[Football] Trains to Sheffield

[essbee1]

Problems continue today as the work that’s shut Kings Cross carries on till Tuesday. Money Saving Expert is very much not amused.

Shocking.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Isn't one working toilet per 500 people about par for most football grounds?

 

[Iggle Piggle]

Problems continue today as the work that’s shut Kings Cross carries on till Tuesday. Money Saving Expert is very much not amused.

Whilst I can stand the tight fisted dweeb, it does need someone like him to do a Fergal Sharkey and embarrass someone to do something about the shite state of the trains. The sacked Post office chief exec really gave the game away this weekend (kicking the can down the road was unofficial policy). Unless it somehow gets front and centre, nothing will change.

 

[Weststander]

Wait till you see what LNER have done.

These people hate us. Only a change of government is going to improve the trains.

Will Labour reduce fares? I just can’t see it.

[I wish they would btw].

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

Will Labour reduce fares? I just can’t see it.

[I wish they would btw].

I’d settle with them just attempting to fix the utter f*** up that is our utilities and transport systems. Let's face it, the Tories would raise fares and still drive the systems into oblivion …. The wankers..

 

[Weststander]

I used to commute every day for 7 years to London from portslade and actually the service was in the whole pretty good with punctual services and you could always get a seat


Since retiring we have used the train a few times to go to London for shows etc and every time the trains have been late, short carriages and on two occasions three hours to get to London and two hours back due to various signalling etc issues

We now drive to Colliers Wood and park there and get the tube in ( or our daughters in Mill Hill and tube it from there ).

In all our travels we never look at trains as an option and if I ever started going to away games I would drive even to London games

A similar option we’ve done is driving to Abbey Wood Station (near Bexley in SE England), cheap parking, just 27 minutes to the centre of London on the shiny new Elizabeth Line.

The drive each time took just an hour …. on rail strike days.

 

[Weststander]

I’d settle with them just attempting to fix the utter f*** up that is our utilities and transport systems. Let's face it, the Tories would raise fares and still drive the systems into oblivion …. The wankers..

I’m very pro renationalisation of railways (the lot, into just a single entity) and water companies. It’s not ideological and I’m less bothered than the social media chatterati in party political name calling.

Railways in this country are incredibly complex. Built 180 years ago on higgledy-piggedy routes and completely boxed in by £100b’s of homes and businesses making compulsory purchase of urban sites impossible. Whilst our European neighbours industrialized later and/or were bombed to bits giving a fresh start bankrolled by the Marshall Plan. We also build/renew railways at a very expensive rate. I’ve (socialist, interestingly) mates who all became multi millionaires in making kit for the railways. They filled me on the shenanigans of a web of consultants and leeches milking the system. Whilst the French for TGV lines just bulldoze countryside in straight lines, complainants are overrode by Paris in quick time. Note the £100b estimated cost of the full HS2, a train line ignoring shocking services within the north.

We’ve all discussed this at great length, every two months . @jackalbion is the only ITK, I know he wants a renationalisation too. I wish he’d give tangible hope of what Labour can and will achieve in charge of the railways for 10 years.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Will Labour reduce fares? I just can’t see it.

[I wish they would btw].

LNER are owned by the government. They’ve just removed (super) off peak fares and introduced surge charges.

It’s not that Labour would reduce fares, it’s that a government owned TOC is pioneering stitching up football fans (and anyone who has to travel at short notice on a busy service).

https://www.seat61.com/news.htm (scroll down to January).

 

[Weststander]

LNER are owned by the government. They’ve just removed (super) off peak fares and introduced surge charges.

It’s not that Labour would reduce fares, it’s that a government owned TOC is pioneering stitching up football fans (and anyone who has to travel at short notice on a busy service).

https://www.seat61.com/news.htm (scroll down to January).

Thanks.

Obviously/presumably to make their subsidizing of the entity less costly?

A true story, in the mid 90’s I’d get Super Apex returns from Kings Cross to Edinburgh at £29. Not using any kind of card, the only condition was something like buying 6 weeks in advance.

Somehow, the cost of running our railways has become incredibly expensive, way way above general inflation. It’s not dividends as they’re a mIcroscopic slice of the entire cake and are zero for LNER.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Thanks.

Obviously/presumably to make their subsidizing of the entity less costly?

Got to be. And according to another thread it was a Brighton fan who made the business case.

Most of the rest of Europe manages to make train travel efficient and affordable. I suspect that here the government are prioritising planet polluting cars over public transport so that they can “limp into the election” with a bit of cash and the hope they’ll get some votes from a spurious war on motorists.

 

[Machiavelli]

We booked on the 9.30 yesterday, when the first tranche of tickets went on sale, ie last year. Turned up 20 minutes early, having got up early because of the rail replacement on the Brighton to London line (I ended up driving to 3 Bridges to avoid the bus and its delays). The queue to get on the train we booked then was about 400 metres long. There was way in excess of a dozen staff managing this queue -- put on the front line to take the flak for disdainful decisions.
They ended up leaving about 300 people, maybe more, behind the barriers who had tickets -- ie they'd been sold tickets by EMR -- who were told that the train was full up, that all the seats were taken and people were standing throughout. Fortunately, my travelling partner spotted an open gate which we went through, got told by another guard that there was no boarding, who we ignored. We got on the train. Just.
Despite the announcement, the train was about half empty. No-one was standing. EMR took loads of money in ticket sales, and treat their customers with disdain.
The journey back, on the 19.52 (that's on a Sunday night), didn't have many carriages, and was full -- about 20-30 people in our carriage were without seats.

