Your perception of rail travel in the UK?
- Thread starter teuchter
- Start date
It's estimated that 750,000 people commute into London daily from outside the M25. That doesn't include all the people in popular commuter towns just inside the M25 like Epsom and Watford, of course. If you look at how many people have to get the train to a London terminus, it goes up to more like 2.5 million.
Where are you going to house all those people, teuchter? Depending on exactly what you are measuring, you are looking at an increase in the population in the region of 10% to 40%.
Where are you going to house all those people, teuchter? Depending on exactly what you are measuring, you are looking at an increase in the population in the region of 10% to 40%.
Doppelgänger
There's only one of me!
You could just subsidise the rail travel instead?
teuchter
je suis teuchter
London and the SE need more housing.
Instead of building new housing in low-density car dependant developments scattered across the SE, we should be building it in higher-density developments in locations with good public transport links (or the potential to create improved transport links) into central London.
All this of course means that existing rail routes need to be improved.
What I'm trying to say is that we should be concentrating on the area immediately outside London, inclusing the various brownfield sites (yes I know there are issues with the green belt to be considered) rather than trying to work out how to cart people back and forth from 40 miles away. It's only going to get more and more expensive to do so until we sort out our energy problems.
Alternatively (or as well), as I think you alluded to earlier, we should be trying to encourage the development of employment centres outside of London (either in the SE or in the rest of Britain) so that those people who want to live outside of London can be within easy reach of employment.
The general theme is that we should be trying to keep services and employment close to people's housing as much as possible, for all sorts of reasons. That's why I'm not so pushed about heavily subsidising 40-mile commutes. It's wasteful.
Kanda
Diving wanker
teuchter
je suis teuchter
If you are going to subsidise the rail travel, at least devise a system that is directed at low earners specifically. Otherwise you just encourage more and more development of housing distanced from employment, and you aren't solving the core problem.
There was no concerted effort to encourage businesses to relocate though. Incentives to locate in London are still too high and disincentives removed too easily....another area they failed in with MK and a few other 'new towns'
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Subsidised commuting into London is one of those incentives.
Kanda
Diving wanker
There was a fair amount of incentive I believe to move to MK, not neccesarily relocating from London though.
I ended up there as part of London overspill from council houses, we had a lovely tin house in the middle of a building site...
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
The time difference between various commuter lines is shocking. kabbes' journey of 20 miles take 50+ minutes, mine of 15 miles in a very similar direction takes 25 minutes.
I chose where I live for its fast connection, having previously been in a town only 2 miles away where the train takes over an hour to get to the same place.
I don't know why trains going Dorking way need to stop at every lamppost on their way out of town, surely there's enough people who commute there to warrant some faster services. But then most of that line is single track in each direction, whereas I have a fast line and a slow line each way. It can't be that hard where there is single track to build some passing places and mould that in to the timetable though.
I chose where I live for its fast connection, having previously been in a town only 2 miles away where the train takes over an hour to get to the same place.
I don't know why trains going Dorking way need to stop at every lamppost on their way out of town, surely there's enough people who commute there to warrant some faster services. But then most of that line is single track in each direction, whereas I have a fast line and a slow line each way. It can't be that hard where there is single track to build some passing places and mould that in to the timetable though.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
And as to the OP's crafty use of French trips, the main gripe here seems to be cost. Have you got the costs for your trips in France? I booked a first class, one-way trip this morning from Lille to Paris, the walk up fare is £65. London to Birmingham, a slightly shorter distance is £115.50, knocking on double.
Britain's railways are actually rather good. The network coverage is blinding compared to any other country I can think of.
Is there a country of similar size that has so much track and so many stations?
Britain's railways are actually rather good. The network coverage is blinding compared to any other country I can think of.
Is there a country of similar size that has so much track and so many stations?
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I was actually travelling mainly on a railpass, because this worked out slightly cheaper than buying all the individual bits separately in advance and gave me more flexibility.
But as I said earlier in the thread, I would be interested to do a thorough price comparison between the UK and France some time. I'd have to think about how to do this: pick a load of journeys between random stations, at random times, for each country perhaps, and then work out average per mile costs, both for advance purchase and walk-up fares.
