David Mercer, Morecambe + ShareI cannot afford to use public transport – it’s so expensive, so where is the money going? I have to use my car like most people have instead of the pollution-reducing train.
David Mercer, Morecambe + ShareI cannot afford to use public transport – it’s so expensive, so where is the money going? I have to use my car like most people have instead of the pollution-reducing train.
Bring Back British Rail
4 days ago
How about this for rail fare reform? 🌍 Austrians have a plan to cut carbon emissions by making trains cheaper than driving or flying ...
Want to fix Britain’s broken trains? Look at Austria
www.wired.co.uk
Austrians will soon be able to travel huge train distances for next to nothing – and it’s all part of an effort to tackle the climate crisisShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email
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In a small (in terms of land area) country like ours it makes sense to have a single state-owned and integrated transport system (which we used to have). Privatisation was a stupid thing to do (done for ideological rather than sensible strategic reasons). Now there are also very good environmental reasons to sort out train travel and bus travel too. This won’t happen with the useless Tories in charge.
Problem in this country is that we have a large part of the electorate that is in love with the upper classes, the class system etc, in no other European country would working class towns vote for a useless party full of useless toffs who have luxury villa holidays in Spain and the Caribbean. Until we stop reading the newspapers and get our facts from real life we will always think things like cheap rail travel secondary.
Maybe we should have a state rail company modelled on Germany. It is crazy that the German state is allowed to run British railways and take the profits but the British Govt is not allowed to
You'll also notice that during the year most Train operators offer heavily discounted ticket prices. There's always a massive demand, which tells me one thing, they don't need to have rail fares as high as they are it's just corporate greed. If the train fares were a fair price they wouldn't need to knock fares right down. Next week for example I'm travelling to Lincoln courtesy of the Northern £1 ticket sale it's cost me £8 return in total for myself and the Mrs. That is good value for money. I'm not saying make ticket prices a £1 but at least make them affordable.
Unfortunately ideology and dogma and private profit won't allow for the common sense of a mixed economy as happens in the successful European countries, same goes for utilities. It seems ok for othe Government to own our infrastructure but not our own Government and people!
I drive my car for a day out to the coast for one reason it is cheaper than the train .
Not a chance. Too much profit to be made by the private sector.
Sadly I can’t see that happening here; not whilst we’ve got staunch Capitalist Johnson running the show.
No chance of that here, chances are that they have an interest in our Railways.
no doubt their railways are state run unlike over here where they are privatised and more concerned with lining the pockets of 'fat cat' share holders over offering the public any kind of low cost travel
that’s how you change habits make it cheaper and easier to do the right option. not try to make the easier and cheaper option harder to use and put up the prices of trains like the uk
When have you heard of anything getting cheaper in the UK?
It's a crazy idea.. but. it. might. just. work..
It could easily be achieved but that would mean no profit for tory party donors who have vested interests in the companies that run the franchises. Whilst capitalism is king nothing will change in this country.
The trouble is that if we did that here the train price wouldn't change, they would just make driving more expensive.
A levy on domestic flights and private jets would go a long way to helping reduce fares and increase investment.
Cheaper fares will unfortunately lead to overcrowding. - just an observation.
Every other Country except ours seems to own our Railways unfortunately
At present it excludes Vienna’s extensive network which is where a large proportion of the population live but it is an excellent idea and well worth replicating. But it requires big government which is anathema to our esteemed govt.,
I lot of people only compare the cost of the train to the fuel they use; so a lot of the time they are not thinking about how much their car is really costing them at all.
A few years ago needed to go to Inverness from East London. Checked costs by car with 1 overnight stop each way. Train and 4 day hire car. Coach and 4 day hire car. Fly and 4 day hire car. Car all the way worked out far, far cheaper. Flying was next cheapest.
I suggest making all local public transport free.This would reduce poverty and divert many towards a sustainable form of transport.
And yet they still have a massive coal industry which exports to China and other places so money talks there as well
Government subsidised and look at the income tax rates to pay for it !
