How to Make Train Travel More Affordable
Most of us enjoy a nice train journey, it’s nice to just sit back and watch the world go by, without having to worry about traffic jams, road rage or running out of petrol.
But modern trains are not just often crowded, but hideously expensive (sometimes it’s cheaper to fly or drive long distances, especially once you’ve paid a fortune for a sandwich and coffee in the train station). How do they get away with these prices?
The companies say they are adding a 10% surcharge due to higher rental costs. But if you’ve ever seen the price of the food (not quality) served up and the price, this is more than 100% surcharge!
At time of writing, there are plans to create a publicly-owned railway once again. Some welcome this, others have horror stories of British Rail. Sounds like a good idea in theory, but considering this government has messed up nearly every policy it has created, it waits to be seen (and the government will likely be out of power, by the time it came to pass anyway).
GO-OP! is hoping to be England’s first community-owned train line, currently seeking funding from investors. Focusing on routes that connect poor routes, the first one is destined to be from Somerset to Wiltshire.
Making Train Stations More Accessible
Councils should also provide accessible toilets, especially for long waiting times. A good idea from Portland (Oregon, USA) is for local volunteers who walk disabled and blind people through confusing platform changes until they feel confident to travel by train alone.
There, all train stations and platforms also have information in Braille.
Read tips for train travel with pets. Animals must be kept on leads or in carriers (take plenty of water & treats). Pets are not allowed on seats or escalators (must be carried). Never allow animals near trains.
How To Get Cheaper Train Fares
You should not have to take a degree, in order to ‘fleece the system’ to get cheaper fares, but there you go. Sometimes it pays to book in advance, and usually on weekdays it’s best to go after 9am, to avoid rush hour peak prices.
Split My Fare can (sometimes) save a lot of money. You basically put your in your destinations, and then buy each ticket separately. So beware when you print the tickets out at the station, you may get a barrage of them come out, so be sure you have a wallet! For instance:
Say you are travelling from London to Glasgow, sometimes strangely it works out cheaper if you buy 10 separate tickets rather than one.
Did you know that the rhubarb express was a nightly train that carried forced rhubarb (grown at heated sheds in complete darkness )from West Yorkshire’s ‘rhubarb triangle’ to London and Paris from the late 19th century until the early 60s? It was only a rail strike that made the journey switch to road transport.
Slow Trains Around Britain is a book by best-selling travel writer Tom Chesshyre. Join him on a zig-zag journey to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the first 26-mile line from Darlington to Stockton, which kickstarted the worldwide railway revolution.
Just like bus timetables, it would help if people who ran the timetables, hired a good graphic designer, so that it was easier to read them. Most of us find them difficult, let alone people with poor eyesight, learning difficulties or dementia.
This Canva sample template could easily be amended to an easy-read schedule.
Making Train Stations More Affordable
At present, the train stations, trains and tracks are all owned by different companies (something that critics say means it’s more likely to have accidents).
But for now, it’s best to take your own food and drink, to avoid the astronomical prices of eating out, if you have a long delay at the station for the next train. Same with bookshops (take a paperback!
It’s not going to happen anytime soon that train stations are going to supply public water fountains or offer affordable food, so the only solution is to simply not buy it. If we all did, they couldn’t sell it, and something would have to change. Same for the overpriced food and drink on board.
We Don’t Need HS2 (harms birds & wildlife)
The High Speed 2 (HS2) project has cost billions of pounds, in order to create a train route that hardly anyone will use (we need to slow down not speed up) and commuters could communicate by zoom? The fact that it will connect to airport hubs, shows that it won’t reduce climate change, as it will encourage flying? All experts say that it will do nothing for the planet.
Yet already the project has decimated huge swathes of Buckinghamshire countryside, pulled down England’s second-oldest pear tree (in Warwickshire) and killed countless birds and wildlife.
HS2 is planned to span hundreds of miles, including linking the south to the north. But all critics say the amount of money spent, would be far better used update rolling stock, improve northern and southwestern rail lines, re-open closed rural stations and improve community bus transport.
Why England Doesn’t Need HS2
Financial Times journalist Simon Kuper lives in Paris, and regularly ‘zips into London’ on TGV (France’s high-speed train). He says the UK version is a vanity project, as England is a quarter of the size of France or Spain, so London to Manchester is half the distance of most TGV journeys.
We can easily reach places without need for flying, so we don’t need a ‘replacement’ for something that’s not needed.
