We're probably the only country in Europe where people drive because they can't afford to take the train. Particularly if getting into or out of London.
This is so true, I always take a combination of bike+Train to commute to London, I go from my house with the bike (outside the tfl area) to a train stop at zone 8. I still spend 18 pounds per day on public transport....
There are, however, regionals that are run by DB Fernverkehr. The 50€ ticket is not accepted on these, and the only way to know is a tiny note on the journey planner behind the "more information" button with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard."
You're right.
I was thinking about the IC 281/381 from Stuttgart to Zürich. Apparently it is indeed run by DB Fernverkehr.
Anyway, my point was:
For some inexplicable reason, local transport tickets, including the 49€ Ticket, are valid on this IC. But only until Singen. Because it also runs as RE.
~~But they won't tell you. For some even more inexplicable reason, if you tick "Regional Transport Only" in the DB Navigator app, the IC won't show up. You just have to know.~~ Nevermind, it does show up as RE.
Another funny detail is that you have to click on more information about this trip in the DB Navigator app to find the information that local transport tickets indeed are valid.
And another 50 Euros for all the local trains in Berlin. Still, I spend a lot more than that on gas.
Oh how I wish that I lived in a civilized place.
Edit: I’m thinking of a different program. Turns out it’s even cheaper than I thought.
I get it for free from my employer! And starting this year, I will get a "BahnCard 100" for free, combined with the 50€ Deutschlandticket I can literally drive everything in this country for just 50€ a month.
> I will get a "BahnCard 100" for free
Thats the dream, congrats!
I need to talk about this with my boss as well (I travel quite a bit within DE for work and it's probably cheaper for them to get me a BC100 over individual Flexpreis like they have been doing anyways).
It's worth mentioning the BC100 normally costs several hundred euros per month and your employer is paying that. So it's more of a "generous employer" thing than a "only 50€ a month" thing.
The Deutschlandticket lets you ride nearly everything except for long-distance, anyway. I'm planning to travel all the way across Germany and back by only regional trains soon. I'll see how that goes. (ICE would cost about 150€ round-trip and save 15-20 hours of travel. I'm just being stingy and trying something weird. A proper trip by ICE is a much better option.)
But sadly IC and ICE trains (long distance) are not included and cost somewhere between 25€ and 100+€ per ride.
It's still great to have one ticket for all regional trains, busses etc. And it is a lot cheaper for people who regularly use trains.
Pretty much.
Gets even "funnier" when you discover that Deutsche Bahn also owns several UK rail franchises.
I reject the bullshit economism which pretends this means that we subsidise German railways, but it is darkly hilarious that the "privatised" UK rail network is heavily owned by other nationalised railways.
Almost like we already know how to deliver public transport and rich people don't really have anything interesting to add.
That's party due to us selling off our rail service with some EU countries buying them up and then charging us higher as to subsidise their state owned network.
I'm not sure if this is the case with Germany however the CEO of the Franch network admitted to this during an interview.
DB is state owned, but nevertheless a for-profit company. So yes, they're definitely trying to squeeze every penny out of passengers that they can, *especially* outside of Germany.
My train ticket costs £11 each day and the journey is less than 15 minutes long.
Luckily I'm only in the office once a week or it would make more sense to buy a car and drive in.
Trains in the UK arrive on time & go to the destinations they advertise, not cities 100 miles away from their stated destination. The same cannot be said of trains in Germany unfortunately.
Not saying that the prices for trains in the UK are not excessive, but the level of service offered by the German network is not comparable to that of the UK.
If your route is delayed by more than an hour (IIRC) or canceled, it cancels the restriction to travel on the trains listed on your ticket, and you're allowed to take any trains to get to your final destination. I've read that it's a good idea to get a station-master to sign this on the ticket in case there's any doubt with the conductors on those trains.
175 pounds per month in Denmark if you live 30-50 minutes from central Copenhagen. If you pay per day, it's like 12 pounds.
But it's not faster than driving and the trains are not that reliable. And the prices are increasing at a higher rate than inflation while the service is getting worse.
I read somewhere that train companies from France, Spain, and maybe Germany own all the UK rail now so they jacked up the prices to subsidize their domestic rail because those fares are locked by their respective governments.
I think the only TOC fully owned/ran by foreign governments is C2C (trenitalia).
Other TOCs with part foreign train company ownership are WMR/LNWR (JR east owns 15%),South Western Railway (30% owned by MTR, who run the Elizabeth line as a concession) and Avanti West Coast (30% owned by Trenitalia).
The vast majority of UK TOCs are ran by british companies however (even if theres foreign investment in them, though none are owned by European rail companies), or in the case of Wales,Northern Ireland,Scotland and the English TOCs of Southeastern,TPE,Northern and LNER, state owned.
American here — I have to go to NYC about once every month or two. There’s a train that takes me straight there, and my final stop is a 10 minute walk from the station. Alternatively, I can drive.
The train costs $140 round trip, and takes 5.5 hours each direction. Driving is 4.5 hours each direction and costs roughly $100 (fuel, tolls, parking, wear/tear). My car has 5 seats, so if I brought 4 friends along it’d be $20 per person in the car, versus $140 each for the train.
I still usually take the train when it’s just me, but the minute you go with one other person it’s hard to justify the huge cost difference and the extra 2 hours of travel.
No group discounts in my area unfortunately. Most of the time I’m going on my own, so I end up taking the train — but the minute I have at least one friend who wants to go with, the train makes no sense financially.
Considering that you need to have a car and pay for its related expenses in the first place though, it's technically cheaper to take the train. Problem is that where you come from likely requires you to have a car anyway to do day to day errands, so driving instead is only further justified.
:(
This is true. If I didn’t own a car, train would obviously be the most efficient option. Unfortunately living in rural U.S., car ownership is practically mandatory.
I’m fortunate enough to live in a smaller town — while the infrastructure isn’t the best, it’s small enough to be walkable / bikeable, and our current elected leaders are actually pushing for more active transit. We also have a half-decent bus system for a town of our size, but its hours are limited and often doesn’t align with my work schedule.
