Roll on rail nationalisation

horden · **Posted:** Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:15 am

ukanttouchme wrote:

This thread reminds me of the time I went to watch a Tuesday night Sunderland game. Easy enough to get there by bus but absolutely no way of getting home even though I left the game early. Think it was a bus to Peterlee and taxi from there. It's almost like they don't want you to leave Hartlepool...

On the plus side I saw a badger in Peterlee. Not often you see a live one.

Its almost impossible to get back to the colleries these days , after a night match at Pools, especially beyond Peterlee.

Bet that Badger is long dead now , sadly born in an area top of the league for animal cruelty.

horden · **Posted:** Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:17 am

Joe Mac wrote:

Is there a cheap way of getting the train to Liverpool?

I'm going in August but looking at £75 per person which is mental, i'd rather just drive.

Wouldn't of thought so Joe, Liverpool possibly the worst and most expensive place to get to from Hartlepool on the train. If few of you, better off hiring a minibus and paying someone to drive it.

charltonclive · **Joined:** Sat Jan 31, 2015 11:13 pm **Posts:** 217

Splitting your journey,can save you quite a bit of money,for example buy a return Hartlepool to York,Then advance singles between York & Liverpool.
Advance singles are cheaper the earlier you book.

The Colonel · **Joined:** Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:49 am **Posts:** 4891

Regardless of the price you will be on transpenine express.

This service should be a punishment for mass murderers only.

It is disgraceful.

How they still have the franchise just shows how corrupt our government is.

Joe Mac · **Posted:** Fri Jun 23, 2017 11:43 am

Best price I've got is for £38 per person.

Hartlepool - York - £13.40 return
York - Liverpool - £25 return.

Don't think that is too bad and saves us driving.

The Colonel · **Joined:** Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:49 am **Posts:** 4891

Joe Mac wrote:

Best price I've got is for £38 per person.

Hartlepool - York - £13.40 return
York - Liverpool - £25 return.

Don't think that is too bad and saves us driving.

Errrr yes, but you do ralise its transoenine express cattle trucks yes?

MutleyRules · **Posted:** Fri Jun 23, 2017 12:54 pm

horden wrote:

Bet that Badger is long dead now , sadly born in an area top of the league for animal cruelty.

Nah....surely that is China!!!!

Joe Mac · **Posted:** Fri Jun 23, 2017 12:55 pm

Trainline quoted me £150 which is mental.

accrington fan · **Joined:** Wed Jan 20, 2016 3:22 pm **Posts:** 19882

Joe Mac wrote:

Trainline quoted me £150 which is mental.

how much would it cost abroad for a similar journey i wonder. they keep saying there,s more using trains than ever but there must be a lot of super rich around.

Montpoolier · **Posted:** Sat Jun 24, 2017 11:14 am

Rail prices in France and Spain are anything but cheap, except for the very slow trains, which don't take uncheap to quite such high levels.

charco · **Joined:** Thu Jun 25, 2015 8:24 am **Posts:** 885

Madrid - Barcelona AVE (super fast train, 3 hours each way, 772 mile round trip) 180 Euros (158 pounds).

Manchester - London 416 mile round trip (2 hours 6 mins each way) 80 pounds (Trainline)

Pretty comparable ...

yloop · **Posted:** Sat Jun 24, 2017 12:32 pm

Hamburg to Dusseldorf. 4 hours, £26
Amsterdam to Groningen. 2 hours, £23
Vienna to Innsbruck. 4 hours, £63

We're way behind.

Have a google of the quality of the trains in these countries as well. And the punctuality.

accrington fan · **Joined:** Wed Jan 20, 2016 3:22 pm **Posts:** 19882

remember it was never that cheap to travel by train going back to the steam days. to get special day return tickets to say london you had to get a night train. think at times there,s rose tinted glasses on where british railways was concerned. buses still are and always were cheaper.

Snowy · **Joined:** Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:18 pm **Posts:** 37644

Disturbing trend on the continent, the railways are nationalised. Seems to work.

horden · **Posted:** Sat Jun 24, 2017 7:28 pm

accrington fan wrote:

remember it was never that cheap to travel by train going back to the steam days. to get special day return tickets to say london you had to get a night train. think at times there,s rose tinted glasses on where british railways was concerned. buses still are and always were cheaper.

In relation to wages, you are correct, it wasn't cheap. It is cheap now, if you have the money sitting in the bank to be able to book up months in advance. For those of us not so lucky, the walk on fares are the problem these days, and all the faff with the different train companies and ticket operators such as Trainline , Red Spotted Hanky etc. In the past it was common sense personified and they've absolutely murdered it.

yloop · **Posted:** Sat Jun 24, 2017 7:56 pm

You couldn't lose your tickets then either because they were the size of small country.

thornleypoolie · **Joined:** Wed Jan 02, 2008 7:10 pm **Posts:** 1101

Chip, if you don't use trainline, where do you look for your deals?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

The Colonel · **Joined:** Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:49 am **Posts:** 4891

How can it be 18.00 to go kings cross if you book 13 weeks in advance but about £80 if you leave till last minute.

What is the justification.

There MUST be one.

Jamie1952 · **Joined:** Fri Jul 15, 2011 3:56 pm **Posts:** 7517

The Colonel wrote:

Ah the old shareholder dividend problem.

