How I got 100% off my train travel • Hacker News Board

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#11

Post by controlledchaos » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

sarreph wrote: post #8

The UK train system is a dire, expensive mess. Attempting to avoid getting directly political here, but I strongly believe it’s one of the lowest hanging fruit a political party could act on to curry favour with the electorate. Would be amazing to see this productised à la the way split ticketing works.

As a North American who travels in the UK multiple times per year, I really need you to elaborate. My experience has been nothing less than amazing, in comparison to the complete lack of rail options at home.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#12

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

dlcarrier wrote: post #4

Where I live, in the US, the income from light rail fair payers is a laughably small portion of the operating budget, so all rides are effectively discounted by 90%+. The fares really only exist to keep homeless people from sheltering on the trains, but they do that anyway, without a ticket. Somehow the prices are still high enough that it's cheaper to buy a cheap used car and drive it instead.

> Somehow the prices are still high enough that it's cheaper to buy a cheap used car and drive it instead.

City streets and roads are paid for through property taxes, so they are subsidized 100%.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#13

Post by edh649 » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

celticninja wrote: post #2

There is a slightly less ethical way to do this, you buy a ticket that mows you to travel at any time of day. Then when you have made your trip log on to realtimetrains to find a train on your route that was delayed and then claim that as your journey. Now your ticket is sometimes scanned when you enter or leave a station but this is rare and even less likely to be scanned on the train by a conductor. Anyway that is…

You could do, but might be caught as 2 were in 2016

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/commuters-ordered-to-repa...

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#14

Post by Tade0 » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 2:44 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #12

dlcarrier wrote: post #4

Where I live, in the US, the income from light rail fair payers is a laughably small portion of the operating budget, so all rides are effectively discounted by 90%+. The fares really only exist to keep homeless people from sheltering on the trains, but they do that anyway, without a ticket. Somehow the prices are still high enough that it's cheaper to buy a cheap used car and drive it instead.

> Somehow the prices are still high enough that it's cheaper to buy a cheap used car and drive it instead. City streets and roads are paid for through property taxes, so they are subsidized 100%.

You could say the same about rail infrastructure, but you cannot use private vehicles there (legally).

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#15

Post by add-sub-mul-div » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 2:45 PM UTC

dbspin wrote: post #10

dlcarrier wrote: post #4

Where I live, in the US, the income from light rail fair payers is a laughably small portion of the operating budget, so all rides are effectively discounted by 90%+. The fares really only exist to keep homeless people from sheltering on the trains, but they do that anyway, without a ticket. Somehow the prices are still high enough that it's cheaper to buy a cheap used car and drive it instead.

Find this curious. Surely factoring in the cost of tax and insurance greatly increases the cost of the used car? I'm based in Europe so perhaps things are radically different in the US.

The difference is that in America we have politicians who cultivate a fear of cities, public transportation, and not owning a bigger car than you need.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#16

Post by colechristensen » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 2:46 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #12

dlcarrier wrote: post #4

Where I live, in the US, the income from light rail fair payers is a laughably small portion of the operating budget, so all rides are effectively discounted by 90%+. The fares really only exist to keep homeless people from sheltering on the trains, but they do that anyway, without a ticket. Somehow the prices are still high enough that it's cheaper to buy a cheap used car and drive it instead.

> Somehow the prices are still high enough that it's cheaper to buy a cheap used car and drive it instead. City streets and roads are paid for through property taxes, so they are subsidized 100%.

Gas taxes and toll revenue account for about 1/3 of road infrastructure spend these days. This is significantly less than years past as the fixed gas tax hasn't kept up with inflation or adjusted upwards enough to match efficiency gains.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#17

Post by djhworld » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 2:46 PM UTC

controlledchaos wrote: post #11

sarreph wrote: post #8

The UK train system is a dire, expensive mess. Attempting to avoid getting directly political here, but I strongly believe it’s one of the lowest hanging fruit a political party could act on to curry favour with the electorate. Would be amazing to see this productised à la the way split ticketing works.

As a North American who travels in the UK multiple times per year, I really need you to elaborate. My experience has been nothing less than amazing, in comparison to the complete lack of rail options at home.

If you travel in and around the South East, inc. London the service is pretty good, regular although still very very expensive.

In the north though it’s a mixed bag, frequently delayed, huge underinvestment, expensive etc.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#18

Post by moomin » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

controlledchaos wrote: post #11

sarreph wrote: post #8

The UK train system is a dire, expensive mess. Attempting to avoid getting directly political here, but I strongly believe it’s one of the lowest hanging fruit a political party could act on to curry favour with the electorate. Would be amazing to see this productised à la the way split ticketing works.

As a North American who travels in the UK multiple times per year, I really need you to elaborate. My experience has been nothing less than amazing, in comparison to the complete lack of rail options at home.

America has much more serious problems with rail, but the UK experience still isn't great. The broad root cause is that back in the day we had the genius idea of paying multiple private companies to run trains on shared lines. We set up metrics to measure their performance that, bluntly, do not work. They underinvest and when there's any sign they're not making money, they hand the contract back. All in all, we get all the disadvantages of a nationalised system with all the disadvantages of a privatised system with a couple of original problems thrown in for good measure.

But the train near my house still runs.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#19

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 2:51 PM UTC

stego-tech wrote: post #7

This seems the perfect setup for malicious compliance of arbitrary RTO policies. * You may very well be more productive on a quiet train than a noisy office * Inconsistent WiFi coverage could let you focus on work instead of video conferencing meetings * Arriving late means you don’t have to stay long - not your fault the train was delayed, after all! Your employer gets the badge data showing you technically showed u…

[deleted]

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#20

Post by Moomoomoo309 » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 2:52 PM UTC

djhworld wrote: post #17

controlledchaos wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a North American who travels in the UK multiple times per year, I really need you to elaborate. My experience has been nothing less than amazing, in comparison to the complete lack of rail options at home.

If you travel in and around the South East, inc. London the service is pretty good, regular although still very very expensive. In the north though it’s a mixed bag, frequently delayed, huge underinvestment, expensive etc.

You have to remember what public transit is like in NA. What in Europe is unacceptable, late frequently, and problematic, is probably the best public transit someone from NA has ever been on, except maybe the NYC subway. It's a really, really low bar. NJTransit is considered one of the best in the US (and it is, unfortunately), and it's worse than anything I saw in Europe when I visited.