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?

What is unrealistic is expecting public transport to be cheaper just because it is the more environmentally friendly option.

Have you been to other countries? Because in many western countries trains are cheaper, cleaner and run more efficiently than in Britain.

Also when people claim driving is more expensive, they always talk about the cost of car loans for expensive cars. Most of us watching the pennies do not pay those kind of costs.

Getting a job round the corner and cycling would be better for the environment.

Yes it would. I have in all my 36 years of working only once had a job I could walk to.

I don’t honestly know where all these costs come from? Are you all booking on the day/last minute? If you book in advance (say 4 weeks or so) it’s so much cheaper & if you do book the journey in stages (ok a bit of pfaffing about) it’s even cheaper. I regularly get Edinburgh to Leeds return for less than £60. Someone above quoted £250!

@clairemcnam
British railways don't perform that badly when compared to their European counterparts on key measures as outlined in the Railway Performance Index. Many countries choose to subsidise their railways more leading to a reduction in fares for passengers and many choose to devote more money to infrastructure and rolling stock investment. It may be cheaper at the point of travel in these countries but that doesn't mean that the service is necessarily less expensive to run overall and more efficient. New shiny trains and stations are going to be more impressive but they haven't come without cost.

Getting a job round the corner would be better for the environment, but my job doesn't exist round the corner. The only jobs locally are zero hours contracts hospitality, delivery work and care work. Apart from the fact that at least two of those require driving, I literally wouldn't be able to pay my bills on the money I'd earn.

I try and make adjustments where I can for work - minimising travel, working from home, car sharing. But in terms of major impact I don't have any kids - which is a significant saving in terms of carbon footprint.

BumpityBumper I have just looked and GN is 8th out of 24th. Considering it includes very poor countries such as Poland, I do think that is poor. And it specifically says this about GB -

Great Britain. At 5.4, Great Britain has an excellent rating for safety. However, its rating for intensity of use is only good, owing to a low level of freight utilization, and its quality of service is poor because of high fares and the relatively low punctuality of regional trains.

@clairemcnam
I said the UK didn't perform "that badly" and I stand by that assessment. It beats France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Ireland. None of these are "very poor" so even if you do discount some of the poorer countries then the UK's performance could be reasonably described as "middling".

The mention of high fares is predictable and undoubtedly accurate, however it doesn't mention that many of the countries that the UK beats (and many that sit higher than the UK in the table) receive more government subsidy and a higher level of investment in infrastructure. Basically they are not necessarily running their services with less money just because their fares are lower and the citizens of that country will be paying money for their train services in a different way. The importance of "public spend" is highlighted by the RPI itself who suggests that there is a strong correlation between this and a railway system's overall performance. This is definitely true for the UK who have been penalised for raising money through the fare box as opposed to through taxation like other countries have done.

My general point is that just because fares are higher in the UK it doesn't mean that other railway systems are more efficient or cost citizens of that country less.

@ TFBundy Wow! Nearly £500 pounds! You might as well take a flight across Europe 🤦‍♀️

What is unrealistic is expecting public transport to be cheaper just because it is the more environmentally friendly option

Why is it unrealistic? The government should encourage eco-friendly behaviour.

I really miss the old days when I could just turn up at the train station and buy a ticket, I really hate having to plan everything so far in advance

It's actually costing less than that for return flights to Bucharest for me, my kid and my DP- with 4 out of 6 seats being during the school holidays!

It’s a problem with public transport in general. I have thought about getting the bus to work on the day I don’t need to take the kids to childcare. It would cost me £11.50 to do it versus hardly anything in petrol (parking already paid for as monthly work rate which I have to pay as other days I need to drive to be back in time for the kids). I just can’t justify that vs the £1.50 or so it would cost me in petrol.

I think it's the serious extra costs on top of running car (which may or may not be optional) that make it really unlikely for people to use public transport. Even in an area with decent transport links there's still stuff that's the unaccessible on PT- too early, too late or stuff like petting farms which are outside the covered routes.

Let's be honest, why would you waste time, money and comfort.

Have you given any thought to a moped? Very economical & it'll get you there in no time.

@lisalocketlostherpocket
Why is it unrealistic? The government should encourage eco-friendly behaviour
I meant that the greenest option won't necessarily be the cheapest if left to market forces. Of course governments can intervene and alter this, but this will usually be done through implementing some kind of subsidy which will ultimately come from the public purse and therefore the railways will still indirectly cost the citizens of a country the same amount.

the railways will still indirectly cost the citizens of a country the same amount

Yes I get you. Of course our current government doesn't like the State having to pay for anything (by State I mean us, taxpayers) but as well as driving eco-friendly behaviour (no pun intended) it is also an economic benefit to the country to have a reliable public transport system.

Linking in with the cycle helmet thread it would also be sensible to have a network of off-road cycle paths. Think what you could achieve if the money being wasted on HS2 was spent on existing public transport and new cycle paths...as well as decent broadband for everyone and education for employers about flexible working so we didn't all have to travel at the same time, polluting the atmosphere.

Mind you, given that I live near a school and have to drive past it to get out of the road my house is on, I am not sure what I would do if cars were banned from the area of the school at drop off and pick up time as the Times has proposed. Although I suppose you could just get used to avoiding those two 30 minute windows. Or cycle/walk.

Why is it unrealistic? The government should encourage eco-friendly behaviour.

Absolutely.

The government encourages air travel by not taxing aircraft fuel.

So why don’t they do it with environmentally friendly ways of transportation??

Public transport isn’t available to me, so I never consider it.

The Government hugely subsidises car use through large infrastructure projects.

Trains are crazy. DS and I once went to Manchester and it was cheaper to buy the family railcard and then buy the
Tickets than to buy without! Overall, including the purchase of the card, I still
Saved about £15 and then had the card for the rest of the year which is useful as I can’t drive for medical reasons.