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Daggers

What grinds my gears...

By Daggers, in General Chat

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted

lol

Did they knock your monocle off? :thumbup:

lol

I nearly threw up.

In these northern Labour towns they actually declassify some trains when it gets busy. Must be awful for people who enjoy a higher standard of travel.

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Rincewind

Rincewind

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Posted

I don't drive so use the trains when I have to. I prefer the trains to coach travel. From Leicester to for eg. Carlisle by coach it takes 7 hours. By train it is around five with two changes. Cost around £70 but if searched deals are available if you pre-book seats. I don't mind Standard seats. Some of the riff-raff you see can be 'salt of the earth.

You just have to request a seat away from the lepers.

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leicsmac

leicsmac

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Posted

For a start I would remove all government subsidy and make it a pure profit or loss game for the rail companies. At the moment they are guaranteed profit due to the subsidies which effectively means you get the worst of nationalisation, and the worst of privatisation. The rail companies know that no matter how poorly they perform they'll still make a profit, so where is their incentive to improve?

If you fully privatise the entire industry then the market will decide optimal service and pricing levels. Where it will end up, who knows. It may well be the case that the railways simply aren't profitable in this country. Or maybe the rail companies, motivated by profit, will drive so much efficiency into the system that we'll actually end up with a cheap, reliable and popular service.

 

If that did happen and you did end up with a proper free market system that encouraged competition, kept fares down and standards high, that would be great. Sadly I couldn't see that happening. More likely a monopoly or an oligopoly keeping prices high. 

 

That said, it's right that the present situation is half-arsed and suits no-one. And any radical changes would result in severe disruption to a pretty essential service for thousands of people. So we're fvcked either way, really.

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted

I don't drive so use the trains when I have to. I prefer the trains to coach travel. From Leicester to for eg. Carlisle by coach it takes 7 hours. By train it is around five with two changes. Cost around £70 but if searched deals are available if you pre-book seats. I don't mind Standard seats. Some of the riff-raff you see can be 'salt of the earth.

You just have to request a seat away from the lepers.

If you are in the south you might be ok but you are going to bump into some real scum if you are heading north.

I remember seeing a guy queuing for food. Him and his wife were both in Motherwell shirts and she was shouting fcuk off out the window.

Preston as well was bad. 50% of people getting on looked like fair dodgers.

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted

Are tax dodgers recognisable like burglars who carry sacks with SWAG on and wear striped jumpers? Do they have baseball caps with TD printed on?

Brown shoes and wallet combo usually.

That said I have no problem with people avoiding tax whilst the government spends it on illegal wars and the workshy.

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Captain...

Captain...

Posted
Posted

Agree taxpayers shouldn't be subsidising fares.

It's worrying though, with price rises and my own financial situation getting worse im dreading the day ill be sat in the standard carriage.

I walked through one a few months back and it was absolutely ghastly.

Haha, you are complaining about the cost yet travelling in first class, you make me laugh Matt.

Are you travelling peak or off peak or super off peak?

What annoys me about trains is not that they are expensive as such it is the fact that you can pay anywhere between £10 and £50 for the same journey (lets say super off peak London to Leicester) depending when you book, who you book with, megatrain is cheaper than east midlands trains, which is cheaper than thetrainline.com, but it is the same journey, and the stupid thing is if you book early and pay much less you get a reserved seat. I also get annoyed by the fact that a single to Leicester is £50 and an open return is £51, so I could be paying 50 times as much for the same journey as the person sitting next to me.

Then there is the ridiculous situation where booking separate journeys is cheaper than booking it as a single journey.

Then you have the stupid off peak and super off peak. Every time I get an off peak train someone near me gets done for being on the off peak train with a super off peak ticket, it really isn't clear, which is which and it doesn't say it on the ticket, nor at the station nor on the platform, I actually got the train today at 10.25 off peak, but not super off peak, I got there early and they announced it 10.10 that super off peak wasn't valid and didn't mention it again. They got three people in my carriage. I'm sure super off peak only exists to Catch people out.

As for privatisation, it could only work if the private companies bought up all the tracks and there was a separate body that planned all the routes and timetables and they would charge for that. Then there are such things as building new lines.

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted (edited)

Minor humblebrag I tthought lol

What's super off peak then?! Thought it was jyst peak and off peak. Agree on the return price. Ridiculous.

I'm meeting the guys at 11 in a pub at the Oval so I have to travel at peak times.

That said it can be fun to disgust most of the office workers in first class by sitting there and nailing four strongbows between Leicester and London at 9 in the morning.

Edited by MattP
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Captain...

Captain...

Posted
Posted

Minor humblebrag I tthought lol

What's super off peak then?! Thought it was jyst peak and off peak. Agree on the return price. Ridiculous.

