Trains...why?

[661-Pete]

Did you know that:
(a) Beeching was a resident of East Grinstead?
(b) There is a street in East Grinstead named after him.
(c) Pre-Beeching, there were four railway lines leading into the town, from all four compass points. Then, thanks to his actions, the good folk of East Grinstead (including himself) were left with just one. OK, in more recent years it's increased to two, but one of them is the privately-owned Bluebell Railway.

I don't know whether the plans to resurrect the Beeching-axed alternative route between Brighton and London, via Uckfield, are still ongoing. A route we could well do with being reinstated (along with many others...) It would be tricky, though. Much of the existing route north of Uckfield has been reduced to single-track, and is not electrified...

[reohn2]

Cars are consumerism raised to the nth degree and they've changed our lives for the worst by making us absolutely dependent on them and just watching them being thrown around the streets by semi-trained monkeys relying on instinct can't be anything other than depressing.
I personally find driving a soul destroying experience. Gridlock, idiots that'll risk life and limb to get a vehicle ahead, the amount of filth they throw up, fighting for parking spaces and then worrying you've left the second most expensive thing you'll ever own dumped in a dodgy side street.

Trains otoh aren't perfect but for a lot of common journeys they're way faster than cars, particularly longer haul. You get to sit down, catch up on your reading and relax.
Having said that some of the local trains are pretty grim, but you quickly learn which trains to catch.

Quite right.

Imagine how good public transport could be if the vast amounts of money we pour into our "private" transport was used there instead.

This goes to the heart of the matter,the public has been sold a pup,cars bring in vast amounts of taxes but still don't pay their way when the maths are done properly.
The problem with the 'free market economy' is that it ain't free and people are being held to ransom by shysters in the form of rail companies and the government.
It alway amazes me that people think privatisation of services can be run better because there's profit to be made out of people who have little or no choice in the those services .
The problem is with the system currently operating where transport and the utilities are concerned,they simply aren't working optimumly for the people they're there to serve,but the boot is on the other foot and people are serving the rail and utilities.Whilst at the same time being falsely educated into thinking this or that type of ice powered car is the best to serve them,but that's rampant capitalism for you.....

[Cyril Haearn]

The Woodhead line was a modern electrified route across the pennines

It was closed and the locos were sold to no Nederland Railways

[PH]

Take me back to Pre- Beeching.

Beeching is a synonym for everything that's wrong with the world.

Poor Beeching gets a harder time than he deserves. I read both reports some years ago, the Governments of the day picked the bits that suited them and ignored all the others. We were supposed to get hub stations and busways linking them and dedicated freight lines to free up passenger capacity.... In hindsight he probably still got some of it wrong, we'll never know, but it wasn't just about shutting lines.

[reohn2]

quality varies? yes expensive if you dont use Advance Tickets & a Rail Card Some trips are cheaper by train than your car? eg London to Stratford Upon Avon return just £7 or so using the above options - with a bike. The only thing I might agree with is on board loos.....

Do you not think there's something wrong with a system that operates in such a fashion?

[mjr]

Four of us caught the train from Tyndrum Lower to Oban last Saturday. We were surprised to find the price was £17.80 return! Seems a tad expensive for an hours journey. No complaints whatsoever about the train or the conductors though. But how much cheaper it would have been to drive and park for the day, divided between the four of us - which, to be fair, if we had bothered to enquire about the charges before we left, we would probably have done.

If you were travelling together both ways, I hope you bought a four-person "groupsave" ticket for £11.87 each and didn't pay 4 lots of £17.80.

Driving in an average car would be about £13 in fuel (according to Via Michelin), plus 2 hours driving so allow £20 living wage (unless someone's work is worthless), plus car parking is about 75p/hour (50p/hour at the station but I'm not sure if it's restricted to passengers - according to Parkopedia) unless you find one of the free spaces. So that's £8.25 each plus about 20p/hour plus something for the car's maintenance, vehicle tax and other fixed charges.

Personally, I'd probably pay that £3 more for the upgrade to extra legroom, better lighting and bigger windows.

[mjr]

quality varies? yes expensive if you dont use Advance Tickets & a Rail Card Some trips are cheaper by train than your car? eg London to Stratford Upon Avon return just £7 or so using the above options - with a bike. The only thing I might agree with is on board loos.....