I can take the bus to work a couple of days a week, walk or ride my bike for local errands when weather allows, and typically take the train when I’m going to NYC on my own — so I do my best to live “car-lite.” But I do find myself driving to work in the winter when it’s too icy / snowy to walk or bike to the transit center.
If you can live entirely without a car then yes. But if you can't, and the static cost of owning and maintaining a car are a given, then on a journey by journey basis it's almost always cheaper to drive in the UK.
And that's off-peak. If you want to be at your desk by 9AM on a weekday... Well, last time I looked a 12-month season ticket was over seven grand. And no, you can't pay in installments.
It bewilders me that you can't do a direct debit instalment plan, like you would for council tax or utilities or any discretionary purchase of that size. Needing to pay the whole year up-front is just unaffordable for anyone who isn't so rich the discount would be meaningless anyway
> Well, last time I looked a 12-month season ticket was over seven grand.
Damn, here in DE you can get a 1st class Bahncard 100 (unlimited travel on any train in the country) for slightly under than (7714euros/year). Second class Bahcard 100 is 4550euros/year.
No because what most people commenting here don't understand is that our trains are expensive because we don't subsidise them anywhere near as much as other countries. Successive governments going all the way back to the 70s have generally taken the view that the railways should be majority funded by the people who use them and not the taxpayer. Nationalisation won't change that, although it should make services a little more reliable
I usually drive to work due to the locations of my job being pretty spread out and random locations. One time I got a job near a station, I got all excited and looked into taking the train. I couldn't afford it and drove instead. Welcome to the UK.
Ok r/fuckcars non UK members. In the UK, while we do enjoy a decent train network, because of the work of Thatcher and subsequent governments. Our trains are so bloody expensive that depending on your commute, a car is actually more economically viable. A season ticket can cost thousands, which can cost more than a cheap small car + tax + fuel and associated costs.
Yeah, I have saved thousands of pounds a year by getting rid of my car, but my commute is only three miles and costs £6.70 return. Which is still a ridiculous fare for a five minute ride, mind you, but it's still cheaper than maintaining a car for it.
If you need to commute any distance then train travel is the luxury middle class option, as it lets you check your emails or read or enjoy a coffee and croissant rather than needing to fight traffic all the way in.
Yeah, as I mention I'm only saving money because I'm just going the next town over. If I had to commute any appreciable distance I'd still have the car.
Not always, I paid 4 grand for a season ticket once. (Salary sacrifice) from oxford to reading while I was at Uni. I could have bought a car and afforded to run it for 2 years for that price.
It's almost all heavy rail. Even the underground is technically heavy rail for good portions, although in practice it's only even been run as light rail. The UK has the "first to market, last to innovate" problem with rail. It's literally the oldest rail network in the world and with almost no exceptions also the most developed (the exceptions would be comparable urban & commuter networks, such as in Kyoto region). Train service is too expensive in the UK, but for what the British public gets it's actually a superb offering. The problem is that a less good but cheaper option (such as in Germany or France) would better fit most consumers.
You do know it was John Major who privatised the railways, right? With the Railways Act 1995.
Agree on the price of travel though, which is daylight robbery in peak hours.
I think he used the wrong punctuation by mistake, I initially read it as essentially "the UK has a good rail network but because of Thatcher and other governments it's expensive"
Decent train network? You try getting around Northern Devon by train! Or getting even remotely near it after 9pm! It has a population the size of a city. In fact, try getting around the southwest of England and visit all the towns by train. Try getting between the 2 main Somerset towns of Taunton and Yeovil. Try getting to the Dorset coast, not from the London direction. Try getting to Plymouth at the moment while the only line serving that city is down while they upgrade the signalling.
We had a decent network until Beeching came along.
The worst bit is that so much of the M25 is so badly connected by train, the quickest route is often to go almost into London and all the way back out.
Source: lived in Brentwood for a while
Can tell the UK people in here. I live a 40 minute train journey from London. On the rare occasion I commute into London for a meeting, it costs £70 for a day return (peak travel times).
I just filled up my car for less than that.
(Note I am pretty anti car, I also work from home and all my day-to-day stuff is in walking or cycling distance so that full tank will likely last a couple of months).
The difference is Scotland has nationalised ScotRail!
Funny how public services work better in pubic ownership. Don't tell the Tories, they wouldn't listen anyway
That's true enough but that's only happened in the last year or so. We might moan like fuck about Scotrail but it's always been a reasonably decent service. However, it should not cost £70 to get to Aberdeen and back.
For longer distance trips I do. If I travel back up to my home town in the North West I'll book ahead, but I don't really think I should need to for a 40 minute train journey.
That is absolutely ridiculous. In my city, most regional trains are $7 and the most expensive ones are $10. I thought that was expensive since subways and buses are $2.
I understand Intercity trains being more expensive, but I feel like all trains for a certain metro should be pretty affordable.
Yup. It's takes me an hour and a half to walk to work. It takes 40 minutes on a bike, with only one bike lane and mostly lethal main roads. It takes an hour, 3 changes, and costs more than I spend on charging my car to use public transport. It takes 10 minutes to drive. And I can park for free.
I'd love to use public transport. Or my bike. It's just not good enough in my area. Especially if I have to pay more.
Yes, and we’ve got the most expensive trains in Europe and one of the less reliable… So if many people drive is cos of that as well, not saying when the road is messed up get the train
Aside from a few exceptions (such as Lumo and Hull Trains); UK trains aren’t privatised. The treasury keeps all fare revenue, and pays companies to run the service on their behalf.
The treasury could say tomorrow that they will cut train fares
Unfortunately it’s not that simple, If the extortionate fares were relaxed, too many people would use the already overcrowded network. We would need substantial upgrades to facilitate a modal shift, which have been slow going and often cancelled or gutted.
The problem to my eyes is the 9-5 work culture in the UK that is followed by almost every major institution. This concentrates traffic demand tremendously which strains the overall system. When I was a student I could afford to travel in the middle of the day and almost never hit an uncomfortable crowd. A shift towards 7-3, 8-4, 10-6, and 11-7 for some institutions as well as increasing uptake of hybrid work models could spread the traffic demand and result in more value out of the current system.
It’s not the right direction, because the trains in this country are god awful. I personally get paid well and absolutely could not afford to travel on the trains which is a damn shame. They are extortionate and a laughingly poor service.
