To think there's no point in complaining at people about the environment when the trains are ridiculously priced?

[NoHolidaysforyou]

I'm oldish and I'm going back to uni to be a nurse. This is great but the uni that has accepted me is 30 odd miles away.

I am in my 30s and will not qualify for a rail discount. I will get a maintenance loan but the commute on a train would take more than half of it (£280 per month for a season ticket). Luckily I do not need the maintenance loan to pay the mortgage or anything, just to pay for the remainder of childcare and my commute.

I would love to take the train but £280 per month for a 50 minute journey is ridiculous. Why are people trying to make others feel bad about grocery bags and kids when we haven't even got the biggest fundamental of rail down?

I will have to get a car. It will be so much cheaper to drive than take the train. I will be able to afford a car payment, tax, insurance, petrol and childcare with my maintenance loan. That's it. For me to buy and maintain a car, is the way forward and I couldn't do childcare as well as a season ticket on the train financially. It's the worst option for the environment though.

I just don't get it, I feel like a lot of these arguments made for being green are in bad faith (or for profit) if they don't make train prices the biggest focus. It's just asinine to me.

AIBU to think there's no point in complaining at people about the environment when the trains are ridiculously priced?

Yes! I think this all the time. A two min train journey to our next town is £5 off peak. It's way too expensive and the service is awful, the trains are disgusting and never on time.

We live about 50mins from a big city and it costs £30 for a return journey. I just had a look and a season ticket is five thousand pounds.

Agree.

Privatising the railways has been the most stupid idea the Tories ever did.

AIrlines apparently get some kind of tax relief on fuel that train companies don’t get.

I know it may not be suitable for your circumstances and your commute but full time students can get a 16-25 rail card. You need a form from any staffed station and for your uni to stamp it. This will give you up to 1/3 off most rail journeys.

Same here. Our local city is a 15 min train journey, much quicker and easier than driving and parking. For 2 adult and 2 child tickets, off peak with a rail card it's £28! Makes £5 for a day's parking look very attractive.

Would the train even be practical once you start doing placements and shifts?

I agree. Until they sort the railways out there literally is no point banging on about reduction in car use.

Yep. Completely agree. By the time I’ve driven to a train station, paid to park, bought a ticket, got a train into London and then out again. I may as well have just driven to the destination. It’s just not convenient or affordable

Totally agree. Trains are expensive. If we are going into town as a family, it's cheaper to drive and park.

We're going to Edinburgh next week to see a show (we're in Glasgow). Return tickets on the train, booked today for travelling on Saturday are £138.40 return. So guess what? We're driving.

YABU for calling yourself "oldish" in your 30s

Totally agree. I once had a rather earnest council rep insist on 'journey planning' my commute; he was insistent that there must be a way for me to use public transport rather than my car and refused to accept me telling him it wasn't feasible. To his credit, he did admit defeat when he looked at the results - leaving at 4am, 3 trains and a 4 mile walk on unlit and unpaved country roads, in order to arrive there at 9am. Return journey had me home for 10:30pm. Cost was in excess of £5k a year...

An off-peak single journey into my local city centre, which is an 8 minute journey, is over a fiver. When I do get the train it's either so packed that you physically cannot move your arms, or it's late or cancelled. It's always filthy. I'd like to use the train. But it's expensive, unreliable and a revolting travel experience where I haven't even got a guarantee of a seat!

Trains are expensive. However, as a pp said, in your circumstances, you’ll probably need a car for placement. My uni would put us within an hour’s drive of home. This could include working all shifts such as nights and 7am starts so public transport just wasn’t always practical.

YANBU. It's all stick and no carrot and it just doesn't work. I got on a train a few weeks ago and it absolutely stank of diesel and piss. It was about 40 years old yet the train fares have gone up presumably to line the pockets of the company's shareholders! People would rather sit in a traffic jam than feel like an extra in a dystopian movie set in the dying days of the Soviet Union. Parking in my city is also cheaper than going by bus or train so what are people going to do? I wonder...

There is also a lack of joined up planning and thinking in this country. We have out of town shopping centres being built with crap means of transport to get to them so people use their cars. At the same time we have city centres with shops boarded up and in this part of the world, abandoned mills slowly disintegrating. Bonkers.

YANBU! They are over-priced, inefficient, crowded, filthy, not enough of them. They're absolute shit and the prices keep going up.

@MissCharleyP thank you! I did not know about this. I will research this

@Disfordarkchocolate at the university I was accepted at you do 6 weeks lectures than 6 weeks of placement then back to lectures etc. I was hoping to take the train to uni since it appears that you need to be there 4 days a week from 9-5 pm during the lectures period. I really didn't want to drive there during rush hour but if I have to then I guess I will.

We're going to Edinburgh next week to see a show (we're in Glasgow). Return tickets on the train, booked today for travelling on Saturday are £138.40 return.

How many of you are there? An off peak week day, any time weekend day return is £13.30 per person and there is a groupsave discount of one third off that for 3 to 5 people travelling together...which works out at £8.87 per person for a return ticket.

Train prices are definitely extortionate (DP currently pays over £700 a month for a 50-minute journey season ticket), but I still think that we should all do our bit for the environment.

For what it's worth - as a mature student you'll qualify for the 16-25 railcard (assuming you're studying full-time). I think it gets you 1/3 off fares.

Yes it’s ludicrous. The buses and trains in London are good though....

We were going to go to an engagement party in Blackpool last year (from London)

Tickets were £430 EACH return

It would have cost us £95 to drive

We didn't go - couldn't face 14 hours of driving over a weekend

I actually moved to London so I could get rid of my car - public transport is so good here.

but I still think that we should all do our bit for the environment.

So you're going to pay for it for people who can't

I agree. It’s cheaper and quicker to fly from Bristol to Edinburgh/Glasgow than take the train. The train needs to be cheaper than the plane if we’re to have any hope of reducing CO2 emissions.

I’m also sick of paying for overpriced train tickets only to find they’re aren’t enough seats. Maybe some people would be happy to travel fourth-class (standing room only) if it were priced accordingly.

There’s the ridiculous system where you can make it cheaper, but only if you mess about with splitting the tickets as well.

I spent a stupid amount of time experimenting with start and end points and split points the other evening. I’ve now figured out the optimum combination of tickets to get from A/B to D but it really should be easier.

What's a train? We're at least an hour's drive from the nearest station. Cars are an absolute necessity even though I would love to use public transport more often.