[Berserker]

Where the hell did that come from?

Rest assured, I was being ever so slightly facetious. However, it's still a valid point - not everyone has a car and those who do often forget about that.

PS - I did Reading to Liverpool and back a year or so ago for about £15. It was in cattle class naturally, but who cares at that price.

 

[feedtheram]

i work in the railway industry and the high prices that are charged are mainly due to decades of under investment in expanding and renewing the network. its going to be decades more before its back to the level it should be.

its going in the right direction though

 

[Dolph]

Do those figures actually mean anything at all? I don't see how you can attribute a blanket 'efficiency' figure on different means of transport when for each particular area the demographics and geography will mean wildly different levels of expenditure and usage.

Yes, they are the ratio of cost to economic benefit. They are very meaningful. It shows the best way to spend money on transport infrastructure to provide the most benefit.

For example roads and cars in cities suck horribly, whereas trains provide a pretty damn efficient way of getting around, which is clearly going to be far more beneficial in investing then spending an assload of money connecting little villages in the Scottish Highlands where roads would do a better job.

I have no problem driving my car into any city bar London, it is certainly more convenient than the train in the vast majority of cases.

Unless you go underground (which incurs massive costs), crisscrossing a city with train tracks is just as problematic as building new, better roads, but for some reason we seem far more willing to knock down lots of buildings for trains than we do for roads...

 

[Rich_L]

If you're lucky enough to work shift patterns so you avoid the weekend rush or rush hour yes, I could probably drive into any city bar London too without much bother...as for parking when you get there, ridiculous traffic at weekends, rush hour gridlock, I struggle to see how building more roads helps in any way - LA has 14-lane freeways that are still gridlocked from 7-9 and 5-7 every day after all.

And I'm not sure in what world it's more convenient to drive into a busy city centre than to get on a train way outside, take a seat and get off directly in the city centre, which is how the 'vast majority' of train services work. I don't think it's a coincidence that most major cities in the world (bar LA and boy does it suffer for it) have acquired major public transport networks, usually by rail/tram, to shuttle people around efficiently and easily.

 

[mattyprice4004]

Oh no, my heart bleeds for all the bankers commuting to london that'll have to stand up for an hour. In opposite land.

Public transport is crap, deal with it. You'll always be lumped into a smelly metal box with people you'd rather weren't there breathing up all the good air in the carriage.

I'm scared, I agree with something you've said

Tis the truth, this is why I hate big cities.

 

[[TW]Fox]

I have no problem driving my car into any city bar London, it is certainly more convenient than the train in the vast majority of cases.

You'd have a lot more problems driving your car into any city if we didnt have a railway network to take the load off the roads.

Unless you go underground (which incurs massive costs), crisscrossing a city with train tracks is just as problematic as building new, better roads, but for some reason we seem far more willing to knock down lots of buildings for trains than we do for roads...

Who is knocking down lots of buildings for trains? We've not exactly been over-run with nice new lines!

 

[lokkers]

Yes, but investing in roads is super fun happy high... surely we should be looking for the best way to spend money, not merely an ok way of doing it?

So you're suggesting even more people try to commute into cities by car, making congestion (and pollution) even worse? I didn't notice much parking for my wife in Westminster last time I was there...

 

[Rids]

I pay £3.5k a year to commute to work, already its 50/50 if I get a seat on the train, and now they're thinking of eliminating more seats? What a farce. Its not like the tickets will get any cheaper to compensate, fares will rise and us commuters will get the shaft again.

 

[Lucifurr]

I am surprised that Crossrail is still going ahead. I would have thought money have been better spent by simply extending platforms and making trains longer on existing lines.

 

[asim18]

Why is that video entitled "Chinese train" (albeit misspelt) when they are quite clearly speaking Japanese?

Train was made in China?

 

[[TW]Fox]

Train was made in China?

The Japanese have one of the most advanced production economies in the world.

They dont buy trains from China.

 

[Indy500]

I am surprised that Crossrail is still going ahead. I would have thought money have been better spent by simply extending platforms and making trains longer on existing lines.

Crossrail uses 10-coach trains compared to the usual 8. Some stations can't be extended because of bridges or level crossings (the proposed additional Crossrail link from Paddington->Feltham suffers from this problem).

 

[Mad old tory]

I am surprised that Crossrail is still going ahead. I would have thought money have been better spent by simply extending platforms and making trains longer on existing lines.