One of the few good policies of Reform UK is to simply scrap it as a bad idea, and use the money to do something useful instead.
Unfortunately most MPs (of all colours) voted for HS2 – see how your MP voted at TheyWorkForYou.
As well as not making a dent in reducing climate change emissions, once built, HS2 will (based on comparisons with other high-speed trains abroad) kill around 20,000 wildlife a year. Many will be swans and other birds that mistake rail lines for rivers, in heavy rain.
And by knocking down lots of ancient woodlands, this will contribute to more flooding (and less natural home for birds and native wildlife.
The Barn Owl Trust says that HS2 is a ‘very expensive way of killing owls. Join the campaign to Stop HS2.
A report by wildlife experts says that HS2 bosses have got their calculations wrong, and wants the existing work halted until updated methodology is used so new (correct) findings are assessed by government.
Wildlife campaigner Chris Packham took the government to court (and lost) to stop HS2 on the grounds that it would cause irreversible damage to ancient woodlands and habitats. He argued that the government was badly advised by vested interests, and did not take account of obligations under the Paris Agreement and Climate Change Act.
Many wildlife species also live near railways, which is why Network Rail employs ecologists to know how to least affect lizards, grass snakes, deer, water voles and slow worms (along with Pipistrelle bats that roost in trees, tunnels and bridges).
Interrail (discover Europe by train)
Interrail is a service that lets you discover most of Europe, without ever having to get on a plane. Here is a summary of how it works, and where you can travel.
It’s unlikely most dogs are going to want to be getting on and off trains all over Europe. If you do take them with you, check policies of each operator before travel. If needing to take pets abroad (say emigration), Eurostar does not allow pets (bar guide dogs) from UK routes.
Le Shuttle offers a 35-minute crossing from Folkestone to Boulogne (your pets stay with you in the car, and there is a pet-friendly check-in, just follow the paw prints).
Explore the Interrail passes
Interrail offers a number of passes. You just plan your route, choose a pass and then activate it, for travel throughout the continent. Any European resident can use them, non-European residents must use a Eurail Pass.
- Interrail One Country Pass is obvious!
- Interrail Plus Pass lets you travel in 1 or more countries, often with reserved seats.
- Interrail Global Pass lets you travel throughout 2 countries. Choose from 33 countries.
The idea is that Interrail is an all-in-one pass (a bit like London’s Oyster card). So once purchased, you can use it within your country of choice to travel on nearly all trains (and sometimes ferry companies), by simply showing staff the Pass (or on your phone). There are 33,000 destinations covered across Europe.
Final Destination is a book to take you on a journey to the most obscure parts of Britain, on the 200th birthday of the world’s first passenger-carrying railway. From Wick to Penzance and many places in between, he stays onboard until the end of the line!
The 16 destinations visit very different stories. From ferry ports to abandoned resorts, and from tiny hamlets to towns being reclaimed by the sea. From Alan Bennett to Nigel Farage, and from John Betjeman to Charlotte Rampling’s dad, all human life is here.
Why England Needs More Tram Transport
Trams are a great way to get around cities, as they carry more people than cars or buses, but can go up and down hills and are pretty cheap to run. England is one of the few European cities that does not have them in nearly every city, here we’re limited to just a few areas (Manchester, Blackpool, Sheffield, Nottingham etc).
Unlike buses, trams can ‘bend’ around corner and are often used in ‘curvy cities’ (recently, there was a tragic accident in Lisbon, but this is very rare). In cities full of slow and crowded buses and gridlocked traffic, it’s strange how we have so few tram services.
England has many curved streets, so would be ideal to build on. Just like trains, you need to stop before crossing tramlines, as the vehicles require a longer stopping distance than buses (they go faster). And they are also quieter than cars, so don’t wear headphones if walking or cycling nearby.
Nottingham has a 20-mile tram system, and Sheffield operates 4 routes across South Yorkshire. Manchester tram is well-known, as is Blackpool, which doubts back to 1885 (and one of the few double-decker trams in the world). Yet while England has around 9 tram systems, France has 26 and Germany has 57. Why?
What is Manchester’s Bee Network?
Manchester’s Bee Network has basically brought the city’s buses back under public control, making them cheaper and faster and more efficient. By taking all the profit out. Now locals can zoom around the city, transfer easily from bus to tram, and still it’s’ affordable (not unlike Portland’s Trimet in Oregon, one of the world’s best public transit systems).
