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?

I had no idea how expensive trains were until I started enquiring about journeys. They are so bloody expensive especially in peak times that it's cheaper to drive. I don't know how people afford it.

@GarnierBBCream - I meant that just because trains are prohibitively expensive it doesn't mean we shouldn't do what we can elsewhere.

We once looked into going to visit DP's mum by train. It's quite straighforward: train from our local station, then a tram to her house. The train takes about 45 minutes.

The train bit alone would be £30 each, then whatever a 6 mile each way tram ride would cost on an Oyster card. Including the walk to the station, it would take 2 - 2.5 hours, more if there are engineering works.

It's 38 miles by road, so approx a gallon of petrol each way, and takes an hour.

Why on earth would we bother with the train?

It costs me £5.80 return for an 10min/7 Mike journey journey to newest city - but can get to London for £15 return - 100miles. Makes no sense!

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

Who is complaining at you? Most environmentalists I know would totally agree with you that we need to make it much easier and cheaper for people to make environmentally friendly decisions. We each do our bit where we can (and it sounds like for you one of those bits you can’t do, at least at the moment, is manage without a car) but we really need structural change. Better and cheaper public transport links, cleaner fuels/electric vehicles, towns set up so that travel distances can be reduced. That’s why people are taking to the streets to protest. It because they think you should get an unaffordable train.

*should read NOT because they want you to get an unaffordable train

What I find really frustrating are the ridiculous prices for empty trains. We live in a London suburb, going in to London is great, cheap & easy. Going out of London we can get the train direct to a variety of South Coast towns but it costs at least £25 each for that train (it’s just over an hour in the car & parking is cheap when you get to most places)
Off peak the trains going to the South coast are empty & the towns themselves need all the visitors they can get.
Why not reduce the train price massively, fill the train & boost the economy of the struggling seaside towns?

Yes we are going to go to the Edinburgh festival and we will fly. Very bad for the environment but much cheaper than the train.

Yes absolutely. Since our systems are broken let's definitely not talk about the problem or make any of the small, daily changes that are possible.

I went to Edinburgh a few years back. Train? £129 and nearly four hours. Flight? £32 and an hour. What would you do?

YANBU. Scrapping the unnecessary vanity project HS2 and putting the funds into the existing rail network would be a start. Same goes for "self driving cars" when there's already a rail system where you don't have to drive, which could be vastly improved.

Not just the trains. Our local bus service had a slight change to the timetable earlier this year. Which has culminated in none of the busses running to timetable.

For months I was getting to/from work no worries.

For the last four months I’ve had to drive in order to get to work on time, and now sit in traffic and pay daily for parking.

I travel to European holidays by train as it's often cheaper than flying at least when you're travelling at peak half terms and stuff but you do have to factor in the extra time. Travelling in the UK by train is extremely expensive and makes no financial sense once there's more than one of you unless you can book well in advance and have a discount pass of some sort. Sometimes it's more convenient, I would never drive to London for example, but travelling to say Manchester - takes 2.30hrs by car but by train I have to travel first to London, then to Manchester and it costs a bomb. It's a pity Dr Beeching didn't have a crystal ball.

I'm going to be in England in the summer and was looking at taking a day trip into London and I couldn't believe how cheap it was. About £50 for a family ticket for all four of us from main station about 3/4 of an hour away, on a Saturday.

And yet the array of prices were baffling and weirdly it looked like it would have been more expensive for me to go on my own than as a family.

So YANBU, the whole public transport system is madness. Although, living somewhere that simply doesn't have much public transport, I do look at it with envy, the idea of being able to travel places without a car...

The Oyster card system in the London area is fabulous. Just shows what a forward thinking Labour mayor can do really. All suburban trains are included too within zones 1-6. Buses anywhere for 1.50 and hopper fares too for changing buses. Just a damn pity that a similar system can't operate nationwide. Towns where there are competing bus companies doing the same routes and charging extortionate fares is completely crazy. Ken Livingstone bulldozed the Oyster card system here despite opposition from the rail companies. And we have a lot to thank him for.

I looked at getting the train from Yorkshire to Inverness. It was going to cost me £250 return. So I drove - a tank and a bit of fuel, cost me £60.

I would much rather have got the train and read by book. I don't think the service is bad and the trains are generally OK and run to time. But the price? No thanks.

sorry, that was £250 single, not return.And yes, it might be cheaper if you book a certain amount of time in advance, but what if you don't know you're going?

I know. When you're trying to decide how to travel from one town to another, comparing costs makes it a no-brainer.

Of course, those who have the power to do something about it (politicians and rail bosses) are isolated from the reality, with their first class travel not paid for out of their own pockets.

Every vote for Tory is a vote for privatisation.
Every vote for Tory is handing over your money and freedom to the elite.

Yes trains are ridiculous but I still think we need to do something about the rest of it anyway.

We can’t just take the attitude. Well that’s crap so I’m not going to bother

But I agree trains need to be an affordable method of transport if people will be tempted to not use a car.

What misscharleyp said. Railcard is available for mature students.

well, without knowing anything else the obvious solution is to move to where the uni is, which is what most students do.

However, to do an environmental like-for-like comparison, are your costs based on buying the most environmental car you can? Hybrids aren't cheap.

This is the real issue with fighting climate change - we can (and should) all do our bit, but until governments globally start making real, life-changing changes we are pissing in the wind.

They are really expensive, always rammed (two carriages during rush hour from Bristol) and filthy. In fact I am changing jobs as the cost is ridiculous and I can never get a seat, even with mobility issues - you can reserve seats but people won't move and no guards on the trains now, just the driver

@DonkeyHohtay how many of you are there? It's £13.30 for a return and you get a discount with 3+ passengers.
It's not possible for £138.40 worth of passengers to fit into one car.