Trains.

I could moan all day about the idiocy of train companies. (How on earth it ends up costing the tax payer money to cover fare dodgers when the trains are privatised is beyond me for a start). But the one that bugs me is why is it cheaper to buy a return than a single? What sort of accounting trickery is going on? I assume it can't really be corporate stupidity, there must be a reason, surely? But what the fuck is it?
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 13:37, 19 replies)

Only the profits were privatised
Losses are still publicly owned.

Also - first class tickets (free booze, food, leg room etc.) are now often the same price as normal tickets.
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 13:39, closed)

OK, in typing that, I realised that I think I can figure it out - the trains are subsidised (so we should stop calling them 'privatised'). That not only explains fare dodgers costing the tax payer, but I bet they are subsidised on the number of individual journeys they sell. So if they sell a return ticket, even if only half is used, that's two journies they've recorded rather than one. So they make returns slightly cheaper to make us buy them even if we don't need them.

I have no idea if that's true, but it makes sense, I think.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 13:40, closed)

You filthy communist.

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 13:44, closed)

It's not my fault. It's this sharing the bath water, unless I get there fast it does nothing to clean me. Nothing I tell you.

( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 13:49, closed)

Quiet, or it's the gulag, for you,
comrade.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 13:55, closed)

Not the gulag! Art Galleries are soooooooooo dull.

( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 13:57, closed)

It costs me, even with road tax and insurance lumped in, no more than £15-£20 to drive to London. That's the height of materialistic western consumerism gone mad - private travel, a car that can carry 5 people all to myself, heated seats and air-con, private entertainment (Radio 4), leaves from my door whenever the fuck I say it does, and it's pretty quick.

Why does a vastly inferior service by train cost more than 5 times as much, when they're transporting hundreds of commuters in bulk (therefore, you'd imagine, sharing costs across individual customers somewhat). And how do they still manage to fuck it up so spectacularly?

I feel bad, because bulk transport surely must be less wasteful. I just don't see why I should have to pay more to take up less resources. Mine's a pint of petrol, please.
(kithkill, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 13:51, closed)

this.
we just drive to newbury park and get the tube from there.
( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 13:58, closed)

*clicks until mouse is reduced to mush*

( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 14:17, closed)

Have you accounted for the depreciation/consumables and maintenance on your car?
I did mine the other day: it worked out to about 25p a mile, and I do all my own services and many other jobs myself. And that's on a second hand diesel averaging 50mpg!
( P-MONKE We're all fucked, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 17:28, closed)

Okay, that pushes it up. But I could get 4 more people there with not much more wear and tear on my car, and spread that cost across all 5 of us. So 5p a mile. A train takes *hundreds* of people.

I'm not buying your argument, train-lover. Plus, all trains smell of wee.
(kithkill, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 17:43, closed)

Never mind the single/return thing. I once tried to travel from home to my uncle's house. He lives near a large city. This entailed:
1. train from Station A near my house into my home town.
2. train from Station B in my home town to Station C in his
3. him coming to pick me up in his car from the station.

Certainly sir, ticket to Station C will be £25. (Long time ago!)

Then it occurs to me that there's a station D where he lives - I could just get the train straight there, save him the bother of picking me up. Sure, it's another transfer, another twenty minutes and another ten miles further away, but hey, how much more can it cost? So I ask for a ticket to his home village...

Certainly sir... ticket to Station D, via B and C, that's £23 please.

EH?

So to go to C costs £25, but to go to D VIA C costs... LESS? What's to stop me buying a ticket to D, then getting off at C?

Nothing, I guess, sir.
(SonofRojBlake, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 18:42, closed)

Those barriers you have to put your ticket in to get out of the station...
They won't let you out if you get off a stop early.
They don't in Truro anyway.
(Blahh, Fri 24 Feb 2012, 11:33, closed)

Then just ask the human to let you out.
It's perfectly legitimate to get off early (oo-er) on a walk-up ticket. It's not if you have an advance purchase ticket, in which case just buy the cheapest single from somewhere to Truro before setting off and use that to get out.
(ubergeekian, Fri 24 Feb 2012, 15:27, closed)

Legally
it's breach of contract.

www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/local/darlington/8415942.__155_/
( social hand grenade I was a lurker before you were a lurker, Fri 24 Feb 2012, 17:58, closed)

That Professor
had bought advanced tickets so not quite the same as turning up on the day??
(manwiddicombe is thinking of something witty to add here, Sat 25 Feb 2012, 15:39, closed)

Travelling London Paddington to Cheltenham for a house party one friday night...
I got out of work late, the Tube was shit and slow (so running normally) and I got the Paddington at about six o'clock. I queue for a 'fast' ticket machine and get quoted £97 for a off peak return.

After picking myself off the floor, queuing up for the kiosk retards to tell me the same price due to 'peak travelling times', I ask when the ticket prices return to sanity. Turns out it's half an hour, and the cost is £25. So I go to a pub, have a nice cold overpriced pint, board the train a little later than expected and save myself £75 quid.

The thing that really gets my goat is that the peak train was fucking EMPTY. Just one or two suits who probably pay for their tickets on expenses.

How the fucking cunty fuck is that cost effective?!
(Mr Fudge It shouldn't be illegal to have sex with an eagle, Fri 24 Feb 2012, 11:04, closed)

Sir, your logic has no place within these walls.

It can only be applied Monday-Friday, on posts after 10:30am but before 5pm (not including third-tier responses), any time during weekends (but not Bank Holidays) and when made as a first post on /questions.
(Miraclefish How appropriate, you fight like a cow, Mon 27 Feb 2012, 13:27, closed)

Well played Sir. Your post made me simultaneously laugh and flashback to that dark, dark day, thereby unleashing both amusement and RAGE. I now feel utterly spent. *lays down in the corner crying*
(Mr Fudge It shouldn't be illegal to have sex with an eagle, Mon 27 Feb 2012, 15:17, closed)