[News] UK rail passengers face biggest rise for five years

[Simster]

true, i assumed you'd consider going to London looking for more than £250-500 a year pay rise.

£216 a month is over £3,700 a year (assuming 30% tax).

You're being far too flippant over the significance of this. It's absolutely outrageous. It would still be outrageous if the trains ran on time and there was never strike action.

 

[beorhthelm]

Well let's say I'm on £40k and I get a job in London for £45k. Right now Southern are asking for £3832 per year which eats right into that pay rise. Factor in the increase they want to throw on and the prospect of sitting on a train for hours a day, if it turns up at all, becomes even less appealing.

apologies... i had not thought this through with the total cost. however the point is that the new fare will be £4000 vs 3800, if the rest of it makes sense then would 200 really put you off?

 

[beorhthelm]

£216 a month is over £3,700 a year (assuming 30% tax).

its £215 a year, hence my apparent flippancy. apologies for the poor wording.

 

[Simster]

its £216 a year, hence my apparent flippancy.

Ah sorry, I thought you were being flippant at a new total train cost of £216 a month.

Regardless, it is still an excessive rise given the performance we have come to expect. In every other walk of life, you get pay rises based on performance. With the trains, it seems the ground staff get pay rises by going on strike and the boardroom then go cap in hand to the ombudsman for more money from passengers. We can't have their gold plated pensions compromised just because the oiks pressing the button at the front of the trains have decided £80k a year isn't enough can we?

 

[dazzer6666]

Well let's say I'm on £40k and I get a job in London for £45k. Right now Southern are asking for £3832 per year which eats right into that pay rise. Factor in the increase they want to throw on and the prospect of sitting on a train for hours a day, if it turns up at all, becomes even less appealing.

Swapping a local job (in Sussex) for a London job for £5k wouldn't be viable from a financial or work/life balance perspective most of the time (there could of course be career reasons for doing it - this happened to me a long time ago). The net pay increase wouldn't cover the travel costs, let alone the additional time and utter ballache of commuting as it is these days.

I find it staggering that thinking back to the 'dark days' of slam-door trains etc when I started commuting (1994) that service doesn't actually feel any better now..........................maybe it is, but doesn't seem that way. There are definitely fewer trains, just as many strikes and perhaps just as many delays and cancellations.

 

[BBassic]

Swapping a local job (in Sussex) for a London job for £5k wouldn't be viable from a financial or work/life balance perspective most of the time (there could of course be career reasons for doing it - this happened to me a long time ago). The net pay increase wouldn't cover the travel costs, let alone the additional time and utter ballache of commuting as it is these days.

I find it staggering that thinking back to the 'dark days' of slam-door trains etc when I started commuting (1994) that service doesn't actually feel any better now..........................maybe it is, but doesn't seem that way. There are definitely fewer trains, just as many strikes and perhaps just as many delays and cancellations.

Yeah absolutely. To be honest I just plucked numbers out of the air to illustrate the point. In real terms it'd need to be a hefty rise to make it viable.

Which is another reason why I'm considering trying my luck out of Sussex. The job I do means pay is pretty much comparable wherever I go and with the cost of living being cheaper further up the country it'd be a sensible decision financially. Leaving my friends and family behind would be the toughest part.

 

[N17]

Since i moved out of London in 1984 i would estimate i have commuted in the region of 650k miles on BR, South Eastern & Southern (i am ignoring trips to Wembley/WHI!) which would have got me to the moon & back & then 70% of the way there again!

A rough approximation of the hours spent on said trains (& ignoring football) is 13540! Or 564 days/19 months.

I am not going anywhere near the total cost. Far too depressing.

 

[seagully]

I live in Coventry and commute to Euston 3-4 days a week. It costs me £9000 per year for a yearly season ticket with no Tube travelcard. £9000 a year for an hour journey each way is pretty horrific but still saves me money compared to living in London.

No way could I hack it 5 days a week though

 

[sir albion]

Some haven't got a choice.

Nonsense..
Many can take a pay cut and work locally doing something similar and if not try something else or move somewhere else for a better quality life.

You may get 70-100k in many of those jobs but the time you commute and pay high taxes you'll realise there's a better way of doing things if you really want too.

 

[seagully]

Nonsense..
Many can take a pay cut and work locally doing something similar and if not try something else or move somewhere else for a better quality life.

You may get 70-100k in many of those jobs but the time you commute and pay high taxes you'll realise there's a better way of doing things if you really want too.

This may be true in some industries, but there are certain jobs that are almost exclusively London based

 

[DavidRyder]

As long as the money's going towards the passengers eh....

 

[Springal]

Sussex is a bit rubbish for a lot of industries really isn’t it? I’ve not had a job in Sussex for 12 years because for the technology industry there is very little.

