Blog: Rail network is going off the track
Tuesday 16th August 2011, 2:41PM BST.
Sometimes, the good people of Shropshire must feel they are being penalised for wanting to turn up at the office for an honest day’s work.
The price of oil has been falling for weeks, yet drivers are still being stung by rising prices at the petrol pumps.
Cuts to rural bus services are making it hard for many villagers to get to work on public transport.
And now, commuters who prefer to let the train take the strain are staring at a whopping rise in fares next year of nearly 7.5 per cent.
And this from a Government which purports to be desperate for us to leave the car at home, helping ease congestion on our choked-up roads.
Everyone is struggling with the rising cost of living; not just motorists.
To impose an inflation-busting rise on UK rail fares, which are already the most expensive in Europe, is a nonsensical disgrace.
Not to mention a U-turn on the part of LibDem leader Nick Clegg, who pledged in the run-up to the general election that his party wanted to see fares reduced.
If the Government wants to improve the service, perhaps it should be concentrating on making the existing network more affordable to the average traveller, before pursuing expensive pie-in-the-sky ideas such as the high speed network linking the West Midlands to the capital.
When travellers question the value for money of the current service, they are unlikely to want to pay what will no doubt be even higher premiums for a seat on the hi-tech new line. Even if their trains guarantee it will not be standing room only at rush hour . . .
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Some excellent points, especially about the proposed high speed rail link.
A recent study (ignored by our government) showed that similar links elsewhere in Europe have merely served to increase the economic imbalance between capitals and the provinces.
London is enough of a leech on the rest of the country as it is, we need more efficient and reliable transport systems within our own regions rather than trying to shave a few minutes off the journey time to the southeast.
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I commute 7 days a week to Birmingham – I use the train and the cost of a season ticket (even with the increase) is still way less than the cost of diesel and parking if I drove. Not to mention the wear and tear on my car I’m not incurring plus my car insurance is dirt cheap because I can limit the annual mileage on it. I never have to stand on the trains I always get a seat so what exactly is the point of this blog?
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I think it discusted that Rail Fares are going up next year by avarage 8%.I tend to use the rail more then drive to a town/city as it works out cheper.by rising the cost of train fares it will make the public feel like they’ve been punished to go out side there own town aswell get more peps useing cars.(witch means The more car on the road the more Road Wear and tear happens and the hike in road tax).so by doing this their going to create more troubling times ahead for the public in a hole.
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“I tend to use the rail more then drive to a town/city as it works out cheper”
So what is your problem? Apart from an ability to spell I mean.
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Pickaxe. Who cannot punctuate, so made himself a hostage to fortune, rather.
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Just wiat until the new EU transport regs kick in a few year from now. They propose ending subsidy of transport networks and that ‘user pays’ principles should be enforced.
What will this mean:
Train fares will double.
Road charging will be introduced.
Bus fares will rise so expect a lot less routes.
In response to the blog, we need as a nation to stop thinking it is acceptable to live many miles from where we work. Oil prices will never come down much and when the world economy starts to take off, China and Asia will be buying more than we will and will drive the prices ever upward until shortages appear in 10 to 20 years time when anyone commuting significant distances will be bankrupt.
Have a happy future…
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the reality of my job is that I have to travel and stating that it will not be acceptable to live miles from where you work is unacceptable – I got off my backside and got this job – there is nothing in Shrewsbury for my experinec and requirements
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It might not be acceptable to you but I’ll have you a fiver it becomes reality anyway.
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That might be the case but you will soon not be able to afford to commute long distances unless petrol, & diesel get replaced as the main fuel for cars. I also travel long distances covering 35,000miles per year. My company pays for the fuel but for how long, if diesel reaches £2 or £3 per litre, it will not be sustainable and I will be back to living in caravans. My line of work, building, is cyclic and nomadic so commuting is inevitable. Working in an office in Brum and living in Salop is not as easy to justify when you could easily relocate and cut the cost of the commute completely.
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absolutely 100% justifiable – if I relocated yes I would cut the cost of the commute (1 annual rail season ticket) but that saving would be wiped out by higher property prices/higher council tax/higher cost of living so think through your arguement before making sweeping generalisations
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Two points.
Firstly, in the current market anybody lucky enough to change jobs as an upward career move has to decide whether to move house or commute. If you were (say) a teacher in Whitchurch and you are offered a better job in Ludlow do you sell up, move your family, change your kids’ schools, maybe sacrifice your partner’s job etc – or do you commute? Always bearing in mind equivalent housing in Ludlow could be significantly more expensive.
And remember an increasing number of job changes are driven by redundancy and being offered a ‘take it or leave it’ alternative miles away.
Secondly, read the financial reports for the train operating companies and the (parasitic) rolling stock owners. For every £1 paid in fares at least 20p goes to the ROSCOS – organisations which didn’t exist before privatisation and are owned primarily by venture capitalists and banks. And given government grants to build new trains to earn more profit!
Then there are the operators themselves who despite government subsidy still manage to make significant profits for shareholders (q.v. Stagecoach only last week).
It’s high time somebody grasped the nettle and created two new ‘not for profit’ organisations – Network Trains and Network Services to join Network rail and make sure that subsidy goes to help commuters and travellers, not into city slickers’ pockets.
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