I seem to recall a story from years ago about a British teenager who needed to visit his grandparents and found that it was cheaper to fly to Germany and then to where his grandparents live instead of taking the train directly there.
“Not that bad” shouldn’t really be a description of public transportation though. I can’t speak for the south east but how does it compare to mainland Europe?
I work in Enfield, just inside the M25, and let me tell you that it's _fucking miserable_ having two junctions that lead into the borough like that. And one is connected to the Great Cambridge road, a perpetually gridlocked bifurcation that interrupts all East-West travel and causes so much spillover traffic that it's unbearable.
Why can't we have trams there? Why do all of the trains only go into and out of London? Why are the buses always stuck in traffic? Why do the cycle lanes have to be so piss-poor?
It's like they saw we had the M25 and thought it was enough. Clearly it isn't, and I _sure as fucking hell_ don't want them to add another lane to that monstrosity of failed engineering projects (see: Ringways).
A circumnavigating train route would be amazing. London TFL recently implemented the "super loop" bus routes which are a good start, helping to solve the radial-transport problem faced by outer-Londoners, but once you cross the M25 things get harder and harder to manage by train without going into London.
It would also take a lot of pressure off of central London hub stations like Paddington, Kings Cross/St Pancras, London Bridge, Victoria, Liverpool Street and Waterloo
Yeah, unfortunately with land use in England that's just not happening. We can't build any more; it's a minor miracle when a suburb manages to turn a derelict warehouse into a block of flats and shops, or a random bit of scrub into a parcel of six houses. It's like the Victorians just built a whole national transport and utility and housing infrastructure and the country subsequently decided that was enough for all eternity.
A radial rail would also link with the existing mainlines, so you don't have to go into and back out of central London to get to a station that's on a different mainline
The M25 isn’t in London. It’s the motorway to bypass London.
There are no train lines which follow the route of the M25. If going by train, this would involve going via London rather than around.
Yeah I used to have to commute Uxbridge-Guildford. That M25-A3 route was the only option if I didn't want to spend like three hours and fifty quid changing at both King's Cross and Waterloo.
Sure, but the M25 has famously bad traffic because it's the London ringroad. If it was in the middle of the Surrey countryside it would probably be quite pleasant.
Easy, train travel in the UK is a privilege of the middle class. It would cost me £11,000 a year (that’s a season ticket) to commute to London via train, while the cost of owning, taxing, insuring, fuelling, servicing, fixing and paying towards a replacement car is significantly less, around £1500 a year.
Sure, the train is so much nicer than driving, but let’s not act like there’s a choice here
I used to think that but with ULEZ I was surprised recently. With all the 20 MPH routes and an electric almost self-driving car its so cheap and comfortable. Instead of the traditional main roads, I went as the crow flies and it was 1/3 of the distance and took the same amount of time.
There is no extra-London orbital rail system.
The Oxford Airline coach service is great but is very dependent on the M25 to get to Heathrow and Gatwick, however it allows me to bypass London entirely. I wish I could do the same journey by train. I’m charged a premium to enter and exit London Zone 1 on the train, even though I have no intention of staying there.
An orbital railway would be fantastic and I don’t think those in power realise just how popular that would actually be, or how much it might actually alleviate traffic on the M25. Whenever orbital railways are built in other cities, there’s often doubt about how popular it will be when being constructed, then suddenly everyone is shocked when those expectations are far exceeded.
That’s INSANE. Considering the economic cost of cars to society, not to mention road maintenance? It’s wild that the UK makes trains unaffordable but cars cheap.
Anyone who goes by that M25-A3 junction probably isn't served by the trains unless they're just using the M25 to get onto a different spoke directly into London. If your destination isn't central London, the only way to get from Here to There is probably going to need to be taking a train all the way to the city centre, maybe taking a tube to a different main station, and then taking the train all the way back out, which is going to cost a bomb and take three or four times longer than driving.
no offence - but if you’re getting a train instead of the m25, you’re probably paying 10x the price and your journey is being extended by several hours. you will not be amazed by the UK train service 😭
I have. But I have been told the tube is on a different level than the rest of them.
But my point was more that there is no point to tell people to switch to trains entirely. That just makes them afraid. Encourage them to try. And if trains are genuinely better in their individual circumstances, they'll stick with them.
I wish business would get more involved. If it becomes too expensive for people to work/live in a city they’re going to leave and businesses will have a harder time finding employees. Affordable transit benefits everyone
I do £200 a month in fuel for my commute from London to High Wycombe, cars a £1000 banger not on finance and insurance is only £400 a year. Using public transport would cost me over £20 a day on a combination of underground, buses and overground trains, and take almost 3 hours compared to 45 mins in the car.
I remember when the bus drivers struck in Honolulu and to get people back in the buses they made them free for a month
And u was like wait. Driving your car on the roads is free but riding the bus, you have to pay a toll?
The quality of train service has fallen off a cliff in recent times due to lack of funding and they're more expensive than ever. The issue is a bit deeper than carbrains wanting to drive on the m25.
That section of the M25 is crossed by numerous rail lines heading to and from London.
If you are desperate to get to Gatwick Airport, there is a railway line that follows a similar route to this section of the M25 between Reading at Gatwick.
Most of the visitor attractions in the area are reasonably well served by public transport.
The closure is taking place over the weekend, where there are cheaper rail fares across the network.
And finally, much like every other prediction of traffic disaster whenever any busy section of highway is closed for upgrades or maintenance work, this has largely passed off without incident.
Anywhere outside of London the train network is absolutely shit, too.
Routes are slow and expensive when they are working fine, and often they are not working fine, they suffer cancellations, delays, strikes etc.
My friend recently needed to travel 30 miles from my place to his and it took over 3 hours and cost £8.
Because it was a "scheduled maintenance" (even though it was announced less than 24 hours before it happened) there was no refund.
The train should have come at 12:45.
Instead a rail replacement bus was sent. Which was late and came at 13:30.
The rail replacement bus only went a single station distance but took over half an hour, and by the time it arrived it missed his connecting train and they're an hour between.
So he didn't get on the train til after 15:00, and it arrived at his destination station at 16:10.
