Just been looking at a weekend trip to Bath for Myself and Mrs Orcs on our wedding anniversary in October

As every thing seems to be in walking distance of the hotel I thought "lets be eco freindly and take a train"

The train Journey costs £189.60 Plus £8.20 parking at out nearby station. so a total cost of £195.80. The train  journey is around 2 hours 40 minutes plus a 10-15 minute walk to our hotel. It also involves several changes, so up and down stairs with luggage etc.

Taking the car is a total of £90 including parking at the hotel and will take approx 2 hours.

Even of we bought a railcard total cost would still be £65 more than car, and they wonder why people don't take public transport 

For some trips it's great - others are awful. 

And shared car journeys reduce the cost per person, trains cost the same for each person

My daughter is at Uni in Birmingham and can get very cheap <£10 tickets to Liverpool that are quick journeys. Then the train from Liverpool to Southport costs about £6 and takes 45mins as it is stopping one.

We found similar with the eldest at Uni in Bangor.  For him to get the train home involved 3 changes and about £80 each way, so it's more cost-effective for us to just drive over there and get him. 

I think the only time we've found it viable was a few days in London where the parking costs, fuel and congestion charges was slightly more than hopping on the train.  And you don't have to deal with the headache of London traffic either.

As a solo traveller who doesn't have a car, I use the train increasingly regularly. I use my Tesco clubcard points to pay for my "old fogeys rail card" and book in advance as far as possible. I adjust travel times to get the cheapest tickets, there can be quite a difference between the cheapest and most expensive tickets for a particular destination on a particular date. All of which allows me to use 1st class, where available, without breaking the bank.

I also use buses and taxis.

The occasional hiccup is irritating but no more so than disrupted car journeys because of a pile up somewhere ahead on the motorway.

For me, one of the joys of retirement is that I rarely need to be anywhere by a specific time except for medical appointments.

Local busses are £2 a trip at the moment.
Train fares are awful. It's like they are pricing themselves out of the market at the moment compared to continental prices!

Public transport is a disgrace in the UK, and has been for years, and I speak as somebody who commuted into London from Huntingdon until 2004.  That service hasn't improved from what I can see and, as for the strikes, somebody commented to me that the service is so bad anyway, hardly anybody notices them.
We wanted to take a short trip up to Aberdeen about six weeks ago.  We were quoted a price for rail, which involved a 7.5 hour journey, that was more expensive than flying from Heathrow, which was a 1.5 hour journey.  I expect we could have done it for less but I couldn't be bothered searching for the best deal.  There should be one price I would have thought.  Anyway, we drove up instead, in slow-time, stopped overnight near Carlisle in a very nice pub, had a decent meal and a bottle of red, and proceeded refreshed the next day.  We could have done it on one go - under 8 hours - and the overnight added to the cost but the experience was so much more pleasant, so it was well worth it.  The sun shone and we had the hood down on the car all the way.
Oh, and where I live, Stagecoach recently withdrew the bus service, notwithstanding that they receive a subsidy from the government, so we now live in a small town that is isolated unless you drive.  People can't get to hospital appointments, children can't get to school.  It's a nighmare for some.  Fortunately we are retired and do drive but if it were a practical proposition we'd leave this ****hole of a country and go and live in Australia with No1 son, at least the weather would be better.  Rant over!

I travel in and out of London daily, trains are far quieter since covid. Not as quiet as during mind but not the cattle wagons of old

Price is £75 a week for a 1hr door to door return journey. I guess someone has to subsidise the overseas rail services

QuoteI guess someone has to subsidise the overseas rail services

Don't know if it's still the case, but there was certainly a time not that long ago when every single TOC was ultimately owned by a foreign govt.


(See also privatised water companies and electricity suppliers)

There are only two problems with public transport: the transport, and the public.

Quote from: Chris Pringle on 02 August 2023, 11:50:34 AMThere are only two problems with public transport: the transport, and the public.

Utter Cynic......

Quote from: Raider4 on 02 August 2023, 11:45:49 AMDon't know if it's still the case, but there was certainly a time not that long ago when every single TOC was ultimately owned by a foreign govt.


(See also privatised water companies and electricity suppliers)

Pretty much, the figures are around 75%

And not well

Southeastern was renationalses in 2021 due to mismanagement, seems to be a growing trend...

Quote from: Lord Kermit of Birkenhead on 02 August 2023, 11:56:36 AMUtter Cynic......

I speak as a member of the public. 

There's a huge issue with airline subsidies in the UK. Airlines don't pay duty of fuel, there is no VAT on air tickets, and there are issues with the Co2 allowances allowed to the airlines that adds up to couple of hundred million quid that airlines don't have to pay out.

Quote from: TheLimey on 02 August 2023, 01:49:11 PMThere's a huge issue with airline subsidies in the UK. Airlines don't pay duty of fuel, there is no VAT on air tickets, and there are issues with the Co2 allowances allowed to the airlines that adds up to couple of hundred million quid that airlines don't have to pay out.

I think this is that if you added VAT to AIr tickets, and made them pay he correct amount for the CO2 ,The negative impact on the economy would be more than the revenue the VAT brought in.  It would not stop the amount of travel, people would just get a short flight to the EU ( or a ferry to Eire) and get the flight to the main destination from there. The foriegn government would then get the benefit of the trade and the ancillary services ( Catering, Duty Free Etc)

When I was working (a year ago now  ) I had to make regular trips to Edinburgh & Glasgow for work meetings with a government client. Initially the client was very anti-flying - until they saw the differential between the options.

The train journey (from Bristol) cost over £480 return (standard class) + £10 taxi fare each way at the Bristol end, as the local Council had shut all the only direct bus-routes from near our house to the station (as it was so poorly used) and the alternative routes via the bus station doubled the cost and added an extra 30 minutes to what was a 10 minute journey!

The other problem with the train was the time. It took over 5 hours - so to attend a face-to-face meeting with our client at c.09.00hrs it also involved at least one, if not two overnight stays in a local hotel, as the return trains almost left before you'd arrived, plus the added cost that this involved.

The alternative (other than a Zoom call - which was often not practical or allowable due to security considerations) was to fly. Bristol to Edinburgh/Glasgow was usually (pre-Covid) c.£80.00 return via Easyjet. The taxi to the airport was £20 each way and I could use the tram in Edinburgh to get to our clients office cheaply. But the big thing was that I could fly there & back in a day. Admittedly it was a long day - often with an 04.30 start and a 22.00 finish - but at least I was back home sleeping in my own bed at the end of the day and not incurring the cost of hotel rooms.
I'm also not 100% convinced that the train was any 'greener' than the plane either, as a c.5 hour diesel train journey with many stops and starts must surely have rivaled the plane pretty closely.

So despite an initial insistence that we (as suppliers) used Public Transport, in the end we got a waiver, as the costs were passed back to the client. However, any civil servants or ministers attending from London, came up by train and stayed overnight ... as that was 'policy' regardless of the cost !!!