Crossrail is vital if only for bringing in extra transport links to Canary Wharf. The Jubilee line is horrific and the DLR is only going to get worse.

 

[Dolph]

So you're suggesting even more people try to commute into cities by car, making congestion (and pollution) even worse? I didn't notice much parking for my wife in Westminster last time I was there...

Not necessarily, there are some cities where public transport is a better option. However, a revamp of the motorway network (recognising that the industrial heartlands it was originally envisaged to serve in the North don't really exist the same now) would be much better than a national revamp of the railway network as a whole, and certainly expanding the motorway network provides a better cost/benefit ratio than expanding the rail network.

If tackling congestion is really a concern, introducing 'yellow buses' for schools would be a great start...

It needs to be recognised and accepted that the car is not the big evil, and that trying to eliminate it isn't desirable, especially if the approach to doing so is to continue trying to make car travel worse rather than making alternatives better.

 

[Berserker]

It needs to be recognised and accepted that the car is not the big evil, and that trying to eliminate it isn't desirable, especially if the approach to doing so is to continue trying to make car travel worse rather than making alternatives better.

To quote Fox from this very thread...

Where the hell did that come from?

I'm not sure where anyone suggested eliminating the car. Indeed the thread started as a discussion of making rail travel worse.

There are always going to be many cases where car is king. Rural locations for starters - as well as, heaven forbid, the grocery shop (I've tried carrying five bags of shopping on a bus - it's possible but not something I'd be overly enthusiastic about).

Aside the obvious budgetary consideration, why does it always have to be one or the other? Simple fact is that both have their merits and their place.

 

[feedtheram]

Crossrail is vital if only for bringing in extra transport links to Canary Wharf. The Jubilee line is horrific and the DLR is only going to get worse.

not to mention taking huge pressure off the central line which is already over-saturated.

 

[Dolph]

To quote Fox from this very thread...

I'm not sure where anyone suggested eliminating the car. Indeed the thread started as a discussion of making rail travel worse.

There are always going to be many cases where car is king. Rural locations for starters - as well as, heaven forbid, the grocery shop (I've tried carrying five bags of shopping on a bus - it's possible but not something I'd be overly enthusiastic about).

Aside the obvious budgetary consideration, why does it always have to be one or the other? Simple fact is that both have their merits and their place.

It has been the transport policy of the last 13 years to try and kill the car, massive taxation, schemes to make car use harder, car journeys longer and so on. It needs to stop, and fortunately it looks like it is going to. We also need to be recognising where the best value for money in transport infrastructure is frequently found.

I think my post covered that it shouldn't be an either or idea...

 

[remy87]

lmao that japanese train video, glad that I cycle to work.

 

[-Ad-]

I have in front of me a return ticket to London Paddington which cost a whole £44 - in First Class. For a 400 mile round trip. I did the same trip in the car last weekend and it cost me 70 quid in petrol. The train, therefore, is often astonishingly good value.

And I presume you have a young persons railcard and are travelling off peak, as a first class ticket during peak hours wouldn't be that cheap It can be Cheap if you can work your way through the system finding a cheap ticket with pre-booked discounts and/or using a railcard, but peak season ticket travel can be ridiculous unless you use it a lot.

For me it isn't too bad, and although the £4300 yearly cost seems horrific I do get an awful lot:

- Any time exit and entry from any station on the route to london (especialy as my other half is in St Albans).
- Zones 1-6 in and around London (inc rail services) which is great for multiple site access across the capital.
- 35% discount for myself and up to 3 others on tickets in the network area covering most of the south and south east.

I am surprised that Crossrail is still going ahead. I would have thought money have been better spent by simply extending platforms and making trains longer on existing lines.

If only it was as easy as that. There are upgrade works going on along the first capital connect route with longer platforms that I have seen working on at St Albans and West Hampstead Thameslink. Haven't kept up on these upgrades works tbh.

Crossrail is vital if only for bringing in extra transport links to Canary Wharf. The Jubilee line is horrific and the DLR is only going to get worse.

The Jubilee line is only going to get better once the SELTRAC signalling system goes into revenue service and the faults are ironed out. The Northern Line already has works going on in preparation for this upgrade too.

There is only so much we can do with our archaic Underground system with the funds available.

Also, how on earth is the DLR getting worse it has only got better, especially with the reliability improvements with the signalling system very obvious over the last 2 years and the 3rd car being added recently adding 50% extra capacity on the route from Bank down to the wharf.