How much for a train ticket?

[guest24]

SRX is busted - leaking fuel taps
Hire bike (GSF650 Bandit) has gone back now insurance has paid out.
Wife's CBR is a write-off (category C) so is a no go.

So, guess who has been going to work by train? £5.80 return from Hackbridge in zone4 to London Bridge in zone1. It is sooooooo expensive to commute by public transport.

[Steffan]

Yea and wait till they stop running, or start running late. I remember in the distant days when I used to commute from Chipping Norton to, Reading/ Maidenhead  taking the train from time to time. It usually meant, not getting home before 10.00PM and or needing to be collected from Oxford - a 40mile round trip for the wife. Commuting by public transport sucks; is it any wonder than everyone that does it develops a deadness behind the eyes, like a fish which has been out of the water too long.

Steffan

[guest18]

yeah it's crap, even doing the run by car leaves you brain dead! I went back to the bike a couple of days ago after a week or do of enforced car commuting and it was astonishing the difference being *forced* to wake up and pay attention cutting traffic instead of sitting like a vegetable watching the brake lights in front of you 
Wouldn't wish non-bike commuting on (almost) anyone! 

[bullet350]

i think its about £8 if you go before 9.30 in london, they seem to think every one wants to get in for 9am for the hell of it.

My step fathers season ticket for commuting is something like £1300!!!!

mmm, cub 90=£350 with 120mpg.

it also has no delays, no idiots with loud ipods, no standing up for an hour, and no roasting in summer.

i'm amazed anyone uses public transport

bullet350

[Bill Rutter]

I hate commuting by train too, but at least I don't have to do a rush-hour trip every day. It's £15.90 for a one way ticket on the 26 mile trip from London Victoria to Gatwick Airport ( for that though you get my driving expertise  ). Southern make a great deal of the difference in price from their fare of £8.90 on a stopping service, but I can't wait to hear the speil when they take us over in June. Will they bring our price down to theirs? I think not.
                                                               Only yesterday I was held outside Clapham Junction for around 25 minutes. I twice tried to contact the signalman for an explanation without reply....lovely. But at least I managed to assume the problem (a defect on the preceding train, which was out of sight around the curve) well enough to make the necessary announcements. I find the public, generally, sympathetic if at least some effort is made to keep them abreast of things when they go wrong. But I'm the first to admit that there is much wrong with public transport and the railway in particular. Public opinion seems to mean nothing, as do it's needs. Why take away the right to take bicycles, for example, on a train. Accomodation could have been designed into the new stock that is everywhere now. Progress eh? Bring back the Victorians....they knew how to run a railway.

[Steffan]

? Bring back the Victorians....they knew how to run a railway.

bring over the Germans or the French or the Swiss or the Swedes or the Italians any other Europeans or the Japanese they all seem to be able to run a railway on time. Come to that there must be millions of small kids with train sets and I bet they run them to time so if the powers that be are feeling zenophobic why not get some ten year olds in to run the trains....couldn't do any worse.

Steffan

[Bill Rutter]

To be fair, those countries mentioned don't run anywhere near the high-volume traffic that is in the South-East for example. Indeed, some lines in France are lucky to get a train in each direction every three or four hours. I realise that there is much to be admired in German efficiency but they have problems too. I could bang on about the Beeching closures, the ridiculous way that steam was "phased" out before alternatives were properly developed but in my view our rail system is much more a national treasure than a national disgrace. It's just that when things go wrong they tend to go very wrong and the ordinary commuter doesn't understand why things take so long to right themselves, and from time to time give me a right ear-bashing, bless 'em. A rarified thing is the occasion I get a nod for getting to Victoria on time which I do the vast majority of the time.

[guest111]

Has hackbridge got oystercard readers? get one if they have £3 deposit and use it like a pay as you go mobe.
My 12mth travelcard is £7260 birmingham new street to london.
Ray

[guest18]

The actual train *service* in the UK is often not as bad as it's painted imho, although often ludicrously expensive! Where we really fall down is in having a ticketing/pricing system which is so convoluted and involved that even national rail enquiries generally can't find the right/cheapest price for a given trip, and where it's unusual to be able to book any worthwhile time in advance.

For example I found out recently that the MoD now insist on rail travel being given as a last resort because flying people or giving them hire cars is significantly cheaper!!  That is the sort of thing that should have higher management threatening sales managers with unemployment if they can't make their service at least *seem* competitive!

My better half comes from a railway family and even she sometimes struggles to fathom the timetables/pricing/routes etc... 

[Andy M]

As an ex Kingston resident whose otherwise always lived in Leeds I can say that the potential to sort London out using public transport is at least there. On Tuesday night I went to a retirement do in Leeds and wanting to sink a fair bit of the companies beer I went by bus. The first two didn't turn up, the next one was late. £1.80 for 5 miles is probably OK, but the door to door average speed: 4.5 mph  

My current trips to London I don't pay for and could actually splash out the exes and go by almost any means. But:

Leeds-Guildford by car: 3.5 - 9.5 hours, average 4 (done it dozens of times, the 9.5 was in a blizzard)
Leeds-Guildford by taxi-plane-taxi: 3.5 - 12.5 hours average 4 (done it 6 times, including the one they diverted to Newcastle after it took off 7 hours late!)
Leeds-Guildford by taxi-train-underground-train-taxi: 4-6 hours, average 5. (done it twice, the return one broke down!)

The car involves no waiting to start, no getting felt up by some bloke with an electro magnetic phalas and no sitting next to a meths drinker with a personal hygene problem. You also never turn up at the end of the M-25 a few minutes late and find they cancelled the M-1 north!

IMHO I think the technology exists to make it work better, but the fundemental flaws of railways would seem to matter less for things that don't mind a bit of waiting. Get the Freight on the rails!

I'd still rather take a train than fly mind.

Andy

[bullet350]

on the london underground a friend of mine heard this announcement:

"Please mind the gap between the time-table and reality."

i've also heard drivers use the intercom to heckle the idiots who block doors as they try to close.
its quite funny when someone is called a moron in front of a hundered people who were thinking just that.

bullet350

[Bill Rutter]

"Please mind the gap between the time-table and reality."...............

......lol, do you mind if I keep that one for my last shift before retirement? I did like that.

[guest24]

Has hackbridge got oystercard readers? get one if they have £3 deposit and use it like a pay as you go mobe.
My 12mth travelcard is £7260 birmingham new street to london.
Ray

Hackbridge doesn't have Oyster card readers yet. I have Oyster and use it on the buses & trams when I am feeling brave.

I know I moaned about the cost, but I have had a seat every morning and it has been punctual as well. Just cant afford to do it permanently!!