Do you not think there's something wrong with a system that operates in such a fashion?

To a degree, m'lud, but I understand that motoring can also get pretty expensive pretty quickly if you don't buy a Car Card, sorry Vehicle Excise Duty, and Advance Fuel.

[reohn2]

Take me back to Pre- Beeching.

Beeching is a synonym for everything that's wrong with the world.

No understanding of the holistic whole, preferring instead some sort of simplistic notion of how things might work.

Spot on!

[Cyril Haearn]

Four of us caught the train from Tyndrum Lower to Oban last Saturday. We were surprised to find the price was £17.80 return! Seems a tad expensive for an hours journey. No complaints whatsoever about the train or the conductors though. But how much cheaper it would have been to drive and park for the day, divided between the four of us - which, to be fair, if we had bothered to enquire about the charges before we left, we would probably have done.

If you were travelling together both ways, I hope you bought a four-person "groupsave" ticket for £11.87 each and didn't pay 4 lots of £17.80.

Driving in an average car would be about £13 in fuel (according to Via Michelin), plus 2 hours driving so allow £20 living wage (unless someone's work is worthless), plus car parking is about 75p/hour (50p/hour at the station but I'm not sure if it's restricted to passengers - according to Parkopedia) unless you find one of the free spaces. So that's £8.25 each plus about 20p/hour. Personally, I'd probably pay that £3 more for the upgrade to extra legroom, better lighting and bigger windows.

Not to mention the chance to admire the Bens and Glens much better from the train

[Cyril Haearn]

Take me back to Pre- Beeching.

Beeching is a synonym for everything that's wrong with the world.

Poor Beeching gets a harder time than he deserves. I read both reports some years ago, the Governments of the day picked the bits that suited them and ignored all the others. We were supposed to get hub stations and busways linking them and dedicated freight lines to free up passenger capacity.... In hindsight he probably still got some of it wrong, we'll never know, but it wasn't just about shutting lines.

Steam Railway had a good article about lord b
Predictions about the future are so difficult, no-one knew what would happen, that is still true

In the 1960s there were so many vehicles, maybe half the households had one vehicle, seemed an awful lot, could one have foreseen?
Now it is the norm to have two or more

[reohn2]

That Hope Valley, Sheffield to Manchester service has been due for upgrading for decades. It's redeeming features - it goes through the Hope Valley, just look out the window, it's pretty relaxed about taking bikes, it's popular with walkers and runners because you can get off at one stop walk/ride/run and and get back on at another, it can be super cheap with a Derbyshire Wayfarer ticket.
My last train journey was a week ago, Derby to Harrogate. Up to Leeds on a fast and comfortable train with a carriage almost to myself, change to a much older cold carriage for the last half hour. Both trains on time, £12.50 booked in advance, no bike this time though there would have been space for it.

My experience of using the train can be similar,but depending on my destination it can be like the OP's and I think that's the problem,it's the inconsistencies of rail travel not to mention the vastly varying cost and unreliability,especially with a bike.
All public transport IMO should be an asset to the country(the country being all of the people),especially such a small and densely populated country such as the UK.
And not a nightmare of planning a journey months in advance to save vast amounts of money.
It should reliable across the country and the same price per mile where ever with an off peak rate and reduced rate for the retired and infirm.
Currently commuters into the capital and other major cities are being held to ransom and,to give one example on the west coast line as reported in the media recently,the cost of a ticket from Preston to London was an extortionate amount but if one got on the train at a stop further north (Carnforth I think),the cost was half that amount,so people noticing this mad anomaly bought their ticket from Carnforth only to be stopped from boarding at Preston(shorter jouney) unless they paid the extra.
The whole system is mad and doesn't serve the people it's intended for but lines(sorry) the pockets of the rail companies.

EDIT,not to mention a transport minister who claims to know nothing about the railways claiming no responsibility for recent lunacy up and down the country when the timetables where found to be nothing but a joke

[reohn2]

quality varies? yes expensive if you dont use Advance Tickets & a Rail Card Some trips are cheaper by train than your car? eg London to Stratford Upon Avon return just £7 or so using the above options - with a bike. The only thing I might agree with is on board loos.....

