Train fares, should they be subsidised?

It can work if you are part of an association or group with which you share benefits- but not when you choose to dissociate yourself. Makes sense.

www.facebook.com/leedsforeurope/videos/875170386799218

it just does not work

Take back control, they said. How can you take back control when you have sold all your essential utilities, be they water, energy, public transports, etc- to foreigners who are not interested or affected by those services- and want to make their public shareholders and services run more effectively. Nonsense.

Yes, the fares should be subsidised (far more than they are) until we have a free service - as we need to reduce traffic on the roads. The fare system is too complicated as well. Senior and junior rail cards are good if you'll make a few journeys within a year. Mine gave me a third off a fare. It's often cheaper to get a bus or cab to the station.

Fleurpepper

As said, a simple political choice.

Same as water and other utilities.

Agreed.

As said, a simple political choice.

Same as water and other utilities.

I dread to think what will happen when petrol and diesel cars are phased out unless there is a working public transport in place.

Seriously, outside of major towns and cities there will be a lot of older people (and younger ones on lower incomes) who won't be able to afford an electric car (which are also bad for the environment, incidentally), so won't be able to get to the doctor or dentist (if they can still get appointments), will have no social life at all, and will struggle to get to work or even to the shops. Yes, as someone pointed out upthread, there are deliveries, but I would hate to see people living lonely lives with no option to go anywhere, just being kept alive by having the Tesco van.

Public Transport is so important, but unless it is nationalised and/or subsidised before the change to EVs comes in we are heading for a fall.

Dinahmo

Do you now about a website called "the man in seat 61" ?

It explains how to travel in and around Europe and also the UK, how to get the best deals and when to book. I found it very useful when we travelled by train to Florence, incorporating a trip on the Bernina Express.

Our journey was Limoges, Paris, Zurich (for the BE), Tirano, Milan and Florence. Return was Florence, Turin, Paris, Limoges. Each journey involved one overnight stop. The total cost of the travel, for two was 258 euros. The hotel in Zurich for one night cost about the same.

Return tickets London to Paris by Eurostar start at £78. So, start planning all the wonderful holidays you could have!

Yes, a fantastic site. And InterRail tickets are available to all, not just teenagers. And even First Class.

I stayed with my grandparents in rural Essex during school holidays. A local coach firm ran a coach to the local market town on market days, which was twice a week. One trip to the town in the morning and a return trip in the afternoon. It went round the little villages and provided a real social occasion for the locals. They were almost all older people who didn’t have cars (or only the husband drove) and of course this was decades before online shopping appeared. Things are so very different now.

The thing that always strikes me is that, when we were much younger and fewer people had cars, public transport, certainly in my part of the world, was very good and affordable. It was quite easy to get to most parts of rural Essex by bus. Services were more frequent than now and very well used.

Someone's going to have to bite the bullet and provide decent transport services before people move away from using their cars less.

I’m so heartened to see so many GNers who think that buses, trains, etc should be at the forefront of our transport system. The car has been king for so many years in this country, more than long enough for us to know what all the disadvantages are. Yet I have friends who wouldn’t dream of setting foot on a bus even if they stop right outside their door - they’re just for the underclass and eccentrics like me. Such a sad attitude when we all know, surely, what harm we’re doing to our planet. If I were prime minister (watch out, world! ) one of my top priorities would be a free, efficient and reliable public transport network for all. We’d have an awful lot of work to do though….

Do you now about a website called "the man in seat 61" ?

It explains how to travel in and around Europe and also the UK, how to get the best deals and when to book. I found it very useful when we travelled by train to Florence, incorporating a trip on the Bernina Express.

Our journey was Limoges, Paris, Zurich (for the BE), Tirano, Milan and Florence. Return was Florence, Turin, Paris, Limoges. Each journey involved one overnight stop. The total cost of the travel, for two was 258 euros. The hotel in Zurich for one night cost about the same.

Return tickets London to Paris by Eurostar start at £78. So, start planning all the wonderful holidays you could have!

Seamus89

I know of several couples who have moved back into central London in their 70's due to the plentiful and efficient supply of free public transport and better provision of NHS care, not to mention the arts and leisure facilities that are now available to them.
Yes , they were lucky to be able to downsize to afford a 2 bed apartment but my goodness their lifestyle now is amazing. Levelling up to provide the same transport structures in all large cities would certainly help everybody , workers and retirees , it could also release some larger homes for families.

Some old friends moved back to London several years ago. As they are now well into their 70s they get the free travel - not just on tubes and buses but also on some rail lines, such as the London Line.

