4.1% Rail Fare Increase - January 2014

[Arthur]

Hang on,

So Chief Executive Sir David Higgins earns £577,00 and a year, and he's just given him an annual bonus of 160% of that figure? And he's upping the rail cost by 4.1%?

I about ready to start a ****ing riot.

Surely it's the train companies putting the fares up and not network rail?

As I said earlier in the thread no one wants to pay more but it happens every year and we have this same pointless argument. You can spin it that it is going to cost you £X to get to work but it must be costing you all but 4.1% of that now. In pounds shillings and pence you aren't going to be much more worse off than you are already. For me it works out at about a tenner a month. Big whoop!

Oh and people earn more money than you....get over it!

 

[Barrel of Fun]

I am certainly no expert on railways and those of you with more knowledge than I have please feel free to correct me.
Am I right in thinking that in many other countries with cheaper rail fares,the Governments of those countries subsidise the fares ,but in this country the Government has decided that the cost of travelling on the railways should increasingly be borne by the passengers rather than the general taxpayer?
I heartily sympathise with those who have to pay these high ticket prices,but really don't think that 'the golden age of travel on B.R.' if it ever existed, would have been so golden today.Someone would have had to pay for the major investment that is required.The argument is should it be the general taxpayers or those that use the trains most?

Out of date by a year, but...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19914219

Every time you travelled a mile on a train last year, the government effectively gave the train company an average of 7.5 pence.

Or put it another way, assuming you are a taxpayer, you subsidised your own journey by an average of 7.5p per mile.

That's on top of buying the ticket of course.

In fact, just one train operating company wasn't subsidised overall last year, according to the latest figures from the Department for Transport, and that was First Capital Connect, which runs trains from London, Brighton, Bedford, Peterborough, Cambridge and King's Lynn.

At the other end of the scale, Northern Rail got nearly 35p back for every passenger mile travelled on their trains (this figures does not include Scotrail and Arriva Trains Wales that are subsidised separately by the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly).

Ministers handed over nearly £4bn last year. Successive governments have been working hard to get that figure down, mainly by charging more for tickets, hence the endless, above-inflation fare increases. But it is still more than 40% of the total cost of running the network.

 

[Biscuit]

Surely it's the train companies putting the fares up and not network rail?

As I said earlier in the thread no one wants to pay more but it happens every year and we have this same pointless argument. You can spin it that it is going to cost you £X to get to work but it must be costing you all but 4.1% of that now. In pounds shillings and pence you aren't going to be much more worse off than you are already. For me it works out at about a tenner a month. Big whoop!

Oh and people earn more money than you....get over it!

Nice try, but I don't feed trolls.

 

[BLOCK F]

Out of date by a year, but...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19914219

Not really out of date.It would appear to be exactly what is continuing to happen.

 

[Arthur]

Nice try, but I don't feed trolls.

Not really sure what that I means. I just had a cake which had bits of bacon in it which was a bit odd if I'm being honest.

If you think I was taking the piss, I wasn't. I'm really not going to let it worry me that I'm going to have to spend an extra tenner a month to get to work next year. If it's that much of a bind for you I suggest you do as others have proposed on this thread and find a job a bit closer to home. Pissing your pants on here isn't going to change a thing!

Anyhoo I'm off to drink some beer at the beer festival. I'll try and have a couple of pints less than normal in preparation for the hardship I'm going to suffer in 2014! ToodleLoo

 

[brightn'ove]

And dont forget the London to Brighton bike ride. When punters need to take their bikes back to London they ban bikes on trains. In fact anything that is remotely outside of the box results in a service or station being totally shut down.

Don't forget the weather.

Too hot? Close down services.
Raining? Close down services.
Cold? Close down services.
Snow? Close down services.
Average weather? Too busy 'preparing' for extreme conditions, short of staff, close down services.

 

[SeagullSongs]

It pisses me off at Brighton when I hear "Thank you for choosing Southern" as I get off the train, it's not like I had any choice coming from Southampton, is it?

They need multiple services for the same line to keep prices down a bit.

4.1% increase in service too? Please, we're due about a 50% increase.

 

[Brovion]

Bit of a strange point of view isn't it?

I presume you're on a fishing trip?

In case you're not, where on EARTH would you expect all of the commuters to park in London?!

Calm down son.

Yeah, all fair comments. I just get heartily sick of reading the rubbish that public transport is GOOD and private transport is BAD, and that only 'lazy and selfish' people drive cars. The football club have got all these transport problems precisely because they had to (by necessity) spout all that bollocks. Given the current and projected increases in our population the private car has a major and crucial role to play in any inter-city transport plan and only the wilfully ignorant stick their heads in the sand and say "But think of the polar bears!" And as I say, I speak as a non-car owner and public transport user. (Although in the interests of full disclosure my wife has a car so I do have access to one)

 

[BLOCK F]

Yeah, all fair comments. I just get heartily sick of reading the rubbish that public transport is GOOD and private transport is BAD, and that only 'lazy and selfish' people drive cars. The football club have got all these transport problems precisely because they had to (by necessity) spout all that bollocks. Given the current and projected increases in our population the private car has a major and crucial role to play in any inter-city transport plan and only the wilfully ignorant stick their heads in the sand and say "But think of the polar bears!" And as I say, I speak as a non-car owner and public transport user. (Although in the interests of full disclosure my wife has a car so I do have access to one)

Have to agree with all that.We live near Chichester,but rather than travel to Brighton with the car and all the hassle and cost of parking,we more often than not go west down to Bournemouth.Ok it is further ,but they don't hate cars and parking charges are not a rip-off!