A major cause of the problems in this country.

How often do you hear about profit warnings for big businesses, like Tesco etc.

All hell breaks loose because they are only going to make 1.2billion profit instead of the £2billion forecast.

So the shareholders dont make us much money. So what happens?

They shut stores, and make loads of people redundant.

Note they didnt lose money. Just didnt make enough to keep greedy fucking shareholders happy.

Happens in all PLC's, and its a culture that needs to change, but wont whilst the tories run the country.

Wouldnt it better to reduce profit forecasts and invest in their people?

BuT NO, There is no profit for profiteers in doing that.

The people come a long way second to the City.

Nail on the head, since Thatcher sold everything off the companies are now answerable too shareholders who are big players, Insurance Companies etc who are looking for a decent Dividends.
I dont care what it costs, renationalise them all.

dawlishmonkey · **Joined:** Fri Sep 01, 2006 11:53 am **Posts:** 1588

ticketysplit is a decent site to investigate for split tickets but remember the train you get has to stop at the stations you book.
then when you find the ticket you want book through the transpennine or gwr.com site as they dont charge booking fees or postage.
I work for the railways so mostly get it free but feel the pain of those who do

The Colonel · **Joined:** Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:49 am **Posts:** 4891

But transpenine are f........oh forget it.

thornleypoolie · **Joined:** Wed Jan 02, 2008 7:10 pm **Posts:** 1101

Chip Fireball wrote:

thornleypoolie wrote:

Chip, if you don't use trainline, where do you look for your deals?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

I normally look first of all at the individual train companies websites and I nearly always split ticket ( buy singles from each company ) if I have to change trains.

I very rarely use Trainline as anything other than a reference point, not least because the cheeky fuckers also charge a booking fee. They are usually decent for Hartlepool to Glasgow, but that's about all.

Obviously book as far in advance as possible, bang on the 12 weeks if you can.

Register with the individual companies as from time to time they will send you offers. Grand Central for instance if you travel regularly with them will send you a 20% off email at least once a month, which makes a big difference if you are buying a return.

From time to time I will also double book the Grand Central if I am not sure what day I will be travelling. So for instance I just booked trains to come home in September, as I'm not sure if I'm coming back on the Weds or the Thursday, I booked both trains. With the 20% discount I'm only paying £13 for each ticket, one of which I will use, the other I will either bin or sell on at face value .

Obviously the other key thing is to avoid using a peak train wherever possible.

I recently went to Blackpool by train, when I priced it up as one journey the price was around £85, however I split it down and went hartlepool to York on grand central and York to Blackpool on northern, cost £40 doing it that way.

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thornleypoolie · **Joined:** Wed Jan 02, 2008 7:10 pm **Posts:** 1101

Chip Fireball wrote:

thornleypoolie wrote:

Chip, if you don't use trainline, where do you look for your deals?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

I normally look first of all at the individual train companies websites and I nearly always split ticket ( buy singles from each company ) if I have to change trains.

I very rarely use Trainline as anything other than a reference point, not least because the cheeky fuckers also charge a booking fee. They are usually decent for Hartlepool to Glasgow, but that's about all.

Obviously book as far in advance as possible, bang on the 12 weeks if you can.

Register with the individual companies as from time to time they will send you offers. Grand Central for instance if you travel regularly with them will send you a 20% off email at least once a month, which makes a big difference if you are buying a return.

From time to time I will also double book the Grand Central if I am not sure what day I will be travelling. So for instance I just booked trains to come home in September, as I'm not sure if I'm coming back on the Weds or the Thursday, I booked both trains. With the 20% discount I'm only paying £13 for each ticket, one of which I will use, the other I will either bin or sell on at face value .

Obviously the other key thing is to avoid using a peak train wherever possible.

I recently went to Blackpool by train, when I priced it up as one journey the price was around £85, however I split it down and went hartlepool to York on grand central and York to Blackpool on northern, cost £40 doing it that way.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Snowy · **Joined:** Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:18 pm **Posts:** 37644

Renationalising the trains should cost nowt. They're just franchises.
We could then just have on railway.... We could call it British Rail, not all these poncey names we have now.

horden · **Posted:** Sun Jun 25, 2017 10:03 am

They did albeit temporarily re-nationalise the East Coast route in 2009. Its strange how when private enterprise fails, they turn to the state , to sort it out. We saw this when National Express made a pigs ear of running the East Coast mainline and with the RBS bank. During the years of nationalisation East Coast returned 200 million to the taxpayer ( not shareholders ).

Amazingly or maybe not, depending on which side of the fence you sit, it was returned to private ownership again in 2015,, Stagecoach and Virgin.

dawlishmonkey · **Joined:** Fri Sep 01, 2006 11:53 am **Posts:** 1588

Poolsrme wrote:

yloop wrote:

I've got access to their scheduling tool, at any given time they have a quarter of their trains laid up in either Newton Heath in Manchester yet the north east trains are all out and fully formed. They just don't care about the north east.

...and Northern care for Hartlepool even less. The new 'Northern Connect' Middlesbrough to Newcastle service with the new rolling stock is going via Stockton then the Stillington line!!

Roll on rail nationalisation

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