I think that peak time walk-up travel (like your example above) would likely work out as quite a bit more expensive here than in France.
Off-peak advance purchase - the UK might compare well or do better.
Off-peak walk-up fares - this is the one I'd be most interested to compare. I think the difference might not be so great as people think.
I think many people's idea of the cost of rail travel in the UK can be skewed by being quoted peak-time prices and not being aware that the cost can be substantially less just by travelling an hour later in many cases. I see it repeatedly on these boards. Also, the stupid system where walk-up off-peak singles are nearly the same cost as a return. If there was anything that should have been in the firing line in the "fares simplification" that would be it.
I've abandoned all hope of the Dorking line, actually, which is even worse (and what you say is true). I use the marginally better Guildford line and get on at Effingham Junction.
It's ridiculous -- the train is full well before it gets to Surbiton and is still full coming home after Surbiton. There should be a fast train that stops for the first time at the incredibly well used Eff Jnc. Or at least Claygate or something. 50 minutes is ridiculous. You can get a fast train all the way to Guildford (the end of my line) that takes something like 25-30 mins and, obviously, that's much further out.
I'm not talking about subsidising anything here. I'm talking about thousands of people that pay thousands of pounds a year each and deserve to have a more intelligent train service than one that only offers you every shoebox or first stop Guildford.
It's ridiculous -- the train is full well before it gets to Surbiton and is still full coming home after Surbiton. There should be a fast train that stops for the first time at the incredibly well used Eff Jnc. Or at least Claygate or something. 50 minutes is ridiculous. You can get a fast train all the way to Guildford (the end of my line) that takes something like 25-30 mins and, obviously, that's much further out.
I'm not talking about subsidising anything here. I'm talking about thousands of people that pay thousands of pounds a year each and deserve to have a more intelligent train service than one that only offers you every shoebox or first stop Guildford.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I need to double check this but I think I'm right in saying that season tickets are already quite heavily subsidised compared to rail fares in general.
If you want greater capacity, someone has to pay for it.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
It's madness. For me my train stops three times then fast from Surbiton to Waterloo. Coming home there's 2 trains an hour that only stop at Surbiton before dropping me home, 23 minutes
And on that line they have other services where the first stop is West Byfleet, or Brookwood etc. Cos they know there's enough demand for it. But on other lines like yours and Shepperton it seems like they don't give a toss.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
So we do have a lot of track. We also have a shit load more services than many countries. Gare du Nord at rush hours hasn't got anything on Waterloo.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Clapham Junction is allegedly the busiest railway station in Europe, by number of train movements (one every 13 seconds at rush hour).
Apparently Gare du Nord is the busiest in Europe by passenger numbers though.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Although happily, they've pushed the Metro improvements through anyway, raising council tax to pay for it. Ok, so it's not ideal, but Manchester's getting a massive expansion to its non-bus PT (important that it's non-bus, to win over the snobs)
King Biscuit Time
Well-Known Member
Is that true?
I'd say in Sheffield, those that are minded to get snobby about Public Transport are more sniffy about the trams. But that's probably becasue they don't cover any of the posher parts of town and were unashamedly a tool for regeneration as well as transport infrastructure. And they go to Meadowhall.
An example of shitness going on right now. We've had to sit at Surbiton for three minutes just because to avoid being fined for missing punctuality targets, the train companies decided that rather than improve their efficiency, they would instead just add some arbitrary slack into the timetable. So the train regularly has to sit at a station for a while waiting for the clock to catch up with its position. This is why it takes longer now to make the same journey than it did 10 years ago.
They must make £1m per year just from the people that catch the actual, single train that I catch. You're telling me that they can't run one train for £1m per year? Do me a favour.
moose
like some cat from Japan
I rarely travel by train because it invariably lets me down. I often plan to go to an away match by train only to turn up at the station on Saturday morning to find there are no trains stopping there that day, or that you have to get 2 replacement buses that take hours, so I have to hurtle home and get the car.
Ticket booking is a nightmare unless you know how to play the system (Roadkill recently saved me ££s cos he knows it). Sometimes they sell you weird tickets that don't work when you get on the train, but don't tell you the conditions attached.
