181–190 of 383 posts
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Ah yes, the Pacers - they were literally based on remodelled bus designs. Did yours smell strongly of mildew?
To be fair they were clean and well-maintained. They also had the benefit of being flushed through with fresh air - a result of the doors not forming a seal around the edges.
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https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html > the next time someone says (or you read) "Britain has the highest rail fares in Europe", you'll know this is only 15% of the story. The other 85% is that we have similar or even cheaper fares, too. The big picture is that Britain has the most commercially aggressive fares in Europe, with the highest fares designed to get maximum revenue from business trav…
I'm sorry but this article is bullshit. Go and actually check the train prices (because I did) now. Book Sheffield to London 1 month in advance, comes out to £70 odd return (nearly 4x more than article states) with a first class upgrade for an extra £70....Paris to Leon 1 month in advance? £20 odd return with another £20 first class. Idk if something has changed but you can't quote this article anymore. Train prices…
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I’m not. I have a choice on the WCML of multiple different providers. Manchester to London walk up far for almost any time can be £300 return for the fast train arriving in london before lunch and getting home before 9pm, or £50 for a slower train with a change. Same with crewe-Manchester, Birmingham-london, Edinburgh-london etc. Quite happy with the competition and no government interference.
£300 for a train ticket and you are happy? Have you been on a train in China, France or even Czech Republic? This parody for 'competition' has given us most expensive fares in Europe and soviet-block quality of rail service. It's a new disease, 'neoliberalism of the brain' that maintains 'free market' even at the cost of organ failure
The British, in no exaggeration, get taxed to death. You get horrible value for your tax dollar. I am saying this as an American who lives in Croatia, who pays quite a bit in taxes. However, I prefer to pay Croatian taxes (in addition to my US taxes) as a dual US|EU (Croatian) citizen, just for a stable, relaxed society.
There is a very high baseline level of stress and anxiety living in America. It’s not worth living there again. Seriously, Croatians have a great lifestyle, with perhaps the best lifestyle in all of Europe. Also, if you die of coronavirus in America, it is nothing more than a statistic to both the government and the American population, which is not only unbelievably disgusting, but downright sadistic.
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It becomes a campaign issue (or does if it is an issue), which is what I mean is 'strictly better'. Not great, probably, but not worse in any other way that I can think of, and that is a positive (to whatever extent).
Look how much hay Mussolini made from running the trains on time (which wasn't even the case, they just padded the schedule).
Perhaps also because it's still working.
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They privatised profits, but not responsibilities. I don't know why even a single person thought this was a good idea (unless they were on it for money). I think the privatisation could work if multiple companies could bid for a given journey / timetable slice, rather than having entire routes for themselves with no realistic way of removing them if the service goes bad.
They did privitise the risk too. After the failure of the east coast franchise recently, the government bailled out virgin, but that's not the fault of the system. If I want to travel from Birmingham to London I have a choice of 3 different train companies, as well as a coach company and driving (either hiring a car with or without driver, or using my own car). That's tons of competition, and it shows given the choic…
Great, now talk about literally any other line in Britain
Love to be proved wrong. But public transport's goal never was to turn a profit. It's a public good, and should be measured by its "public good"ness. Extracting profit feels like something that disproportionately targets the poor/working class and leads to either an exploited workforce and worse service... without a reduction in overall costs. Now this trend of a "Nationalised Brand" over a "privatised service" just…
The elephant in the room is that UK rail is too complex to be managed in siloes and it should be renationalised for the national good and to save money.
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https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html > the next time someone says (or you read) "Britain has the highest rail fares in Europe", you'll know this is only 15% of the story. The other 85% is that we have similar or even cheaper fares, too. The big picture is that Britain has the most commercially aggressive fares in Europe, with the highest fares designed to get maximum revenue from business trav…
I'm sorry but this article is bullshit. Go and actually check the train prices (because I did) now. Book Sheffield to London 1 month in advance, comes out to £70 odd return (nearly 4x more than article states) with a first class upgrade for an extra £70....Paris to Leon 1 month in advance? £20 odd return with another £20 first class. Idk if something has changed but you can't quote this article anymore. Train prices…
£17.60 on the 12:05 departure on Jun 16th on trainsplit with one change - 10p/mile.
And on the well-advertised and more expensive trainline on Jun 17th
£31.50 on the 12:37 direct. £43.50 first class .
The 11:22 SNCF Paris-Dijon on the same date is €31, or £27. The 12:22 is €40 (£35). One way.
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Hahahahaha Oh wait you’re serious. Let me laugh even harder. Efficiency leads to profits and thus dividends. The government cares more about politics than efficiency. Look the the problems southern have had because the government insisted on getting rid of guards - they effectively nationalised southern (GTR) years ago because they refused to let the private sector run it how they wanted. Compare with chiltern who co…
Chiltern Railways were great, and were one of the few TOCs that genuinely competed for passengers against other railways, as Chiltern, Virgin (now Avanti) and London Midland (now West Midlands / London Northwestern) all operated competing services between London and Birmingham. Back in the day, Chiltern had express peak-time services to Birmingham which were only marginally slower than Virgin's high speed trains. But…
Hurrah! Even as a free market conservative I've long been in favour of this: bidding for the multi-year contract to operate a line is a poor proxy for (impossible) proper competition where rail users could vote with their feet and wallets. There's effectively only one operator anyway, for a given journey, it should be the state, awarding the multi-year contract to the elected government is strictly better than to a p…
The undiscussed upside of this "privatisation pantomime" is that government's are committed to making it work. That means it gets investments and bailouts. Compare that to publicly owned services who get nothing. The real question here isn't who owns X, it's will the government invest in X...