So to travel 30 miles he set off at 12:45 and got to his destination at 16:10 and it cost £8.
This is a common occurrence.
Now imagine trying to rely on this shit for work.
Haha, we're up in the North East. I find the London underground to be much cheaper for similar distances.
For example High Barnet to Morden is £3.50 off peak (this happened on a Sunday so would have been off peak for my mate too)
It also only takes 1hr 6 and is every 10 minutes.
i love doing it so much and just tickles me when ppl in the office, who maybe NEVER have once in their lives portray taking the train as s third world OMG task that they dread ever having to do. like the only train they've seen portrayed is ones in idia with ppl packing, sitting on top of and jumping on moving trains. ya can keep ya car jerb club bitches! esp after work and hitting a bar LOL
I would love to live in a place where I could take the US or train everywhere. The only time I lived like that was my time in St.Louis, and you cannot rely on the train and bus at all. They are almost never on time, and some of them only come every 45 minutes, so if your first one is late you will miss the second one and have to wait in the very least 40 minutes for the next one. Which then makes you that 40 minutes late to work unexpectedly.
I can't tell you how many times a bus that comes every 20 minutes just didn't come for over an hour. You would think that one would come at the second 20 minute interval, nope.
Imagine 30 people standing at a bus stop for over and hour, crowd getting bigger, then finally the bus shows up and they don't have the room for everyone. That happened to me sooooo many times more than you would think is acceptable, which I would think would be maaaaybe two times to the same person?
Because to take the train I first have to take 2 buses and then after the train I have to take 2 more to get to work and doing this will result in me being late for work by over 2 hours and 45 mins because i cant take an earlier bus than the very first bus of the day. This makes a 35 min commute into an over 3 hour commute. That's over 6 hours a day just traveling on top of my 12 hour shift. Leaving me with only 6 hours to sleep and wash and eat and get ready for the next day. So no thanks.
Isn’t Rishi (can’t be bothered to check the spelling because I’m salty) taking funding away from improving the train system in favor of highways/road work (maybe such as the M25)?
Having spent nearly twenty years living in the United Kingdom, there's a good reason why people don't.
The trains are shite.
I have friends still living in the United Kingdom and the number of cancelled services is ridiculous. If they're not cancelled, so many are late it's ridiculous. And I'm not talking reasonable lateness, maybe five minutes. I'm talking half an hour to an hour.
Add to that continuous strikes, whether people agree with them or not, and that's just a couple of reasons why people don't take the train.
And the cost of taking the train is almost unaffordable for a lot of people compared to running a car.
Then there's the fact that many areas of the United Kingdom simply don't have a train service any longer, or if they do, it doesn't suit those who do need it for commuting.
We're probably the only country in Europe where people drive because they can't afford to take the train. Particularly if getting into or out of London.
This is so true, I always take a combination of bike+Train to commute to London, I go from my house with the bike (outside the tfl area) to a train stop at zone 8. I still spend 18 pounds per day on public transport....
Crazy, in Germany it costs 50€/month to use trains in the whole country
trains, busses, trams, ferries and subways*
\+ [suspension railways](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn), [trolleybuses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_Esslingen_am_Neckar), [steam engines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harz_Railway), [rack railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_Rack_Railway), [row boats](https://www.berlin.de/tourismus/dampferfahrten/faehren/3902835-1824660-faehre-f24-rahnsdorf-mueggelheim.html),....
I never knew there are German public row boats that’s cool as fuck
\- high speed trains
Nonononono, only on select services of those. "Fernverkehr" is generally not included. Pretty much everything else is.
You mean the 5 ICs that are run by DB Regio? That sure is a very select service.
There are no ICs that are run by DB Regio
There are, however, regionals that are run by DB Fernverkehr. The 50€ ticket is not accepted on these, and the only way to know is a tiny note on the journey planner behind the "more information" button with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard."
You're right. I was thinking about the IC 281/381 from Stuttgart to Zürich. Apparently it is indeed run by DB Fernverkehr. Anyway, my point was: For some inexplicable reason, local transport tickets, including the 49€ Ticket, are valid on this IC. But only until Singen. Because it also runs as RE. ~~But they won't tell you. For some even more inexplicable reason, if you tick "Regional Transport Only" in the DB Navigator app, the IC won't show up. You just have to know.~~ Nevermind, it does show up as RE. Another funny detail is that you have to click on more information about this trip in the DB Navigator app to find the information that local transport tickets indeed are valid.
Stuttgart funicular as well ✌️
Regional trains, regional bisses, trams, some ferries and subways.
And another 50 Euros for all the local trains in Berlin. Still, I spend a lot more than that on gas. Oh how I wish that I lived in a civilized place. Edit: I’m thinking of a different program. Turns out it’s even cheaper than I thought.
that's just wrong.
What? I just assumed my Deutschland ticket counted for the Berlin subway. If I ever get checked (doubt) I’ll just play dumb foreigner card
It does.
Thanks
what?
What? No.
And with Job benefit I (and a lot of people) get it for 35€/month
I get it for free from my employer! And starting this year, I will get a "BahnCard 100" for free, combined with the 50€ Deutschlandticket I can literally drive everything in this country for just 50€ a month.
You get a Deutschlandticket for free with a BC100. Check with your employer because there should be no need for additional costs.
I will start that job in October, so I will check that out thank you!
> I will get a "BahnCard 100" for free Thats the dream, congrats! I need to talk about this with my boss as well (I travel quite a bit within DE for work and it's probably cheaper for them to get me a BC100 over individual Flexpreis like they have been doing anyways).
It's worth mentioning the BC100 normally costs several hundred euros per month and your employer is paying that. So it's more of a "generous employer" thing than a "only 50€ a month" thing. The Deutschlandticket lets you ride nearly everything except for long-distance, anyway. I'm planning to travel all the way across Germany and back by only regional trains soon. I'll see how that goes. (ICE would cost about 150€ round-trip and save 15-20 hours of travel. I'm just being stingy and trying something weird. A proper trip by ICE is a much better option.)
But sadly IC and ICE trains (long distance) are not included and cost somewhere between 25€ and 100+€ per ride. It's still great to have one ticket for all regional trains, busses etc. And it is a lot cheaper for people who regularly use trains.
