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against my better judgement, a friend has suggested that we go to the excel bike show in february

(We used to like the show when it was at ally pally - 5 bars, proper food etc - but we swore blind that we would not do excel again as there was no proper bar and the panini's do not fit the biker image).

going from beccles suffolk to london liverpool street - prebooked open return is 80 quid... even tying to set times is not much better - around 50 quid... thats each, not for the pair of us

its 110 miles by car and takes 2 and a half hours - the train takes about the same time..... the petrol cost would be 30 quid.....

am i just getting tight in my dotage or is that a blatent piss take price?

Yep - I bought a train last week.

I only wanted to go to London twice (on business) and it was cheaper (relative term) to buy a one week pass than 2 returns.

For the amount it cost, I'm convinced I must now be the legal owner of a train (though having claimed the fare back, maybe it's now our company's train).

The ticket came to a shade over £208.

Private vehicles can only be assured a long-term future.


BTW I have been to the excel exhibition centre in the past and never want to go there again. I didn't think much of it as a place and it's in a fairly inaccessible location from most parts of the country.

Take some decent walking boots with you.. If you get there. Pain in the arse place.

As for the trains. I'd drive to the outskirts of London, park up and get the tube/DLR to the excel. National rail fares are ridiculous. Somethings got to give soon or there won't be any passengers left able to afford it.

To get anything like a reasonable fair I find you have yo be shady at best. We used to travel regularly to London and always bought the first trip outbound from London and used the return to travel in. On the local commute we are supposed to go via Warrington as the direct service MIT Manchester fine except there are two stations in Warrington a mile apart and you have to make your own way. Prices are a joke one guy gets the train to manchester from Shrewsbury but buys the ticket from a different line that goes through Chester as it's cheaper. He is allowed to do this as there are no trains from that village to Chester go figure

Dunno about one-off fares, I agree I can't afford to travel any distance by train. But they were talking on TV about the increase in season tickets, and we worked out roughly what it would cost me in my Primera to commute daily to Bournemouth for work. Amazingly, it was about £2500 - making a season ticket from Reading to London not a bad bet at £3000.
When calculating car costs it's not just petrol, you need to take into account the running costs and depreciation.

trust me if my car depreciated any more it would be a garden ornament and a redundant one at that

plus it costs half the fuel than it does the cattle fare

Rail enthusiasts often say that you should include car depreciation, insurance, tax etc into the equation and there is a germ of truth in that. However for most of the population, when considering which to take for a journey, they are not planning to get rid of the car or bike completely and the overhead of insurance, depreciation and tax is still there whether or not you take the car or the train.

As for cheap fares, they do exist IF you have the freedom to travel at the right times.

Megatrain (part of Megabus) offers fantastic fares at certain times.

http://uk.megabus.com/default.aspx

In the "Travelling By" box, select "Train" to get the Megatrain services .... and you do travel on normal trains - just with cheap fares

Regardless, in order to travel by car, you have to pay those costs.

BikerGran wrote:Regardless, in order to travel by car, you have to pay those costs.

Yes - but if you have a car anyway, you still pay them even if you take a train journey.

That's an insane amount to pay for a train ride. How the hell do they justify it?

(Can someone explain to me why I paid only 10 quid to travel in first class from London to Sheffield via West Midlands Railway last year?)

Aladinsaneuk wrote:against my better judgement, a friend has suggested that we go to the excel bike show in february

(We used to like the show when it was at ally pally - 5 bars, proper food etc - but we swore blind that we would not do excel again as there was no proper bar and the panini's do not fit the biker image).

going from beccles suffolk to london liverpool street - prebooked open return is 80 quid... even tying to set times is not much better - around 50 quid... thats each, not for the pair of us

its 110 miles by car and takes 2 and a half hours - the train takes about the same time..... the petrol cost would be 30 quid.....

am i just getting tight in my dotage or is that a blatent piss take price?

YES

Right first time Pete!

I think that maybe this could be a stealth tax from our government...
I am convinced that the utility bills that we have went up because of another stealth tax and not the companys themselves.
We need to pay all this money in to the pot has our european members keep taking the piss out of us by asking for handouts.
We will eventually become in deeper shi* , I wonder when our government is going to ask for some of the money back from the people who dropped us in this in the first place.
THE BANKS.
The world has been spoiled by a few greedy people and the rest of us have to pick up the pieces....Again

Rant over

Sorry Jay "Make the BWANKERS pay"?
No I don't think so, but the Goverment can defy the rest of the EEC to save them.
Don't you know that they are the heros of the UK economy and are the only people who bring any money in to the country, so must be protected at all costs.
I have only ever had one solution for this over the last few years.
Line them all up on the Thames Embankment and shoot the bloody lot of them. (could call it treason or something like that, doesn't really matter as long as they all get shot).
There will be some other casualties sadly, and companies like Porche might go bust, but needs must.

My rant over as well

Aladinsaneuk wrote: am i just getting tight in my dotage or is that a blatent piss take price?

Tight? Maybe, but trains are a hopelessly uneconomic means of transport. The silly price you have been quoted is after a humungous taxpayer subsidy. If it werent for the lentil eating sandal wearing bearded eco freeks we have all around the place these days, we'd shut down the railways, turn the tracks into roads and save the taxpayer a fortune

Train prices are extortionate. I sometimes pay £20 ish quid to do a 60 mile round trip from lincoln to nottingham. What do i get? a seat(sometimes) on an old, smelly, unhygenic train, full off ignorant twats/kids who shout or put their music on full blast for the whole carriage to hear/some smelly old man/ drunken pissheads who burp,fart,sing and generally make too much fucking noise. Resulting me getting angry. Its the same on the underground, only a ticket doesnt cost me 2.6 hours wages....