I never go anywhere by train as the price is horrific
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Bring Back British Rail
3 weeks ago
Another one bites the dust! Southeastern will be brought back into public ownership, and the private company running it is under investigation for serious fraud. Says it all really, privatisation is broken #BringBackBritishRail ...
Southeastern: Government takes over services after 'serious breach'
www.bbc.co.uk
The government says it will consider options for more action, including financial penalties.Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email
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With British Rail I could simply rock up to a station, buy an AFFORDABLE ticket from a human and travel to where I needed to alight. It was run as a service not a profit source for shareholders. Very occasionally the train would be full and some of the journey involved standing. No big deal!
Privitise profit, socialise loss. Always the Tory way.
As soon as it’s running well again they’ll just give it back to one of their mates!
Bring it all back in and stop subsidising well lined pockets
i lost most of my pension with tory privatization of british rail
Yet Kier Starmer won’t commit to say the word re-nationalise!! I’m sure there is a public appetite for the railways to be taken back into public control!
My dad spent his whole life, working for British Rail and reached a very high level in his career. His father drove the Royal Train ... dad said that UK would regret privatising what used to be a wonderful railway!
Nationalise British rail - wasn’t that a Corbyn manifesto pledge ??? 🤔
I thought privatisation (WE WERE TOLD) meant Competition wou;d keep prices down! instead many of the Brirtish RAIL Companies are run by European GOVERNMENTS, and the European Rail networks are VERY MUCH CHEAPER (anf in some ways BETTER) than ours!
While the fraud office is at it, they should look at the Great Western electrification and the HS2 farce. There has always been a whiff of dodgy dealings with HM government, particularly with defence procurement, and having worked in the NHS can certainly attest to shady practices. But it seems fraud is the new national industry.
Time to renationalise..... enough of this profit driven obsession and couldn't care less attitude regarding the travelling public.
I'm sure sombody not to long ago said he would bring back the railway back under government.. The tories and there media SKY NEWS and BBC NEWS said he was a crack pot... Mr corbyn I believe 😕
There is only one thing for it, Bring back British Rail
He's effectively punnished them for doing what members of the cabinet have been doing all through the pandemic, filling their own coffers- i am not condoning it i am just saying it strikes me as a bit of a double standard.
Second time that franchise has had to be taken into Government control.
Another “money pit” goes to the wall. Yet another failure of the Thatcher philosophy.
"I'd like to reassure all passengers that this is very much business as usual with no immediate changes."...what a joke.
There should be prosecutions, just as I would be prosecuted for committing " serious fraud"
I don't remember it be a wonderful railway. Dirty dusty carriages with dangerous doors when opening them, badly lit platforms and dry sandwiches.
Dont hold your breath waiting for Starmer to agree to this.
Privatisation guaranteed to destroy anything it touches.
With regard to passenger services, but the privatisation of freight is very successful.
And the public don’t know the half of it. There are are managers currently trying to reduce platform staff because they know that cuts are coming and they’ve suddenly burst into life trying to make themselves look good by saving money. What they are actually doing is putting the public in danger and breaking disability laws because it means there are less people to assist those that need assistance. One station in particular that I know of where a manager is trying to do this has many problems with people worse for wear especially on a Friday and Saturday night. Reducing the staff there will not only put the public in great danger but the remaining members of staff as well. This is from managers that have been virtually unobtainable during the pandemic. This is not an isolated case. Frontline staff get a bad reputation but what people don’t see is that they are out there every day getting abuse, being attacked and spat at but they turn up for work and do it all again the next day. To provide a public service more frontline staff are required not less and certainly not multi levels of management hierarchy where they’ve brought their friends in on the old boy network from previous employers.