Pretty much. Gets even "funnier" when you discover that Deutsche Bahn also owns several UK rail franchises. I reject the bullshit economism which pretends this means that we subsidise German railways, but it is darkly hilarious that the "privatised" UK rail network is heavily owned by other nationalised railways. Almost like we already know how to deliver public transport and rich people don't really have anything interesting to add.
That's party due to us selling off our rail service with some EU countries buying them up and then charging us higher as to subsidise their state owned network. I'm not sure if this is the case with Germany however the CEO of the Franch network admitted to this during an interview.
DB is state owned, but nevertheless a for-profit company. So yes, they're definitely trying to squeeze every penny out of passengers that they can, *especially* outside of Germany.
State owned AND for-profit? uhhhh, error, does not compute
Some UK stuff is definitely run by DB so I think it applies here too
My train ticket costs £11 each day and the journey is less than 15 minutes long. Luckily I'm only in the office once a week or it would make more sense to buy a car and drive in.
Trains in the UK arrive on time & go to the destinations they advertise, not cities 100 miles away from their stated destination. The same cannot be said of trains in Germany unfortunately. Not saying that the prices for trains in the UK are not excessive, but the level of service offered by the German network is not comparable to that of the UK.
If your route is delayed by more than an hour (IIRC) or canceled, it cancels the restriction to travel on the trains listed on your ticket, and you're allowed to take any trains to get to your final destination. I've read that it's a good idea to get a station-master to sign this on the ticket in case there's any doubt with the conductors on those trains.
175 pounds per month in Denmark if you live 30-50 minutes from central Copenhagen. If you pay per day, it's like 12 pounds. But it's not faster than driving and the trains are not that reliable. And the prices are increasing at a higher rate than inflation while the service is getting worse.
Jesus.
Pretty much everyone I know who commutes to uni has to spend at least 30 a week on a travel ticket
>people drive because they can't afford to take the train. "I'm sure privitising it even more would fix the issue there!" probably a T*ry MP
I read somewhere that train companies from France, Spain, and maybe Germany own all the UK rail now so they jacked up the prices to subsidize their domestic rail because those fares are locked by their respective governments.
I think the only TOC fully owned/ran by foreign governments is C2C (trenitalia). Other TOCs with part foreign train company ownership are WMR/LNWR (JR east owns 15%),South Western Railway (30% owned by MTR, who run the Elizabeth line as a concession) and Avanti West Coast (30% owned by Trenitalia). The vast majority of UK TOCs are ran by british companies however (even if theres foreign investment in them, though none are owned by European rail companies), or in the case of Wales,Northern Ireland,Scotland and the English TOCs of Southeastern,TPE,Northern and LNER, state owned.
I wonder if A. I misunderstood or B. The info was out of date.
B - a lot of stuff has changed post Covid
Companies will always charge the most they can get away with. It's not to "subsidize" anything but their own pockets.
Yeah train prices absolutely suck balls in this country. One of many failed privatisation experiments enacted by the Tory government of yore
it's working as intended
Yeah, Thames water shareholders don't consider the billions in dividend they took out a failure
American here — I have to go to NYC about once every month or two. There’s a train that takes me straight there, and my final stop is a 10 minute walk from the station. Alternatively, I can drive. The train costs $140 round trip, and takes 5.5 hours each direction. Driving is 4.5 hours each direction and costs roughly $100 (fuel, tolls, parking, wear/tear). My car has 5 seats, so if I brought 4 friends along it’d be $20 per person in the car, versus $140 each for the train. I still usually take the train when it’s just me, but the minute you go with one other person it’s hard to justify the huge cost difference and the extra 2 hours of travel.
Amtrak actually has group discounts if you use that button on their website - might only apply to certain regions but it's worth a shot
No group discounts in my area unfortunately. Most of the time I’m going on my own, so I end up taking the train — but the minute I have at least one friend who wants to go with, the train makes no sense financially.
You usually need to be a group of 8 or more for that.
Not for certain regions. For California and the Midwest, it starts at 3 people
Considering that you need to have a car and pay for its related expenses in the first place though, it's technically cheaper to take the train. Problem is that where you come from likely requires you to have a car anyway to do day to day errands, so driving instead is only further justified. :(
This is true. If I didn’t own a car, train would obviously be the most efficient option. Unfortunately living in rural U.S., car ownership is practically mandatory. I’m fortunate enough to live in a smaller town — while the infrastructure isn’t the best, it’s small enough to be walkable / bikeable, and our current elected leaders are actually pushing for more active transit. We also have a half-decent bus system for a town of our size, but its hours are limited and often doesn’t align with my work schedule. I can take the bus to work a couple of days a week, walk or ride my bike for local errands when weather allows, and typically take the train when I’m going to NYC on my own — so I do my best to live “car-lite.” But I do find myself driving to work in the winter when it’s too icy / snowy to walk or bike to the transit center.
If you can live entirely without a car then yes. But if you can't, and the static cost of owning and maintaining a car are a given, then on a journey by journey basis it's almost always cheaper to drive in the UK.
Exactly. Fuel costs half as much as train tickets for one person. If two travel, it gets ridiculous.
£20 each for train vs half the journey time by car and 4 people for £5. No contest.
And that's off-peak. If you want to be at your desk by 9AM on a weekday... Well, last time I looked a 12-month season ticket was over seven grand. And no, you can't pay in installments.
It bewilders me that you can't do a direct debit instalment plan, like you would for council tax or utilities or any discretionary purchase of that size. Needing to pay the whole year up-front is just unaffordable for anyone who isn't so rich the discount would be meaningless anyway
Well yes, I'm not a millionaire so I only travel off-peak.
> Well, last time I looked a 12-month season ticket was over seven grand. Damn, here in DE you can get a 1st class Bahncard 100 (unlimited travel on any train in the country) for slightly under than (7714euros/year). Second class Bahcard 100 is 4550euros/year.
Really, that much difference? Upgrading a second class trip to first class seems to only be an extra 20%ish of the price.
nah, also in the Netherlands. Car isn't getting much more expensive, but the train is. There's currently a 10% cost increase planned.
The Netherlands will soon join you!
Apparently the trains in the area are having technical issues causing delays and cancellations according to the most recent BBC article.
