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How I got 100% off my train travel

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Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#151

Post by nobody9999 »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #148
nobody9999 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is a late slip? I imagine (I don't live in the Chicagoland area, so guessing here, perhaps someone from the 'burbs there can chime in) it's a note from the CTA saying the train was delayed so you can limit your negative exposure when you boss wants to know why you're two hours late. Which is actually much more than NYC does. Although that has its advantages as well. The linked fortune[0] (actually an excerpt fr…

CTA never did that; I don’t think they could if the wanted to. Metra did it, I’m 99.9% sure they stopped years ago. But yeah, there would be a person at the platform when the train arrived downtown with a piece of paper saying that the train was delayed. A late slip. Nowadays, you have real-time location tracking of the train. If it’s late, you can tell your employer what train you’re on and they could verify it. At…

>CTA never did that; I don’t think they could if the wanted to.

>Metra did it, I’m 99.9% sure they stopped years ago. But yeah, there would be a person at the platform when the train arrived downtown with a piece of paper saying that the train was delayed. A late slip.

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't 100% sure about who the relevant agency was (as I mentioned, I don't live there -- although I do have family that does).

>Nowadays, you have real-time location tracking of the train. If it’s late, you can tell your employer what train you’re on and they could verify it. At least to a better degree than with the late slips. Still not perfect. But if you’ve got an employer that would want to verify such things, you’ve got worse problems.

A fair point, but there are some circumstances where both employee and employer may need to justify/document such circumstances -- but on the whole, you're spot on.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#153

Post by nobody9999 »

alwa wrote: post #146
nobody9999 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is a late slip? I imagine (I don't live in the Chicagoland area, so guessing here, perhaps someone from the 'burbs there can chime in) it's a note from the CTA saying the train was delayed so you can limit your negative exposure when you boss wants to know why you're two hours late. Which is actually much more than NYC does. Although that has its advantages as well. The linked fortune[0] (actually an excerpt fr…

To be fair, NYC’s MTA writes tardy slips too: https://delayverification.mta.info/ I shudder to imagine the working relationship where that’s relevant. But I very much appreciate the advantages you point out. I felt a little sense of loss when, on work in that city, I noticed that some degree of cellular service had reached the stations…

>To be fair, NYC’s MTA writes tardy slips too: https://delayverification.mta.info/

Wow. TIL. I'm a life-long NYer and never knew that.

Thanks!

>But I very much appreciate the advantages you point out. I felt a little sense of loss when, on work in that city, I noticed that some degree of cellular service had reached the stations…

If it makes you feel any better, such signal isn't very common, although the MTA is looking to change that[0]

[0] https://www.mta.info/press-release/mta-announces-5g-wireless...

Edit: Added quote that I replied to.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#154

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

sksksk wrote: post #35
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.

I agree that it's a dire , expensive mess. But it doesn't seem like low hanging fruit at all... Anything that will improve the situation will be expensive and/or take a long time to achieve.

> Anything that will improve the situation will be expensive and/or take a long time to achieve

Only if you do it properly.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#155

Post by nobody9999 »

labster wrote: post #140
Aeolun wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it’s hard to see why a properly planned train journey would have any delays at all.

Maybe a huge snowstorm happens blocking the train overnight, then someone is murdered on board, and a detective has to figure out who the perpetrator is before the next station?

>Maybe a huge snowstorm happens blocking the train overnight, then someone is murdered on board, and a detective has to figure out who the perpetrator is before the next station?

That sounds like a great idea for a mystery novel. Perhaps one that includes the world's greatest detective. It might even get adapted several times for movies, both on the big screen and made for TV.

I'm going to write it all down and make a mint!

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#156

Post by TulliusCicero »

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.

Cars benefit from enormous subsidies that are typically even greater than for public transit.

This obviously true for the monetary value of building all the roads and highways a city has, but it's even more true in terms of land usage. Cars in US cities tend to be allotted far, far more land than space reserved for walking, biking, or public transit. Since land use is mostly zero-sum, this is an extraordinary amount of investment that cars receive as a mode.

And of course, it's not just the roads. Mandatory parking minimums in zoning codes in most cities require businesses to allocate huge amounts of space for free car parking. This is a large de facto subsidy that also inhibits every other mode.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#157

Post by eszed »

bobnamob wrote: post #93
bobnamob wrote: post #89

Ironic read given I'm currently sat on a half hour delayed, hopelessly overcrowded (due to 2 prior cancellations) Avanti west coast service. I'll be happy to claim my delay repay on my employer's dime for the 5th time this year. My only regret is that I booked off-peak

Oh it gets so much worse. Train is now parked up just outside Manchester with zero power. Another 10mins is worth £35 at this point

Did you get there in the end?

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#158

Post by habosa »

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.

I’m an American who lived in London for 3 years and was also impressed, but as someone who only had to use national rail for leisure (got around London by bus/tube) I was oblivious to two things:

1) Commute hours are brutal. Trains are packed and even a few minutes delay can feel like ages when you’re missing a meeting.

2) The cost of 5x weekly round trips is enormous. The average annual pass for someone commuting into London from outside is like £4000. That’s in a country where the average wage is around £40,000. That’s a huge amount of money to spend on public transportation. I know a car would be more but I’ve never met a single American who spends that fraction of their income on public transportation.

Still though … I’d rather have expensive and unreliable trains than no trains at all.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#159

Post by Larrikin »

BeeOnRope wrote: post #124
sensen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I commuted via train for years when I lived in Chicago and a refund policy like Italy's definitely would've been amazing. Perhaps the trains would be more reliable with refunds, all we received was a late slip when the train was delayed by 2 hours..

What is a late slip?

An absolute requirement in Japan if you are more than a few minutes late in Japan. A thirty minute delay during morning rush hour used to have train staff with a stack of papers handing them out to everyone going out of the gate kiosk. I used to get them after any delay at all on my commute.

I assume now annoying bosses can check online, but it's Japan so an old person in charge might ask for the paper slip as well just in case you overslept when you were in a nearby business hotel after a rather awful stint of over time the night before.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#160

Post by dangus »

elpalek wrote: post #139
toephu2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you try high speed rail in China. They're 10-15 years ahead of Japan.

Can you please elaborate on the Chinese advantage?

The network is massive and the average and top speeds are very fast.

China has more high speed rail than the rest of the world combined.

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