Their local hospitals are Moorfields and UCL, both teaching hospitals, so they get good access to NHS services.

If anyone's interested, the RMT union has published a report which shows that the Train Operating Companies (TOCs) reinvest just 1% of their profits in the railways and 65% goes to shareholders as dividend.

It looks to me as though we're already providing much of our railways' funding with little benefit to the Treasury or rail customers.

www.rmt.org.uk/news/rail-companies-raking-in-profit-and-stripping-the-railways-of/

The report is presented in a strange format. It's best downloaded and read as a pdf.

Disclaimer. The report is anonymous so we have no idea who has researched and wrote it (unlike the report I linked to earlier on this thread). I cannot vouch for its accuracy and many might claim that it has manipulated facts to enhance the RMT's case.

I am partially sighted and struggle to find connections at large stations and with ticket machines at unmanned ones. I would be willing to pay more in taxes to get greater subsidies for Rail and Bus travel, even though, as a Pensioner, I have a free Bus Pass (Off Peak travel) and I buy a Senior Rail Card. I live alone, and have a limited income.

We are told that this country is one of the richest in the world but none of the parties have come up with a plan for cheap ticket prices or how to improve the railway infrastructure. So yes to subsidies but it’s not going happen anytime soon

Dizzyribs do the local schools offer after school activities?

@goldenage where I live (reasonably large market town of 12,000 or so residents) if I get a “local” hospital appointment for say Wednesday afternoon it not only costs me £12.00 on the currently busses (3 busses each way) but I have to set off on Tuesday morning. If the appointment finishes after 3.00pm I can’t get a bus home until 3.15pm on Thursday.
@ronib the reasonably sized, well established village nearest to our town (maybe 8,000 residents) has a bus here twice a week. They have no cubs, scouts, youth clubs or anything else after school for children and young people.
Our town has cubs, brownies, scouts and some sports clubs etc- but only one of each. They are over subscribed with a waiting list. You have to enrol your child virtually at birth to have a possibility of a place and one of the criteria is living within walking distance.

I live 12 miles from central Manchester. Our town doesn’t have the metro, sadly. People going to work/hospital appointments will struggle to get on the train, in rush hour, not enough carriages.
Buses in Manchester are £1. Here, it’s £3 to go 3 miles into town for the train.

Public transport is dreadful. It fuels the opposition to hs2- we can’t get across the Penine to Leeds, 10 mins off a speedy trip to London irrelevant. That’s if we can get a seat to London, increasingly difficult and at eye watering costs

Of course public transport should be subsidised and improved. The village next to mine has two buses a day, last one 5pm

Just booked a train from Newcastle Whitby direct for £12.60 total return for my husband and I in August. He has mobility problems due to dementia so has a disabled persons railcard which entitles him and whoever is helping him to a third off but I was shocked and pleased at the price and won’t mind it stopping at all 26 stations on the way! I usually hire a car at the airport but that would have cost over £250 pound for the week and then parking on top plus once there we wouldn’t use it. Bonus is I can read or sightsee on the way.

MacCavity2

All public transport free in Luxembourg.

Did not know that. Well done Luxembourg.

The Gravesend/Tilbury ferry is free for over-60s but I don't know about the Woolwich ferry or any of those on the non-tidal Thames.

ronib Not too sure about anyone resenting tv ownership? Are you serious?

I believe there've been references to owning new smart tv - apart from old reliable, less stylish tv. Making do with old or buying trendy?

We fall in with not purchasing new when old still works.

Not too sure about anyone resenting tv ownership? Are you serious?

Yes. TVs, phones, 'done' nails, tattoos - all of these are things that many posters have complained about people spending money on if they are hard-up.

GoldenAge

Just a slight correction to the idea that in London people over 60 get travel free. They do not get travel on trains free until 9.30 which means that a hospital (or any other kind of) appointment in the centre of town any time before 11.00 am costs the same as it costs anybody else. To do that journey by bus/tube may involve several changes and be twice as long - and may well require standing up all the way. That said, I'm very grateful for the ability to get on a crowded stuffy tube or bus without paying at any time of the day. But I do at the same time know plenty of people outside of London who would rather die than use this free transport. As for train subsidies, as far as I know they're already in place, and yes I must be in receipt of them myself.

That said, I'm very grateful for the ability to get on a crowded stuffy tube or bus without paying at any time of the day

During Lockdown it was changed to 09.00 the earliest on weekdays and all day at weekends for tubes and buses - so far that still stands.

And for those complaining about London - lots of other cities have widespread free travel for the Over 60s e.g. on Merseyside they can also use the river ferries!