I looked recently and was shocked how low some of the salaries in Brighton are for relatively senior jobs. I’m lucky that work pay my travel now via expenses but I have paid for my own travel in the past.

I’d still not move out of Sussex though!

 

[seagully]

Sussex is a bit rubbish for a lot of industries really isn’t it? I’ve not had a job in Sussex for 12 years because for the technology industry there is very little.

I looked recently and was shocked how low some of the salaries in Brighton are for relatively senior jobs. I’m lucky that work pay my travel now via expenses but I have paid for my own travel in the past.

I’d still not move out of Sussex though!

Agreed- especially in a lot of the coastal towns like Hastings; there really is very little in the way of jobs in any industry

 

[mikeyjh]

I find it staggering that thinking back to the 'dark days' of slam-door trains etc when I started commuting (1994) that service doesn't actually feel any better now..........................maybe it is, but doesn't seem that way. There are definitely fewer trains, just as many strikes and perhaps just as many delays and cancellations.

I started commuting from Brighton to London at the same time and have exactly the same reflection, in fact I always remember having a seat and don't remember too many delays. It may be rose tinted glasses but all this money that's gone in to the pockets of (ironically) other European state owned railways for what? One would expect that in 23 years we would have seen more progress than just, erm, more modern trains.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Sussex is a bit rubbish for a lot of industries really isn’t it? I’ve not had a job in Sussex for 12 years because for the technology industry there is very little.

I looked recently and was shocked how low some of the salaries in Brighton are for relatively senior jobs. I’m lucky that work pay my travel now via expenses but I have paid for my own travel in the past.

I’d still not move out of Sussex though!

Pretty much my situation. IF - and it's a big if - I could find something in Brighton doing what I do then the competition for the odd job or two that came up would be intense and the salary would not likely cover my mortgage let alone the nice little extras a London salary brings. Yes, commuting is shite but I get a two week holiday somewhere nice out of it.

This rise is just to cover the drivers' pay rise though isn't it? I'm probably looking at a 2% pay rise this year, which won't cover the increase in train fare while the guys who made last year an absolute misery because they were "thinking of our safety" will be rolling around in pools of tenners in their spare time. :

 

[dazzer6666]

Pretty much my situation. IF - and it's a big if - I could find something in Brighton doing what I do then the competition for the odd job or two that came up would be intense and the salary would not likely cover my mortgage let alone the nice little extras a London salary brings. Yes, commuting is shite but I get a two week holiday somewhere nice out of it.

This rise is just to cover the drivers' pay rise though isn't it? I'm probably looking at a 2% pay rise this year, which won't cover the increase in train fare while the guys who made last year an absolute misery because they were "thinking of our safety" will be rolling around in pools of tenners in their spare time. :

You're getting a pay rise ?!!! Count yourself lucky !

 

[Weststander]

Nonsense..
Many can take a pay cut and work locally doing something similar and if not try something else or move somewhere else for a better quality life.

You may get 70-100k in many of those jobs but the time you commute and pay high taxes you'll realise there's a better way of doing things if you really want too.

In many cases, I think you're spot on.

SOME don't want the knock back of taking a huge pay cut, to work near to home. A bit of ego being on 'big money', and not prepared to spend less.

The price is a non financial one - health, sleep deprivation, less time with family or partner, and countless thousands of hours of life wasted.

 

[Arthur]

You can point fingers at privatisation and governments all you like. The infrastructure is knackered. They were shit when it was NR and its still shit now my guess is it'll still be shit in 20 years. People moan about the increases every single year but its just a fact of life. As others have pointed out in real money terms its actually pretty minimal granted if you go back 10 years and compare the cost it'll be a hefty chunk but you could say the same about petrol.

I've just changed jobs and moved out of the city to Stratford. First couple of weeks I used the train but I thought I'd give driving a go. I'm certainly not going back to the train out of choice. Cost wise it's roughly the same, obviously I'm putting miles on my car which probably makes it more expensive in the long run but the experience is so much nicer. I can leave home/work as and when I please. I don't have to put up with inconsiderate passengers, lazy guards, striking staff, cancellations, short formations and all the other delights trains and tubes offer. I can listen to what I want at what volume I want to, have the temperature at a level I want and most important of all it is actually quicker. I'm finding I'm getting home at least 45 minutes earlier than I was on the train. The best I've done is door to door in an hour and half, worst has been two and half and that was only because some pillock decided to walk through the Blackwall Tunnel and they shut it. My door to door going home on the train was 2 hours 45 and that was when everything worked as planned.

 

[Surrey Seagull]

Quick quiz, in 1981 can you guess which country had the cheapest rail fares in Europe (non Soviet) and the 2nd most efficient rail network behind only Sweden?

 

[Easy 10]

Quick quiz, in 1981 can you guess which country had the cheapest rail fares in Europe (non Soviet) and the 2nd most efficient rail network behind only Sweden?

Those were the days.