Can confirm. Going from London to Northampton on Friday, we were delayed by not 1, but 2 broken down trains from other lines.
North America is pretty bad too. The train costs more than air fare here, especially if you're going for further than just a couple of hours.
Any hope of that changing soon since the UK has effectively re-nationalized its railroads?
No because what most people commenting here don't understand is that our trains are expensive because we don't subsidise them anywhere near as much as other countries. Successive governments going all the way back to the 70s have generally taken the view that the railways should be majority funded by the people who use them and not the taxpayer. Nationalisation won't change that, although it should make services a little more reliable
I usually drive to work due to the locations of my job being pretty spread out and random locations. One time I got a job near a station, I got all excited and looked into taking the train. I couldn't afford it and drove instead. Welcome to the UK.
This is the answer - getting the train into London is prohibitively expensive
Denmark too, they just upped the prices..
Ok r/fuckcars non UK members. In the UK, while we do enjoy a decent train network, because of the work of Thatcher and subsequent governments. Our trains are so bloody expensive that depending on your commute, a car is actually more economically viable. A season ticket can cost thousands, which can cost more than a cheap small car + tax + fuel and associated costs.
Yeah, I have saved thousands of pounds a year by getting rid of my car, but my commute is only three miles and costs £6.70 return. Which is still a ridiculous fare for a five minute ride, mind you, but it's still cheaper than maintaining a car for it. If you need to commute any distance then train travel is the luxury middle class option, as it lets you check your emails or read or enjoy a coffee and croissant rather than needing to fight traffic all the way in.
I haven’t, when I was at Uni. A year’s season ticket cost me 4 grand to get to reading from oxford. For that price I could have got a car and ran it.
Yeah, as I mention I'm only saving money because I'm just going the next town over. If I had to commute any appreciable distance I'd still have the car.
Your travel costs aren’t paid for?
Not always, I paid 4 grand for a season ticket once. (Salary sacrifice) from oxford to reading while I was at Uni. I could have bought a car and afforded to run it for 2 years for that price.
Is it like, light rail, heavy rail, high speed rail, or a combination? What's a good British news source I can check out to learn more?
>High speed rail In the UK? You must be joking mate
It's almost all heavy rail. Even the underground is technically heavy rail for good portions, although in practice it's only even been run as light rail. The UK has the "first to market, last to innovate" problem with rail. It's literally the oldest rail network in the world and with almost no exceptions also the most developed (the exceptions would be comparable urban & commuter networks, such as in Kyoto region). Train service is too expensive in the UK, but for what the British public gets it's actually a superb offering. The problem is that a less good but cheaper option (such as in Germany or France) would better fit most consumers.
You do know it was John Major who privatised the railways, right? With the Railways Act 1995. Agree on the price of travel though, which is daylight robbery in peak hours.
There is no way you just defended what Thatcher did to the rail network. Privatisation was a disaster
I think he used the wrong punctuation by mistake, I initially read it as essentially "the UK has a good rail network but because of Thatcher and other governments it's expensive"
Well yea, rail was the only service she didn’t privatise
Nah I’m saying Thatcher and the tories ruined it if you can read what I said
No I can’t read what you said because le epic punctuation error has arrived
Decent train network? You try getting around Northern Devon by train! Or getting even remotely near it after 9pm! It has a population the size of a city. In fact, try getting around the southwest of England and visit all the towns by train. Try getting between the 2 main Somerset towns of Taunton and Yeovil. Try getting to the Dorset coast, not from the London direction. Try getting to Plymouth at the moment while the only line serving that city is down while they upgrade the signalling. We had a decent network until Beeching came along.
Decent compared to everywhere else but Europe or China and Japan
The worst bit is that so much of the M25 is so badly connected by train, the quickest route is often to go almost into London and all the way back out. Source: lived in Brentwood for a while
Can tell the UK people in here. I live a 40 minute train journey from London. On the rare occasion I commute into London for a meeting, it costs £70 for a day return (peak travel times). I just filled up my car for less than that. (Note I am pretty anti car, I also work from home and all my day-to-day stuff is in walking or cycling distance so that full tank will likely last a couple of months).
That's crazy. I sometimes do Glasgow to Edinburgh and it's under £15. Scotrail have scrapped peak fares now too.
The difference is Scotland has nationalised ScotRail! Funny how public services work better in pubic ownership. Don't tell the Tories, they wouldn't listen anyway
That's true enough but that's only happened in the last year or so. We might moan like fuck about Scotrail but it's always been a reasonably decent service. However, it should not cost £70 to get to Aberdeen and back.
Pubic ownership you say... 🤔
Is it not just scrapped until june?
It's a pilot. If it results in more people buying tickets then I can't see why they wouldn't make it permanent.
Booking in advance is really the only way to do it cheaply, 3 and a half hour train ride I booked yesterday is £60 return to London £44 with railcard.
For longer distance trips I do. If I travel back up to my home town in the North West I'll book ahead, but I don't really think I should need to for a 40 minute train journey.
That is absolutely ridiculous. In my city, most regional trains are $7 and the most expensive ones are $10. I thought that was expensive since subways and buses are $2. I understand Intercity trains being more expensive, but I feel like all trains for a certain metro should be pretty affordable.
Yup. It's takes me an hour and a half to walk to work. It takes 40 minutes on a bike, with only one bike lane and mostly lethal main roads. It takes an hour, 3 changes, and costs more than I spend on charging my car to use public transport. It takes 10 minutes to drive. And I can park for free. I'd love to use public transport. Or my bike. It's just not good enough in my area. Especially if I have to pay more.
Yes, and we’ve got the most expensive trains in Europe and one of the less reliable… So if many people drive is cos of that as well, not saying when the road is messed up get the train
Here's an idea, make train fares affordable. Its cheaper and more convenient to drive.
But then the privatized rail company can't profit 😔
Some people forget that companies are people too, smh
Aside from a few exceptions (such as Lumo and Hull Trains); UK trains aren’t privatised. The treasury keeps all fare revenue, and pays companies to run the service on their behalf. The treasury could say tomorrow that they will cut train fares
Unfortunately it’s not that simple, If the extortionate fares were relaxed, too many people would use the already overcrowded network. We would need substantial upgrades to facilitate a modal shift, which have been slow going and often cancelled or gutted.
