Which of you will be hit by the 2.8% rail fare increase? | Vital Football

Which of you will be hit by the 2.8% rail fare increase?

Wayne.Kerr

Vital Champions League
So much for tax cuts

Oddly the ONS does not see RPI as a viable measure of inflation but somehow the Transport Ministry begs to differ.
 
I use Virgin Trains to get to quite a few Gills games, particularly home games. I`ve always been pretty happy with their service - it`s a very quick 2 hours and 13 minutes from Preston to London Euston. However, Virgin has lost its franchise and from December the route (West Coast, Glasgow - London) will be taken over by the Italian State Operator - Trenitalia, in conjunction with First Group. They`ll be re-furbing the trains, presumably the same trains currently operated by Virgin. It`ll no doubt come with extra costs, possibly including higher charges for on-board Pizza etc. I`m no fan of Richard Branson but everyone I know has been happy with Virgin - probably cost a fortune to change it all around !
 
I use Virgin Trains to get to quite a few Gills games, particularly home games. I`ve always been pretty happy with their service - it`s a very quick 2 hours and 13 minutes from Preston to London Euston. However, Virgin has lost its franchise and from December the route (West Coast, Glasgow - London) will be taken over by the Italian State Operator - Trenitalia, in conjunction with First Group. They`ll be re-furbing the trains, presumably the same trains currently operated by Virgin. It`ll no doubt come with extra costs, possibly including higher charges for on-board Pizza etc. I`m no fan of Richard Branson but everyone I know has been happy with Virgin - probably cost a fortune to change it all around !
I too have been happy with the service either from Lancaster or Leeds down south. On the ECML, the Virgin/Stage Coach [Virgin branding] franchise failed financially - optimistic bidding perhaps; on the WCML, the same consortium but more 50/50 has been barred because it failed to recognise the liability for employees pensions. There should not be an increase in fares because they are set by the regulator but there will be all sorts of changes - livery, timetables and stock perhaps. What it does show is that this method of privatisation, franchising, is broken and is a mockery. It's a mockery in the sense that all staff have to be retained on the same contractual conditions [good thing] just different uniforms. Second all franchisees with the exception of the First Group are foreign state-owned railway companies, eg Dutch, German, French, Italian etc etc. Moreover, each time the ECML franchisee failed, it has been taken back into public ownership - this time LNER - and flourished.
 
I admit to not knowing too much about it but, in principle, i`ve nothing against the notion of re-nationalising the operation of trains in the UK.
 
I use Virgin Trains to get to quite a few Gills games, particularly home games. I`ve always been pretty happy with their service - it`s a very quick 2 hours and 13 minutes from Preston to London Euston. However, Virgin has lost its franchise and from December the route (West Coast, Glasgow - London) will be taken over by the Italian State Operator - Trenitalia, in conjunction with First Group. They`ll be re-furbing the trains, presumably the same trains currently operated by Virgin. It`ll no doubt come with extra costs, possibly including higher charges for on-board Pizza etc. I`m no fan of Richard Branson but everyone I know has been happy with Virgin - probably cost a fortune to change it all around !
I've used C2C for nearly ten years since moving to Essex and always rated them highly, especially after years of shite service from southeastern.
However, in the three years (roughly) since Trenitalia took over, a few niggling problems have started to set in, most noticeably train cancellations due to staff shortages. As I said, these are not exactly regular but were non existent before the takeover so seems they are trying to run the whole thing on a skeleton staff.
A few colleagues have recently left to become train drivers (many for C2C) and the overwhelming feedback I get from them is that there is shed loads of overtime due to lack of drivers.
They are now recruiting again so maybe they are addressing the problem which may just stop them being knocked off the top of the customer satisfaction table.
You may get nice newly liveried trains but beware the missing drivers ???
 
I've used C2C for nearly ten years since moving to Essex and always rated them highly, especially after years of shite service from southeastern.
However, in the three years (roughly) since Trenitalia took over, a few niggling problems have started to set in, most noticeably train cancellations due to staff shortages. As I said, these are not exactly regular but were non existent before the takeover so seems they are trying to run the whole thing on a skeleton staff.
A few colleagues have recently left to become train drivers (many for C2C) and the overwhelming feedback I get from them is that there is shed loads of overtime due to lack of drivers.
They are now recruiting again so maybe they are addressing the problem which may just stop them being knocked off the top of the customer satisfaction table.
You may get nice newly liveried trains but beware the missing drivers ???


When i first heard about it I did think that Tranitalia was a bit of a strange name for a railway company. But when I put my specs on I could see that I had addressed it all wrong ! Good (i think) to know about Trenitalia`s Essex business, cheers Nobby. But, do they have Pizzas ?
 
When i first heard about it I did think that Tranitalia was a bit of a strange name for a railway company. But when I put my specs on I could see that I had addressed it all wrong ! Good (i think) to know about Trenitalia`s Essex business, cheers Nobby. But, do they have Pizzas ?
Haha, no pizza I'm afraid. You're lucky if the bloody toilet is working ☹
 
Across the whole country, train companies are desperately short of staff, which makes you wonder why with some training, serious training, you could be on £60k a year. Boris will find it hard to recruit police men and women against that sort of competition. Plus, you get all sorts of travel perks only matched by taking your panda car home. Something's not right in this world.
 
By the time I left Medway in 2005 I was looking back at the days of British Rail as a golden age of commuting. Infact it was the awful journeys to london that first put the idea of emigrating in my mind.
 
Across the whole country, train companies are desperately short of staff, which makes you wonder why with some training, serious training, you could be on £60k a year. Boris will find it hard to recruit police men and women against that sort of competition. Plus, you get all sorts of travel perks only matched by taking your panda car home. Something's not right in this world.
Remember. The. Pension. Issue.
 
South Eastern milk their customers. They don't bother with special deals to get old gimmers like me to use them off peak. They think a day trip to Margate for £25 is a bargain ffs. I'm told by a mate he went to Birmingham and back for about £11 and it wasn't even limited to.day return.
 
South Eastern milk their customers. They don't bother with special deals to get old gimmers like me to use them off peak. They think a day trip to Margate for £25 is a bargain ffs. I'm told by a mate he went to Birmingham and back for about £11 and it wasn't even limited to.day return.
There are bargain but not darn sarf it seems. I travel back via Birmingham Moor Street and walk 5 mins to New Street for the train oop north. Marylebone to Moor Street offpeak is £9 or £6 with an old gimmers card. I assume you have an old gimmers card or a two together job.
 
Remember. The. Pension. Issue.
It's not really an issue Trev. A PC pays about £500 per month in pension contributions leaving net pay a lot less than the recruitment ads would have you think. With the extra £20k+ p.a. you can earn as a train driver, (plus overtime) there is plenty left over to invest to replace the Police pension (As I mentioned, a lot of police officers are resigning, not retiring but resigning to take up train driving jobs. They've done the maths and are better off, some earning in excess of £90k!!!!!). As Wayne says, why would you join the Police?????