 

[jackalbion]

We booked on the 9.30 yesterday, when the first tranche of tickets went on sale, ie last year. Turned up 20 minutes early, having got up early because of the rail replacement on the Brighton to London line (I ended up driving to 3 Bridges to avoid the bus and its delays). The queue to get on the train we booked then was about 400 metres long. There was way in excess of a dozen staff managing this queue -- put on the front line to take the flak for disdainful decisions.
They ended up leaving about 300 people, maybe more, behind the barriers who had tickets -- ie they'd been sold tickets by EMR -- who were told that the train was full up, that all the seats were taken and people were standing throughout. Fortunately, my travelling partner spotted an open gate which we went through, got told by another guard that there was no boarding, who we ignored. We got on the train. Just.
Despite the announcement, the train was about half empty. No-one was standing. EMR took loads of money in ticket sales, and treat their customers with disdain.
The journey back, on the 19.52 (that's on a Sunday night), didn't have many carriages, and was full -- about 20-30 people in our carriage were without seats.

This sort of disruption management seems to have become a thing since COVID, I’ve never been a fan of it, it seems that before you’d be able to get ticket acceptance and use other companies, now they refuse to agree. Companies now just issue do not travel warning instead of trying to get stuff running. It’s poor.

 

[Scoffers]

Would re-nationalising work though? Didn’t successive governments continually underfund it back in the day?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Would re-nationalising work though? Didn’t successive governments continually underfund it back in the day?

Sadly this is the root of the problem, a decent public transport service needs subsidy and Brits don’t like paying taxes. You get what you pay for. Same with the NHS, council run services etc etc.

 

[de la zouch]

We have the most over staffed railway network in Western Europe. This is why fares are so high. I was greeted by 6 staff at notts station this morning at the automated ticket barriers. Standing around doing f**k all. The unions will have insisted on these staffing levels for “passenger safety”

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

We have the most over staffed railway network in Western Europe. This is why fares are so high. I was greeted by 6 staff at notts station this morning at the automated ticket barriers. Standing around doing f**k all. The unions will have insisted on these staffing levels for “passenger safety”

There must be others reasons. The difference in prices between UK and Germany is huge….I struggle to believe this is just down to employment numbers.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

We have the most over staffed railway network in Western Europe. This is why fares are so high. I was greeted by 6 staff at notts station this morning at the automated ticket barriers. Standing around doing f**k all. The unions will have insisted on these staffing levels for “passenger safety”

As a follow up:
Price of annual Brighton to London season £4744
Price of BahnCard 100 which permits travel at any time across the entire German network £3956 (€4550)

This price difference is stark. Is this just down to a few extra staff manning a gate?

 

[Surf's Up]

I’m very pro renationalisation of railways (the lot, into just a single entity) and water companies. It’s not ideological and I’m less bothered than the social media chatterati in party political name calling.

Railways in this country are incredibly complex. Built 180 years ago on higgledy-piggedy routes and completely boxed in by £100b’s of homes and businesses making compulsory purchase of urban sites impossible. Whilst our European neighbours industrialized later and/or were bombed to bits giving a fresh start bankrolled by the Marshall Plan. We also build/renew railways at a very expensive rate. I’ve (socialist, interestingly) mates who all became multi millionaires in making kit for the railways. They filled me on the shenanigans of a web of consultants and leeches milking the system. Whilst the French for TGV lines and the Spanish for their AVE lines just bulldoze countryside in straight lines, complainants are overrode by Paris and Madrid in quick time. Note the £100b estimated cost of the full HS2, a train line ignoring shocking services within the north.

We’ve all discussed this at great length, every two months . @jackalbion is the only ITK, I know he wants a renationalisation too. I wish he’d give tangible hope of what Labour can and will achieve in charge of the railways for 10 years.

Added the Spanish in for the sake of Euro completeness

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I’m very pro renationalisation of railways (the lot, into just a single entity) and water companies. It’s not ideological and I’m less bothered than the social media chatterati in party political name calling.

Railways in this country are incredibly complex. Built 180 years ago on higgledy-piggedy routes and completely boxed in by £100b’s of homes and businesses making compulsory purchase of urban sites impossible. Whilst our European neighbours industrialized later and/or were bombed to bits giving a fresh start bankrolled by the Marshall Plan. We also build/renew railways at a very expensive rate. I’ve (socialist, interestingly) mates who all became multi millionaires in making kit for the railways. They filled me on the shenanigans of a web of consultants and leeches milking the system. Whilst the French for TGV lines just bulldoze countryside in straight lines, complainants are overrode by Paris in quick time. Note the £100b estimated cost of the full HS2, a train line ignoring shocking services within the north.

We’ve all discussed this at great length, every two months . @jackalbion is the only ITK, I know he wants a renationalisation too. I wish he’d give tangible hope of what Labour can and will achieve in charge of the railways for 10 years.

100% this.

 

[Hotchilidog]

As a follow up:
Price of annual Brighton to London season £4744
Price of BahnCard 100 which permits travel at any time across the entire German network £3956 (€4550)

This price difference is stark. Is this just down to a few extra staff manning a gate?

No it is not.