This line was taken back into public ownership in the early 2000's. It will be the same story as then the public ownership will improve the line and once it's really good it will be sold off again. 😡
EDF Energy De France owns 45% of our electricity supply !! The Tories are thrives and always have they are partially way through privatisation of the NHS . Everything the public own gone or going!!🤬🤬🤬
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Bring Back British Rail
3 months ago
"Privatisation... has delivered a service that is expensive, unreliable and dysfunctional" 🚍🚊💷 Don't miss former UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston's & Bassam Khawaja's devastating critique of UK bus policy. Read the report: bit.ly/AlstonBusReport Watch the full video here: bit.ly/3i08jLo ...
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Watch the full video of the Britain’s Bus Crisis: Privatisation, Poverty & Human Rights event: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrAnhTTbjMM
Read the full 'Public Transport, Private Profit' report: bit.ly/AlstonBusReport
Privatizing has buggered up the electricity industry, the gas industry, the water industry and the waste disposal industry too. Some things should be considered a service and run to provide just that at an economic cost not a way of milking the end users.
I sympathise with their sentiments and agree for the most part. However I have seen far better written reports than this. I note with interest the total lack of integration across the public transport network, it is of course a universal truth, a result not just of operator competition, but of competing modes. The great shame in all of this is that once upon a time, all of the large and many of the smaller urban areas had their own bus or occasionally tram networks provided by the local authorities. They offered usually a high quality service tailored to local needs, Manchester (mentioned in the report) being a classic case.
The buses and trains need to be put back in public hands we at the moment subsidies them ever since the Tories sold them of so how can you tell me that they are private companys
As with everything else the Tory’s de- nationalised
Has the government's decarbonisation policy hit fever point?
but as it doesn't affect them, they don't care
......I was up in Edinburgh a couple of months ago. That parts of Britain's railways are publicity run, I noticed that this organisation keeps things moving more.
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Bring Back British Rail
3 months ago
📢 Next Weds 21 July, 7-8pm – don't miss Britain’s Bus Crisis: Privatisation, Poverty & Human Rights – the launch event for Philip Alston’s new report examining the devastating impact of bus privatisation across the UK 🚍🚏💸 Register to attend here 👇 alstonbusreport.eventbrite.com ...
Britain's Bus Crisis: Privatisation, Poverty & Human Rights
alstonbusreport.eventbrite.com
Join us for the launch of Philip Alston’s new report examining the devastating impact of bus privatisation in the United Kingdom.Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email
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When young I could get a train from Leven to Dunfermline.Beeching stuffed that.Then they let private companies loose and it went downhill.Buses were much better as well but they let the private companies loose there and the same route followed.Private companies want profit above service.
Bring back the corporations, metropolitan undertaking and regional state owned companies. The only private services should be those like the Delaine in Lincs who have been around for a long time and have given sterling service. The big groups need to be renationalised and broken up.
This makes me angry another Tory fuck up and they get away with it..grrrr
Covid19 has seen passenger numbers on both trains and buses at a very low ebb and could mean number of train rolling stock being made increasingly surplus to requirements.
Bus deregulation far more scandalous than rail privatisation ever was. The absence of anything resembling a minimum service requirement at the heart of that.
XX
Nicholas Ridley, need I say more!
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Bring Back British Rail
4 months ago
The ‘Great British Rip-Off’ – why new ‘flexi-tickets’ are an insult to passengers ...
The ‘Great British Rip-Off’ – why new ‘flexi-tickets’ are an insult to passengers
abcommuters.com
The Department for Transport’s new ‘flexible season tickets’ are an absolute insult to passengers. Neither cheap nor flexible, they are just another pricing trap for a captive com…Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email
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Meanwhile Grant Shapps gets to claim all his train fares back as expenses..
People voted for a privatised railway and they got what they voted for.
And the fools fell for it, £350 million a week for the NHSand still waiting ?
If they are a privatised industry why do the taxpayer subsidise them is it to fill the pockets of the shareholders oh wait are the tory backers just a thought
As this scheme is being lead by the treasury and they won't introduce anything that reduces income
These are priced deliberately to convince many that going into work 2 or 3 days/week isn't much of a saving in travel costs compared to traditional 5 day a week. Government probably scared that businesses might downsize office space and property market suffers. I'm sure the Tory party have a few funders with owning some of these prestige buildings that have gone up in many cities over the last few decades. Actually what might happen now is more might just continue to work from home full time.
