Trains in the UK vs other countries
- Thread starter Christmas themed thank
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FTFY.
I'm sure I'll be receiving a thank you card from Hong Kong soon when my South West Trains travel starts subsidising their travel too
Yea there is a reason it's so cheap in European countries :/
They keep raising it far faster than wages, eventually it's going to reach a point where people just stop using or needing it. A lot of Brits are already flocking out of London to find jobs elsewhere.
Excellent. I'm sure they'll use it to pay for trains with more than two carriages between Bham New St and Cardiff Central at peak times. Or not.
This actually surprised me a lot
26p: Investment in the rail network
Pleasing that this is the biggest chunk of the pie
25p: Staff
Got to wonder how that is skewed between upper management and Engineers/drivers/other on train staff. I do know that network rail pay decent salaries to Engineers though.
22p: Maintaining track and trains
Obviously essential activity but I doubt we're doing it as efficiently as we could be
Overally, I think it shows a healthy distribution - and surprisingly only 3% profit, which I don't think we can complain about. But it's just the magnitude of spending as a whole - not where the pennies in each pound go, but how many pounds are needed in the first place.
Would be interesting to compare with other European countries.
26p: Investment in the rail network
Pleasing that this is the biggest chunk of the pie
25p: Staff
Got to wonder how that is skewed between upper management and Engineers/drivers/other on train staff. I do know that network rail pay decent salaries to Engineers though.
22p: Maintaining track and trains
Obviously essential activity but I doubt we're doing it as efficiently as we could be
Overally, I think it shows a healthy distribution - and surprisingly only 3% profit, which I don't think we can complain about. But it's just the magnitude of spending as a whole - not where the pennies in each pound go, but how many pounds are needed in the first place.
Would be interesting to compare with other European countries.
This actually surprised me a lot
26p: Investment in the rail network
Pleasing that this is the biggest chunk of the pie
25p: Staff
Got to wonder how that is skewed between upper management and Engineers/drivers/other on train staff. I do know that network rail pay decent salaries to Engineers though.
22p: Maintaining track and trains
Obviously essential activity but I doubt we're doing it as efficiently as we could be
Overally, I think it shows a healthy distribution - and surprisingly only 3% profit, which I don't think we can complain about. But it's just the magnitude of spending as a whole - not where the pennies in each pound go, but how many pounds are needed in the first place.
Would be interesting to compare with other European countries.
obviously got to pay decent salary to staff, most are in safety critical roles like myself so i want decent money, you have to remember lots of projects cost a fortune even small ones.
I never understood why they do that!
Or the alternative, stop at Bristol Parkway and wait for the London Pads/Swansea train which is 99.9% of the time always late
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3p per fare, how many fares are sold per day? That's a lot of money that could be put into the trains or the tracks. I'm assuming the 26p is from our taxes.
3p per pound, not per fare.
And you're welcome to ask me to invest a few million in your train network offering less than 3% return to me, but I might decide to put my money in something else. Companies need money to function as well, you know?
That's 3% raw profit. Operating costs deducted. They're getting what they need to function.
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They don't need any money because we could run it perfectly well ourselves. We don't need German expertise when we are the country than invented the train.
I never understood why they do that!
Or the alternative, stop at Bristol Parkway and wait for the London Pads/Swansea train which is 99.9% of the time always late
Fortunately I just do University to Cheltenham on that route, where I change for a Swindon/Paddington train. It's still 40 mins to stand on an intercity route though, more understandable on a local service.
Complained more times than I can remember, same answer every time for 10 years, "rolling stock shortages mean other higher priority routes take precedence". You'd have thought the capital of Wales to England's second city would have more than two (usually full and standing) carriages. Sigh.
Train drivers 46k, Nurses 23k. Not quite sure being a train driver is quite that deserving personally. Most of the time the Guards cant even be bothered to come round and check tickets, especially when it's busy and they might actually have to do a bit of work.
I wonder how much you could reduce the train leasing costs and interest if it was publicly owned.
That would require a strategy to create employment outside of London. The current housing master plan seems to be to build new "garden villages" in the commuter belt which is just a different name for a housing estate, requiring a car journey to a station to then get a train to London. I don't think such radical out-of-the-box thinking is likely to solve the problem any time soon.
That would require a strategy to create employment outside of London. The current housing master plan seems to be to build new "garden villages" in the commuter belt which is just a different name for a housing estate, requiring a car journey to a station to then get a train to London. I don't think such radical out-of-the-box thinking is likely to solve the problem any time soon.
Did I say otherwise? I repeat, you need a 3% return on investment to get that investment. People aren't going to invest millions of their money into a company that doesn't offer a return on investment.
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Japan is the best railway all the year as it keep prefect time keeping etc.. plus spend lots of money to make high speed like bullet train, very impressive that how Japanese know to built best railway... Switzerland also very good railway through the mountain as I went there years ago in Wengen, prefect service all time.. I would say Japan and Switzerland are the best railway ive been on the ride..
Yes. You said they need money to function.
Infrastructure is just a huge issue in this country. The roads and the railways are stuck in the Victorian era.
Improvements are based around trying to patch bottlenecks rather than actually building it to last hundreds of years with future demand built in.
Improvements are based around trying to patch bottlenecks rather than actually building it to last hundreds of years with future demand built in.
There is plenty of work outside London. I'm already making plans to get out. It's a myth that you can't earn decent money outside the capital. You just need to work out the sums of commuting, rent/mortgage and general cost of living.