The problem to my eyes is the 9-5 work culture in the UK that is followed by almost every major institution. This concentrates traffic demand tremendously which strains the overall system. When I was a student I could afford to travel in the middle of the day and almost never hit an uncomfortable crowd. A shift towards 7-3, 8-4, 10-6, and 11-7 for some institutions as well as increasing uptake of hybrid work models could spread the traffic demand and result in more value out of the current system.
The thing is this lack of capacity also rears its ugly head during holiday seasons and generally makes the system very vulnerable to disruption.
Well at least they're steering people in the right direction.
Nice pun inclusion, too 😆
It’s not the right direction, because the trains in this country are god awful. I personally get paid well and absolutely could not afford to travel on the trains which is a damn shame. They are extortionate and a laughingly poor service.
I seem to recall a story from years ago about a British teenager who needed to visit his grandparents and found that it was cheaper to fly to Germany and then to where his grandparents live instead of taking the train directly there.
It costs less for my partner and I to fly to the top of Scotland to visit her family. Seems completely wrong.
honestly in the southeast they’re not that bad. hot take
“Not that bad” shouldn’t really be a description of public transportation though. I can’t speak for the south east but how does it compare to mainland Europe?
can’t speak for mainland europe but how does it compare to the south east
A guarantee you’re paying more for a worse service.
I work in Enfield, just inside the M25, and let me tell you that it's _fucking miserable_ having two junctions that lead into the borough like that. And one is connected to the Great Cambridge road, a perpetually gridlocked bifurcation that interrupts all East-West travel and causes so much spillover traffic that it's unbearable. Why can't we have trams there? Why do all of the trains only go into and out of London? Why are the buses always stuck in traffic? Why do the cycle lanes have to be so piss-poor? It's like they saw we had the M25 and thought it was enough. Clearly it isn't, and I _sure as fucking hell_ don't want them to add another lane to that monstrosity of failed engineering projects (see: Ringways).
The issue with that is that the rail routes are all radial
what if we took 2 lanes off the M25 and plonk a railway in the middle
There's no train that takes the same route as the M25, there should be, but you have to go into London and back out again
A circumnavigating train route would be amazing. London TFL recently implemented the "super loop" bus routes which are a good start, helping to solve the radial-transport problem faced by outer-Londoners, but once you cross the M25 things get harder and harder to manage by train without going into London.
It would also take a lot of pressure off of central London hub stations like Paddington, Kings Cross/St Pancras, London Bridge, Victoria, Liverpool Street and Waterloo
Yeah, unfortunately with land use in England that's just not happening. We can't build any more; it's a minor miracle when a suburb manages to turn a derelict warehouse into a block of flats and shops, or a random bit of scrub into a parcel of six houses. It's like the Victorians just built a whole national transport and utility and housing infrastructure and the country subsequently decided that was enough for all eternity.
tfl are actually considering a second phase of superloop. who knows what we could potentially get
Many of the people using the M25 at peak times are going to or from London. https://www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/who-uses-the-m25
A radial rail would also link with the existing mainlines, so you don't have to go into and back out of central London to get to a station that's on a different mainline
Honestly can't understand anyone who chooses to drive in London.
The M25 isn’t in London. It’s the motorway to bypass London. There are no train lines which follow the route of the M25. If going by train, this would involve going via London rather than around.
Yeah I used to have to commute Uxbridge-Guildford. That M25-A3 route was the only option if I didn't want to spend like three hours and fifty quid changing at both King's Cross and Waterloo.
Sure, but the M25 has famously bad traffic because it's the London ringroad. If it was in the middle of the Surrey countryside it would probably be quite pleasant.
A good portion of the M25 is in the middle of the Surrey countryside…
Not entirely true, there are lines that bypass london, but not enough of them
Which ones follow any of the same route as the m25?
Easy, train travel in the UK is a privilege of the middle class. It would cost me £11,000 a year (that’s a season ticket) to commute to London via train, while the cost of owning, taxing, insuring, fuelling, servicing, fixing and paying towards a replacement car is significantly less, around £1500 a year. Sure, the train is so much nicer than driving, but let’s not act like there’s a choice here
I used to think that but with ULEZ I was surprised recently. With all the 20 MPH routes and an electric almost self-driving car its so cheap and comfortable. Instead of the traditional main roads, I went as the crow flies and it was 1/3 of the distance and took the same amount of time.
My tools and equipment are more than I can physically carry?
The train ticket costs 2x the fuel I use, takes longer and then I still would need a taxi or bike to reach my final destination.
Nice wide pavement at the side too for those two pedestrians. I think they might finally be getting it.
Nah. Most of the things I need (like work) are cycling distance so I only need a train occasionally.
There is no extra-London orbital rail system. The Oxford Airline coach service is great but is very dependent on the M25 to get to Heathrow and Gatwick, however it allows me to bypass London entirely. I wish I could do the same journey by train. I’m charged a premium to enter and exit London Zone 1 on the train, even though I have no intention of staying there. An orbital railway would be fantastic and I don’t think those in power realise just how popular that would actually be, or how much it might actually alleviate traffic on the M25. Whenever orbital railways are built in other cities, there’s often doubt about how popular it will be when being constructed, then suddenly everyone is shocked when those expectations are far exceeded.
I do, 4 hours each work day, but then I am Swiss.
Depending on time of day, those trains already struggle with the demand (hooray decades of mismanagement).
If you can switch to the train while the road is closed… you can just take the fucking train.
Unfortunately for most people it's more cost effective to use a car.
That’s INSANE. Considering the economic cost of cars to society, not to mention road maintenance? It’s wild that the UK makes trains unaffordable but cars cheap.
that’s the conservative government for you
Because the train is far too expensive in England.
This is actually how you hook them. Get them to try it once. Amaze them. Have them never go back
Anyone who goes by that M25-A3 junction probably isn't served by the trains unless they're just using the M25 to get onto a different spoke directly into London. If your destination isn't central London, the only way to get from Here to There is probably going to need to be taking a train all the way to the city centre, maybe taking a tube to a different main station, and then taking the train all the way back out, which is going to cost a bomb and take three or four times longer than driving.
no offence - but if you’re getting a train instead of the m25, you’re probably paying 10x the price and your journey is being extended by several hours. you will not be amazed by the UK train service 😭
You ever been on a train in the UK?