Sadly British Rail is not really British Rail, its a joke, you just have to look at the extortionate prices thats charged for even the smallest journey, it would be much more sensible to cut fares and have more customers take a leaf out of other countries some charge as little as a fiver for a 50mile trip.
But, but, they're doing their best. Dunno what their worst would be.
No matter what party you vote for they are all as bad each . labour where in under Tony Blair did they renationalised the railway and have the Torys renationalised no to both it is all about looking after the private company that run the railways.Also they get government grants to run the railway s which comes out of our taxes so in effect we are paying twice for the public transport .. Public transport should be made cheaper. If they want to get more people of the roads to use . Prime example of the over inflated prices is ebbsfleet to London I believe it £8 pound one way
Utter waste of time. It would save me 12% over daily tickets, but is still 22% dearer than buying weekly tickets, and despite the name, they're *less* flexible. On several occasions, pre-Covid, I've bought a weekly ticket to Manchester, only to find out that the event I'm running has been reallocated or cancelled, so I can work from home the rest of the week. So I've then gone to the ticket office and they've cancelled the weekly ticket and refunded me, minus the cost of one daily ticket, with *no admin fees*. This "flexible" ticket would let me buy eight journeys to be used over four weeks. But if it gets to the last week and I've not used four of them, I can get the unused journeys refunded, but they'll charge me £10 admin fee to do so, which would wipe out most of the refund. The only change they need to make is to remove the admin fee, or remove the 28 day limit on using the journeys. If I could buy eight journeys and use them over say three months, then that would be worth doing. As it is, I shan't bother. Might just get on my bike more and get to work for free.
It is getting ready for "Home Rule" in Wales and Scotland,soon to be Great English Railways (GER)
what did you expect from this government????????
Sadly, I feel Grant Shapps is a Government gimmick rolled out to jazz up wet Mondays and bad news days to act as if Government is doing something relevant to ordinary people e.g. Renationalisation - we have the name, but what of the finer details? Reversing Beeching, really... where's the flow/beef in it, just a trickle currently and 2030 is the cut off date for irreversible climate change. Likewise Chris Heaton Harris, MP for Daventry - one large town without any rail access/safe Tory seat cracks jokes on Twitter as if no tomorrow, but how much is he working towards delivering an affordable, integrated and growing railway apart from #HS2? £27 billion for new roads which only panders to road dependency cultures, heaps up congestion and electric vehicles do not deal with tyres on hard surfaces and the particles we all breathe. I think rail should not be facing any cuts, rather top slice that £27 billion and let's have parity between road and rail at least.
They seem to be only available for smart cards and one cannot buy paper tickets. Flexi rover tickets (which work in the same way) have been around as paper tickets since time immemorial.
They are "another option". That's all. Depending on when, where and how often you travel, flexis may or may not be the answer. They may not be what people were expecting, however it may just be that people's expectations were wrong.
no discount for senior or regional pass holders
Perversely it is £5 cheaper per journey if I buy an annual season ticket and travel 5 days per week to the office. There is no real incentive for me to do 2-3 days week in the office.
When are people going to wake up, the tories are only it to make money not to give rail users a fair deal, you want a fair deal stop voting for them...
Just as expected, another way to fleece the commuter by the stealth of privatised railways !!!!
Rip off? In Britain?
Who's this Michael Green?
cCheck out Horley to London Bridge flexi ticket price works out at £19.51, anytime return is £22.30 so a 12.5% discount, ok not bad I guess… BUT check out the contactless/Oyster price for the same journey it’s £17.70!
Bandits
Tory bastards
Season tickets Sheffield-Derby (Adult, Standard Class) Flexi Season £9,998.00 Seven Day £80.30 12 months £3,212.00 (Source: BR Fares)
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