 

[father_and_son]

Justified or taking the piss big time ?

Interestingly, if based on previous years, this will be AVERAGE increases.

I take a fairly obscure journey - Portslade to Horsham - every day and my season ticket price has dropped or remained the same for the last 4 january adjustments. I have always thought that this was down to their dodgy mathematics, so that the "average" journey only goes up by a few percentage points, but they count Portslade to Horsham as one journey and the far more popular Portslade to London as one journey. Therefore, my 20% price reduction over 4 years is more than compensated at Southern by the 1,000s paying 40% more to get to London.

 

[spring hall convert]

The UK has the highest rail fares, incredibly poor punctuality and over-crowding, the most complicated ticketing ever invented (most of which seems to be shrouded in secrecy and to identify the cheapest ticket you need to have the mind of Alan Turing), and when the going gets tough (or in fact just mildly difficult) they roll down the shutters and wave the white flag. And they want a further inflation busting increase. Of course it's a joke.

Add to that staff that appear to be bonused for being willfully obstructive & rude. They generally seem to think that we rail users are morons, when the reality of the matter is they have managed to create a system that is ridiculously convoluted.

Of all the privatisations, the rail appears to me to be the biggest botched job & that is quite a statement, given the competition.

 

[spring hall convert]

Absolutely f**g disgusting. About time this gutless f*(g government got involved here and started doing something for workers in this country.

Where would they get their donations from if they did that?

 

[spring hall convert]

This, although my wages haven't gone up that much (sadly).

After 12 years of the daily trek to & from London I have just taken the decision to leave my current job. There are several factors for the change (new owners, general restructure, first kid on the way etc) but one of the main reasons is travel costs. Having done the sums over & over again the proposed increase in Jan 2014 would make my situation too harsh to continue. It would be better for me to get a job closer to home, take a slight hit on the pay packet, with the net result being a few more pennies rattling around my pocket on a monthly basis. The other bonus......I get 3 to 4 hours of my life back every day.

Good luck - I very much doubt that you'll regret it.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

And dont forget the London to Brighton bike ride. When punters need to take their bikes back to London they ban bikes on trains. In fact anything that is remotely outside of the box results in a service or station being totally shut down.

Noone that actually takes part in the official bike ride has to do this as BHF provide trucks and coaches to get people back to London.

In terms of service I'm pretty well served by the trains. They've had a better 12 months than most (mostly caused by less people deciding to end their lives on the railway) and even managed to survive pretty well through the heavy snow. That's certainly true in comparison to how it used to be in the late days of BR and early days of privitisation. There was one winter when if I was home 20 mins late, that was a good day. Even up to 5-6 years ago we used to get 5-10% discounts because of poor punctuality. Staff are on the whole a lot better as well.

We certainly pay for it though!!! Government has said that the RPI+1 model won't last for ever. I can certainly see Labour going into the next election pledging to get rid of it and Tories might have to match them.

 

[Rookie]

It's a joke. Can't live in London because its too expensive but out side it costs you a fortune to get to work. How can they justify an increase when it's the same unreliable overcrowded service? I know they say its for improvements but will it come down when the work is done (yeah no need for an answer to that!). Nothing will happen though because what are the alternatives? Expect a protest or 2 come January but after the people will just go back to paying it

 

[tinycowboy]

My season ticket is just under £6k and the journey would not be possible to make by car in a reasonable time. I know it's my fault that I live where I do and that I've effectively put myself at the mercy of a monopoly (I use the high-speed train from Canterbury to London), but I don't like the conflict of interest (from my point of view) that the railway company has between keeping fares down and rewarding shareholders. Investment in the infrastructure is also clearly relevant here, but I'm not sure who pays for this - Network Rail presumably, who pass the cost onto passengers, or to the government? I've really no idea. Either way, if there was no pressure for the railway companies to make profits, then the money that is currently paid to shareholders could be used on the railways either as investment or in lower fares. Pension funds would just have to find some other companies to invest their money in - there's plenty of them around.

What do other countries do? French and German trains seem pretty good, but are they subsidised more than in the UK?

 

[willyfantastic]

i quit my job in london in december and so glad i did - long commutes and ever-increasing rail fares means that now in my new job i earn less but have more every month because i don't have to pay extortionate train fares. i also get back the 3 hours a day that i previously lost

hugs all round

 

[Monsieur Wabee]

Good luck - I very much doubt that you'll regret it.

Thanks very much, looking forward to a new chapter and saying goodbye to the crap bar on platform 17 at Victoria.

 

[Monsieur Wabee]

i quit my job in london in december and so glad i did - long commutes and ever-increasing rail fares means that now in my new job i earn less but have more every month because i don't have to pay extortionate train fares. i also get back the 3 hours a day that i previously lost

hugs all round

Good to hear, hoping I'll find the same scenario.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Noone that actually takes part in the official bike ride has to do this as BHF provide trucks and coaches to get people back to London.

And the reason they do this is purely because the rail companies decided to ban bikes a few years back.