The Lemon Fool

In the right circumstances, the train is well worthwhile.

Last week, I needed to go to a work reunion from darkest Devon to Newbury. It's about 170 miles each way, so by car, it's going to cost me 340 miles of petrol. Say 40 mpg at £1.42/litre or £6.45/gallon make it £55 in petrol alone. The return train fare from my nearest station (which has free parking) was £44 (with railcard discount). My return journey was delayed, and I got an email on my return saying I was due compensation for the delay, as a result of which I got £9.90 back, so all in all, I think the train was a good decision.

Of course, had I been travelling with my wife, the sums just don't work out.

Bminusrob wrote:
Of course, had I been travelling with my wife, the sums just don't work out.

and that's the rub. Bottom line is IF "we" want fewer cars on the roads, and better (=> more financially efficient to run) public transport, rail (and bus) fares need to make such journeys attractive.

Now of course, a car of five versus 5 x fares will always likely win - but now holistically "we" have a multi occupancy vehicle travelling instead...

didds wrote:

Bminusrob wrote:
Of course, had I been travelling with my wife, the sums just don't work out.

and that's the rub. Bottom line is IF "we" want fewer cars on the roads, and better (=> more financially efficient to run) public transport, rail (and bus) fares need to make such journeys attractive.

Now of course, a car of five versus 5 x fares will always likely win - but now holistically "we" have a multi occupancy vehicle travelling instead...

The fares are just one of the problems. What I omitted to mention is that my nearest railway station is more than 20 miles from my home, so I have a 40 minute drive just to get to the railway station to meed up with the hourly service (at a request stop!). Should I wish to go entirely by public transport, I have a 3/4 mile walk to the bus stop to catch one of the three buses a day. The bus takes over two hours to get to a railway station, so public transport is not really a viable choice.
Lest you think that I live in the back of beyond, let me say, I live in North Devon, near Holsworthy; a town of some 5000 people, surrounded by lots of villages, so probably 20000 people round about, and if you go just across the border into Cornwall, Bude is even further away from its nearest railway station.
Basically, public transport is fine in London, and that's where all the decisions are made. Outside London, the quality, price and availability drops away very very rapidly.

Bminusrob wrote:The fares are just one of the problems. What I omitted to mention is that my nearest railway station is more than 20 miles from my home, so I have a 40 minute drive just to get to the railway station to meed up with the hourly service (at a request stop!). Should I wish to go entirely by public transport, I have a 3/4 mile walk to the bus stop to catch one of the three buses a day. The bus takes over two hours to get to a railway station, so public transport is not really a viable choice.

It's not so long since I travelled through Holsworthy on a bus from Okehampton to Bude (and back later in the day). It's not nearly as bad as your account suggests, and it's less than half those two hours to either Okehampton or Barnstaple stations. In fact I'm rather enjoying that Okehampton line since it re-opened for a reasonable service to Exeter, though they still need to re-open the connection the other way to Tavistock and Plymouth for it to be really useful[1].

Which makes what is probably a wider point. Public transport in many rural areas leaves something to be desired, but is a lot better than people who don't (or rarely) use it think.

[1] I told them so in a consultation exactly a year before the storms that washed the main line through Dawlish out to sea. Little did I know that my comments in their consultation[2] would prove prophetic on such a short timescale!
[2]

... this becomes a project for the entire region, and potentially a long-term national-scale solution to the problems of the existing line where the coastal stretch around Dawlish/Teignmouth is surely not going to be maintainable. I would strongly support that project.

UncleEbenezer wrote:[
Which makes what is probably a wider point. Public transport in many rural areas leaves something to be desired, but is a lot better than people who don't (or rarely) use it think.

I think its a little more nuanced than that.

The bus service from our town centre to the nearest railhead (10 miles) has 11 "runs" a day in each direction.

But.

the earliest weekday arrival at said railhead is not until 0850, and the last bus back is 1730. So totally useless for any commuting purposes whatsoever.

Weekends its just six busses in each direction all day (earliest arrival at station 0856, last bus back 1710) - on Saturdays. There is no service at all on a Sunday.

So its better than some think IF its for basically daytime "office hour" leisure purposes and you dont do anything requiring a train on a Sunday. And we are a town of community population exceeding 30K (and lets not even get into how to get form an outlying village to the town and back ....)

didds

Choosing the train not only saves money but also helps reduce your carbon footprint, which is a win-win.

ZechariahKnox wrote:Choosing the train not only saves money but also helps reduce your carbon footprint, which is a win-win.

IF there's a train to catch in any meaningful manner.

See above.

didds wrote:

ZechariahKnox wrote:Choosing the train not only saves money but also helps reduce your carbon footprint, which is a win-win.

IF there's a train to catch in any meaningful manner.

See above.

I think you may have replied to a bot. Look at the profile.

bluedonkey wrote:

didds wrote:

IF there's a train to catch in any meaningful manner.

See above.

I think you may have replied to a bot. Look at the profile.

The proliferation of new posters posting generic pap (such as the post above by that nice Mr ZechariahKnox) is becoming noticeable both here and over on the canal forum.

I think it is beginning to lead to a suspicion that ALL new posters are AI LLM bots unless they start off by posting a considered personal opinion.

Accusations of new posters being a bot are all set to become commonplace, and quite probably correctly. This is a developing problem for forum admins and I think we need to think through a policy.

bluedonkey wrote:I think you may have replied to a bot. Look at the profile.

Good point/spot BD - thankyou.

reported to admins