Do you not think there's something wrong with a system that operates in such a fashion?

To a degree, m'lud, but I understand that motoring can also get pretty expensive pretty quickly if you don't buy a Car Card, sorry Vehicle Excise Duty, and Advance Fuel.

But once the car has been bought and ancilliary expenses paid,the convenience of using it overrides the inconvenience of public transport then people will use the least line of resistance.OTOH if it was prohibitive to take the car into a city and public was evenly reliable,clean,cheap enough to use most people would choose to use it.PT would also clear the crap from the aircurrently being breathed in by people in cities who have to work and live there everyday as well as being charged extortionate amounts to travel into such polluted cities.
The holistic approach to individual travel is ignored and sacrificed on the alter of profit/capitalism.

[mjr]

It should reliable across the country and the same price per mile where ever with an off peak rate and reduced rate for the retired and infirm.
Currently commuters into the capital and other major cities are being held to ransom and [...]

Currently pricing is one tool used to try to limit overcrowding. If it was a same price per mile but varying by peak/off-peak, how would you limit London commuter overcrowding without penalising commuters travelling the same distance into cities with quieter trains? How do countries with per-mile pricing do that?

One thing from abroad that I would like to see is more and more reasonably-priced day tickets for semi-fast services in an area - I think these are called "rangers" in the UK, but there aren't many. In Germany, the Land Tickets cover the whole country, state-by-state, plus there's an off-peak all-Germany day ranger (Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket) and a weekend one (the Happy Weekend) which effectively impose a fare cap for semi-fast services of about €70 for up to 5 people. Their Regional Expresses aren't intercity-spec but are often like the best UK local trains - as well as the locomotive-hauled ones, some are currently operated by Coradias (a sibling of the trains on the Manchester-Wales services) and some by Flirts (coming soon to the Norwich/Ipswich/Stansted lines).

[reohn2]

Beeching is a synonym for everything that's wrong with the world.

Poor Beeching gets a harder time than he deserves. I read both reports some years ago, the Governments of the day picked the bits that suited them and ignored all the others. We were supposed to get hub stations and busways linking them and dedicated freight lines to free up passenger capacity.... In hindsight he probably still got some of it wrong, we'll never know, but it wasn't just about shutting lines.

Steam Railway had a good article about lord b
Predictions about the future are so difficult, no-one knew what would happen, that is still true

In the 1960s there were so many vehicles, maybe half the households had one vehicle, seemed an awful lot, could one have foreseen?
Now it is the norm to have two or more

The railways were decimated some may say desicrated by Marples (who owned the company that built roads)to make himself a very rich man at the expense of the country,the fruit is clogged streets and roads,and clogged airways of the people who live in densely populated areas where there's no real alternative to long,sometimes very long commutes brought about be insufficient housing and an insufficient public transport system run for profit and not to serve the people it should.

[mjr]

To a degree, m'lud, but I understand that motoring can also get pretty expensive pretty quickly if you don't buy a Car Card, sorry Vehicle Excise Duty, and Advance Fuel.

But once the car has been bought and ancilliary expenses paid,the convenience of using it overrides the inconvenience of public transport then people will use the least line of resistance.

Once a subscription card has been bought, the convenience of using public transport overrides the inconvenience of driving unless you're in denial about the incremental costs like most of the UK population seems to be. I think that deeply-entrenched denial is why so many whine about fuel prices and still-below-cost parking rental charges, or even protest against road tolls - and again and again, bad behaviour gets rewarded by short-sighted national and local governments.

OTOH if it was prohibitive to take the car into a city and public was evenly reliable,clean,cheap enough to use most people would choose to use it.

I'm not sure about that. I think people now believe in the convenience of the car partly because there's been a lot of marketing money pushing it for so long (adverts showing carefree motoring through deserted streets, or happily driving distracted by music while sat in a faux jam that is still mysteriously moving somehow) and so many reinforcing feedbacks from believers writing in newspapers and so on, whereas support for the car's competitors has often been half-hearted and intermittent - so I suspect even if we suddenly had excellent public transport and made taking a car into a city to require one to pay quite huge realistic costs, many motorists would protest, threaten and look for loopholes, rather than use any offered alternatives.