There is also a plan to bring eight rail networks under this system by 2030 (if Andy becomes an MP, this obviously depends on who is elected as Mayor if he departs the post).
At present, you can make 5.6 million journeys on the trains, trams and buses each day, all joined up as a world-class public transport system. This of course takes way more cars off the road, reduces stress, road rage, petrol pollution and is safer for pedestrians, pets and wildlife, all of whom are negatively affected by too much road transport.
Why is it called the Bee Network?
Since 1842, the iconic worker bee has been the symbol of Manchester, where England’s industrial revolution started. All vehicles and stations feature a bright yellow and black livery, so you can’t miss them.
The Bee Network has been so successful than many people have left their cars at home, and now there are 24-hour bus routes and many electric (zero-emission) buses.
What does Reform UK think of the Bee Network?
At time of writing, it’s unlikely that Reform UK will win the Manchester mayor election. That’s good, as they have said they would take Bolton to be taken out of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and revert back to being part of Lancashire county council.
This would mean that locals in Bolton would no longer have access to the Bee Network. Which forms an important part of integrated ticketing and subsidised concessionary travel for local pensioners, who wish to travel around the Manchester area, without a car.
Blackpool tram has a proud history, but spent years running older slower cars that creaked along the seafront. Today it has had a revamp, with wider platforms and new trams that go at higher speeds and are more accessible.
They have spacious low floors for step-free boarding, modern ticketing systems and upgraded tracks. While the old trams had around 3 million annual rides, today it’s nearer 5 million.
There are 61 stops in all. One criticism of out-of-town shopping retail parks is that people need a car to drive to them. But Blackpool even has tram stops within 5-minutes walk of the main retail park, for people who don’t have a car, which helps to reduce road traffic.
When Sheffield’s SuperTram was launched, car use in the city centre fell by up to 20% on some key roads. Today over 40,000 use the service.
Environmental & Health Benefits of Trams
Our cities need cleaner air for better public health and less roads. But most people don’t hire cycles, and train stations usually are on the outskirts of towns. And buses are often full to bursting. Trams are the ideal answer. They cost a lot to build, but are cheaper to run long-term.
Modern trams run on electricity for less fumes, while diesel buses still cough out nitrogen oxides and particulates on city routes. Trams don’t ‘rattle’ like old buses (in some areas of London, people have made complaints as night buses are making their windows rattle). Trams run on rails, so avoids this. They are also around 5 to 8 decibels quieter than road buses.
Boost to Local Business & Properties
We all want to support small indie businesses. And because trams can glide along the city centres, they encourage people to get off and shop in local shops, or have a drink in local tea rooms or coffee shops.
People can literally hop off in the city centre, unlike most train stations. This has been proven in Blackpool, where small businesses on tram routes have higher sales, even during out-of-season times of the year. This has also happens in European towns like Freiburg and Strasbourg.
Homes within walking distance of tram stops also tend to rent and sell better, so it’s good news for landlords and house owners, but also for tenants, who can easily get to work without the hassle.
The tram extension in Manchester cost £203 million for just under 1 mile of track. Yet in France, transport planners built a 9-mile tram network for £260 million (almost a tenth of the cost). Why?
The History of England’s Funicular Railways
Saltburn by the Sea, Ava Lily
Funicular railways (or ‘cliff lifts’) remain fascinating, alas there are only a few left in England. Invented during late Victorian times to take people to the beach down steep cliffs or river banks, they remain a genius feat of engineering.
Ones still existing include:
- Saltburn (Yorkshire) is the oldest funicular railway in England, and still runs on water power.
- Scarborough (Yorkshire) was the first one, located at England’s first holiday seaside resort. It used to run on water, before converting to electricity.
- Lynton and Lynmouth (Devon) is the highest and steepest, and still runs on water power. It carries passengers up a 500-foot cliff face, using watwer from the local West Lyn River.
- Bridgnorth (Shropshire) is an inland funicular railway that connects the two parts of the River Severn, again very steep with a 64% gradient.
- Clifton Rocks (Bristol) is now a preserved heritage site, after closing in 1934. Built inside a giant limestone tunnel, it carried millions of passengers.
- Bournemouth (Dorset) has two funicular railways that safely transport holidaymakers to sandy beaches. They were built in 1908 and 1935.
- Hastings (East Sussex) also has two funicular railways on both East (the steepest in England) and West Hill, in this historic bohemian town on the south coast.