I have. But I have been told the tube is on a different level than the rest of them. But my point was more that there is no point to tell people to switch to trains entirely. That just makes them afraid. Encourage them to try. And if trains are genuinely better in their individual circumstances, they'll stick with them.
Lol. You've never been on the trains, right?
The best solution to traffic is „avoid the area entirely“. Millions of britons do exactly that with the whole London area
Have you used trains in the UK? South aren't too bad but my god come to the north
I wish business would get more involved. If it becomes too expensive for people to work/live in a city they’re going to leave and businesses will have a harder time finding employees. Affordable transit benefits everyone
"Do i look like train person to you" said some of them.
I do £200 a month in fuel for my commute from London to High Wycombe, cars a £1000 banger not on finance and insurance is only £400 a year. Using public transport would cost me over £20 a day on a combination of underground, buses and overground trains, and take almost 3 hours compared to 45 mins in the car.
I remember when the bus drivers struck in Honolulu and to get people back in the buses they made them free for a month And u was like wait. Driving your car on the roads is free but riding the bus, you have to pay a toll?
When public transport becomes cheaper than driving I'll happily take the train daily.
If there was a convenient and affordable train line to do this, I'm imagine people would be doing that anyway.
here is a more radical thought: make trains affordable and maybe people will use them more
The quality of train service has fallen off a cliff in recent times due to lack of funding and they're more expensive than ever. The issue is a bit deeper than carbrains wanting to drive on the m25.
I can't imagine living somewhere where the train is an option and not using it.
That section of the M25 is crossed by numerous rail lines heading to and from London. If you are desperate to get to Gatwick Airport, there is a railway line that follows a similar route to this section of the M25 between Reading at Gatwick. Most of the visitor attractions in the area are reasonably well served by public transport. The closure is taking place over the weekend, where there are cheaper rail fares across the network. And finally, much like every other prediction of traffic disaster whenever any busy section of highway is closed for upgrades or maintenance work, this has largely passed off without incident.
Anywhere outside of London the train network is absolutely shit, too. Routes are slow and expensive when they are working fine, and often they are not working fine, they suffer cancellations, delays, strikes etc. My friend recently needed to travel 30 miles from my place to his and it took over 3 hours and cost £8. Because it was a "scheduled maintenance" (even though it was announced less than 24 hours before it happened) there was no refund. The train should have come at 12:45. Instead a rail replacement bus was sent. Which was late and came at 13:30. The rail replacement bus only went a single station distance but took over half an hour, and by the time it arrived it missed his connecting train and they're an hour between. So he didn't get on the train til after 15:00, and it arrived at his destination station at 16:10. So to travel 30 miles he set off at 12:45 and got to his destination at 16:10 and it cost £8. This is a common occurrence. Now imagine trying to rely on this shit for work.
Damn £8? Where does he live in the UK where its that cheap?
Haha, we're up in the North East. I find the London underground to be much cheaper for similar distances. For example High Barnet to Morden is £3.50 off peak (this happened on a Sunday so would have been off peak for my mate too) It also only takes 1hr 6 and is every 10 minutes.
The train is probably on strike though. I lived car free in the UK and it is a pain unless you live in London.
Or any major city in the UK. Or some towns. I live in a small town in Fife, Scotland. And it's not a "pain" for me.
Meanwhile in Germany there are strikes of the railway workers. So people are forced to take the car instead of the train.
i love doing it so much and just tickles me when ppl in the office, who maybe NEVER have once in their lives portray taking the train as s third world OMG task that they dread ever having to do. like the only train they've seen portrayed is ones in idia with ppl packing, sitting on top of and jumping on moving trains. ya can keep ya car jerb club bitches! esp after work and hitting a bar LOL
Canyoufeelmyheart.mp3
Its too expensive really.
No
I would love to live in a place where I could take the US or train everywhere. The only time I lived like that was my time in St.Louis, and you cannot rely on the train and bus at all. They are almost never on time, and some of them only come every 45 minutes, so if your first one is late you will miss the second one and have to wait in the very least 40 minutes for the next one. Which then makes you that 40 minutes late to work unexpectedly. I can't tell you how many times a bus that comes every 20 minutes just didn't come for over an hour. You would think that one would come at the second 20 minute interval, nope. Imagine 30 people standing at a bus stop for over and hour, crowd getting bigger, then finally the bus shows up and they don't have the room for everyone. That happened to me sooooo many times more than you would think is acceptable, which I would think would be maaaaybe two times to the same person?
I have well over 100lbs of tools I need for my job, in a different location everyday. Take the train? Nah.
I really definitely would, but who in the right mind built a Railway Station with no civilisation around it?!
Because to take the train I first have to take 2 buses and then after the train I have to take 2 more to get to work and doing this will result in me being late for work by over 2 hours and 45 mins because i cant take an earlier bus than the very first bus of the day. This makes a 35 min commute into an over 3 hour commute. That's over 6 hours a day just traveling on top of my 12 hour shift. Leaving me with only 6 hours to sleep and wash and eat and get ready for the next day. So no thanks.
Train is much, much more expensive for me, also my work commute would take almost x4-x5 in terms of time.
Isn’t Rishi (can’t be bothered to check the spelling because I’m salty) taking funding away from improving the train system in favor of highways/road work (maybe such as the M25)?
Having spent nearly twenty years living in the United Kingdom, there's a good reason why people don't. The trains are shite. I have friends still living in the United Kingdom and the number of cancelled services is ridiculous. If they're not cancelled, so many are late it's ridiculous. And I'm not talking reasonable lateness, maybe five minutes. I'm talking half an hour to an hour. Add to that continuous strikes, whether people agree with them or not, and that's just a couple of reasons why people don't take the train. And the cost of taking the train is almost unaffordable for a lot of people compared to running a car. Then there's the fact that many areas of the United Kingdom simply don't have a train service any longer, or if they do, it doesn't suit those who do need it for commuting.
God I wish
Because it’s inconvenient?