I'm meeting the guys at 11 in a pub at the Oval so I have to travel at peak times.

That said it can be fun to disgust most of the office workers in first class by sitting there and nailing four strongbows between Leicester and London.

This is part of the problem, it is not a set time, it depends on which station you travel from, from London peak is 6.30 - 9.30 then off peak is 9.30-10.55 then super off peak is 10.55-3.30 then 7.30-6.30am with off peak and peak between 3.30 and 7.30 that I'm not sure on. But it is different going from Leicester to London, but I can't remember what it is and it is not easy to check on the internet. I did eventually find a website where you could put in the to and from destinations and it will tell you what they are, but they don't really publish it too well.

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

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Posted

That's a joke really is. How do they expect people to be able to follow that?

Cynical folk might look and think its been made deliberately complex to extort more money out of people?

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Captain...

Captain...

Posted
Posted

That's a joke really is. How do they expect people to be able to follow that?

Cynical folk might look and think its been made deliberately complex to extort more money out of people?

It does often seem that way, that and charging people full whack if they are on the wrong train, the worst one of that was a women who was going from alfreton to London, and they booked a train, alfreton to Nottingham, Nottingham to London, same journey I was making, now I had an open return so when I got to Nottingham I got the next train to London which happens to be 1 minute after the alfreton train gets into Nottingham. A bit of a sprint across platforms but I can always make it. She also happened to get the same train to London as me. It turns out she wasn't booked on to that train, apparently the trainline.com won't let you book a change journey when the change over is less than 5 minutes. She was supposed to wait half an hour at Nottingham instead. Just nonsense.

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

Every corner these days people appear to be making life harder and harder for others.

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separator

separator

Posted
Posted

This is part of the problem, it is not a set time, it depends on which station you travel from, from London peak is 6.30 - 9.30 then off peak is 9.30-10.55 then super off peak is 10.55-3.30 then 7.30-6.30am with off peak and peak between 3.30 and 7.30 that I'm not sure on. But it is different going from Leicester to London, but I can't remember what it is and it is not easy to check on the internet. I did eventually find a website where you could put in the to and from destinations and it will tell you what they are, but they don't really publish it too well.

 

Super off peak tickets are a minefield to get around, different times for different stations. In fact the whole system is far to complex. I'm booked on a train from St Pancras to Leicester on friday evening and the cheapest ticket was in first class. Anybody who needs to get to London from Leicester early on a weekday morning should consider the first train out of Leicester. Its classed as a peak time service but booking in advance is normally priced as off peak (£12-26) as opposed to the peak time single cost of £77 if you buy on the day. Only downside is that it leaves Leicester at 0430 and arrives in London at half six. Also super off peak to London is about £56, if you do Leicester - Bedford, then Bedford St Pancras (using First Capital Connect) you can save at least a tenner, but will take you a lot longer to get to London. Every penny counts these days.

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lavrentis

lavrentis

Posted
Posted (edited)

Lovefilm, keep ringing me begging me to come back and then they turn up at my house today! lol

 

 

Had them knock on my door 3 times within a space of 2 months. Told them to politely go away in the end

 

One guy with his ipad tried to sign me up, then when he realised I wasn't having it he was trying to invite himself into my house. Absolute *****, don't give in

Edited by lavrentis
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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

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Posted

Had them knock on my door 3 times within a space of 2 months. Told them to politely go away in the end

 

Answer the door naked, I do that if the person looks like someone I can't be bothered to talk too.

 

Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses are the best.

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Danno

Danno

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Posted

Had them knock on my door 3 times within a space of 2 months. Told them to politely go away in the end

 

One guy with his ipad tried to sign me up, then when he realised I wasn't having it he was trying to invite himself into my house. Absolute *****, don't give in

They never update the online films bit with anything decent, so I said that and they went on about how they update their library every week yet all i see on the new bit is some shite Bollywood film ffs.
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Charl91

Charl91

Posted
Posted

Haha, you are complaining about the cost yet travelling in first class, you make me laugh Matt.

Are you travelling peak or off peak or super off peak?

What annoys me about trains is not that they are expensive as such it is the fact that you can pay anywhere between £10 and £50 for the same journey (lets say super off peak London to Leicester) depending when you book, who you book with, megatrain is cheaper than east midlands trains, which is cheaper than thetrainline.com, but it is the same journey, and the stupid thing is if you book early and pay much less you get a reserved seat. I also get annoyed by the fact that a single to Leicester is £50 and an open return is £51, so I could be paying 50 times as much for the same journey as the p

Then there is the ridiculous situation where booking separate journeys is cheaper than booking it as a single journey.

 

 

 

Even weirder - I had to buy a return ticket a few months back, because it was cheaper than buying a single.

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