The trains themselves aren't too bad, once you manage to get on one, except there's frequently no food or drink, and the one I took to London recently had no toilets either.
Ticket booking is a nightmare unless you know how to play the system (Roadkill recently saved me ££s cos he knows it
). Sometimes they sell you weird tickets that don't work when you get on the train, but don't tell you the conditions attached. The trains themselves aren't too bad, once you manage to get on one, except there's frequently no food or drink, and the one I took to London recently had no toilets either.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I have no idea what the cost of running one particular train for a year is.
In any case, you can't really isolate the cost of that one train and come up with a meaningful figure - it's a marginal cost just like you using your car, because all the infrastructure has to exist anyway. And you have to keep running trains in the off-peak parts of the day (some of which may be nearly empty) to provide a service that is actually useful to people.
All I can tell you is that neither South Eastern or Southern are among the operators that pay a premium to run a franchise: they both receive a subsidy. Here are some figures from a few years ago:
http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/253.pdf
Neither of those operators are at the high end of the list when the subsidies are measures by passenger km - but you have to bear in mind that rail traffic in the SE is going on for half of the all the train kms in the whole of the UK, and adds up to more train kms than all of the other regional operators combined.
Southern and South Eastern Trains each received about the same amount in subsidy per year as GNER paid as a premium. This was the pattern in BR days as well, as far as I know.
I can't tell you exactly why the intercity operators are so much more profitable than the commuter ones but I bet the majority of peak time travel on intercity routes is full-fare business stuff whereas the majority of peak-time travel on commuter routes is on season tickets, which per journey generally work out at something comparable in price to a regular off-peak ticket (ie. the long distance operators can cash in on peak travel because they set the prices, whereas the commuter operators can't because they have to stick to regulated season ticket prices).
How do the subsidies work though? Would the companies be profitable without them, assuming that they didn't have to pay for their franchise?
Obviously there is a lot of infrastructure. But multiply £1m per train by the number of trains commuting every day into London and you have an awful lot of millions. Many billions, I'd say. How much can it cost?
Obviously there is a lot of infrastructure. But multiply £1m per train by the number of trains commuting every day into London and you have an awful lot of millions. Many billions, I'd say. How much can it cost?
subversplat
writer of wrongs
Yeah, I expect for a bit of hassle but generally the trains do what I want them to. The only problem is near-inevitable half-hour holdovers in Princes Risborough which is a) super fucking boring and b) stinks of piss 
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Well, each franchise goes (in broad terms) to the operator who makes a bid that asks for the lowest subsidy.
Operations like Southern cost more to run than is received in ticket revenue, so any bidders will ask for a subsidy from the DfT that they reckon is the lowest that will still allow them to make a profit (ie running costs < revenue + subsidy).
Generally the long distance franchises like the East Coast generate more in revenue than the running costs so here bidders will offer to pay the highest premium they reckon they can pay to the DfT and still make a profit (ie running costs + premium < revenue).
(Recently, GNER got it wrong and underestimated the revenue, offered too high a premium and then found they couldn't pay it, hence they folded.)
So the combined train companies running commuter lines into London take in billions of pounds and still require extra subsidy? That's crazy.
I suppose you should bear in mind that the subsidies reflect overall cost to the operator, mind. It could still be that their commuter trains are profitable but they lose money operating other services off-peak and over the region as a whole.
I suppose you should bear in mind that the subsidies reflect overall cost to the operator, mind. It could still be that their commuter trains are profitable but they lose money operating other services off-peak and over the region as a whole.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I'm not sure on what basis you consider it "crazy" though - sure they take in billions of pounds but they also transport millions of people over millions of miles. Crazy compared to what? As a rule of thumb, railways don't make money (and haven't done so since soon after the motor car became widespread) - except sometimes on long distance routes.
It would be interesting to see how it breaks down. I wouldn't be all that surprised if even the commuter trains aren't very profitable though.
One anomaly that I spotted in those figures I posted above is Thameslink (now First Capital Connect) by the way. They are primarily a commuter operation but for some reason they seem to pay a premium rather than receive a subsidy. It would be interesting to know why that is.
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