pembrokestephen
New Member
Giles said:
Quite...
Aviation fuel tax - Why Oh Why Not???
- Thread starter aurora green
- Start date
Quite...pembrokestephen said:
That would be fine so long as all subsidies are removed from other forms of public transport (currently £5 Billion per annum for rail travel plus the £64 Billion capital investment outlined in Transport 2010) to ensure that there's a truly level playing field.
There's nothing to stop the rail operators from running gas turbine powered trains (fuelled with aviation kerosene) as oposed to the filthy diesel that's used.
Cobbles, you spout so much shit. You present selective information mixed with exaggerations and just plain lies.
Let's go a through a few things. Some small ones first:
Here's you talking shit: Kings Cross to the City 40 minutes? You've either not done the journey, or you know you are lying. It's 10 minutes KX to Bank on the Tube. At 2 miles the only way you could make it last 40 minutes would be to walk.
Here's you being selective with your arguments: Petrol Cost When 'the B' suggests about people driving rather than flying, you use the petrol consumption of a very ineffecient car that almost noone owns, to counter the argument.
Here's your jumble of assertions taken apart: Your London to Leeds journey. Remember that you've said that trains need to be cheap for no advance booking fares.
So let's compare like with like and look at a trip on Monday, going up in the morning, coming back in the evening. Lowest flight price: £324.90 on BMI on the 08:50. There is no option of an earlier flight.
The gate at Heathrow closes at 08:30, so to be sure of making it through security and out to the gate, you'll be at Paddington for around 07:30 to catch the Heathrow Express, and will get to Leeds centre at about 10am. That's 2.5 hours. About the same you quote for the train.
Coming back you get to Heathrow (the 'excellent air link' you cited) for 19:55. Again in the evening there is no earlier flight. Assuming you have no baggage, then you'll be at Paddington for around 20:30 on the Heathrow Express. (another 24 quid round trip)
Cost of flight + airport transfer: £350, on a non-changeable economy ticket. If you miss the morning flight, go to the ticket desk and buy another very very expensive "cheapest" ticket. The next flight out is lunchtime. Super. If you miss the evening flight (there isn't another)... go find a hotel. Or more likely, go to the train station.
Cost of train: £165, on an open return ticket. If you miss the morning train, there's another 30 minutes later. And the same in the evening.
Like for like comparison, on a route you cited, booked on the basis you cited, nearly £200 more to fly.
The only problem for you taking the train on this route is that that having to "sit with proles" (as you put it). So not only do you lack credibility, you are obnoxious as well it seems.
Let's go a through a few things. Some small ones first:
Here's you talking shit: Kings Cross to the City 40 minutes? You've either not done the journey, or you know you are lying. It's 10 minutes KX to Bank on the Tube. At 2 miles the only way you could make it last 40 minutes would be to walk.
Here's you being selective with your arguments: Petrol Cost When 'the B' suggests about people driving rather than flying, you use the petrol consumption of a very ineffecient car that almost noone owns, to counter the argument.
Here's your jumble of assertions taken apart: Your London to Leeds journey. Remember that you've said that trains need to be cheap for no advance booking fares.
So let's compare like with like and look at a trip on Monday, going up in the morning, coming back in the evening. Lowest flight price: £324.90 on BMI on the 08:50. There is no option of an earlier flight.
The gate at Heathrow closes at 08:30, so to be sure of making it through security and out to the gate, you'll be at Paddington for around 07:30 to catch the Heathrow Express, and will get to Leeds centre at about 10am. That's 2.5 hours. About the same you quote for the train.
Coming back you get to Heathrow (the 'excellent air link' you cited) for 19:55. Again in the evening there is no earlier flight. Assuming you have no baggage, then you'll be at Paddington for around 20:30 on the Heathrow Express. (another 24 quid round trip)
Cost of flight + airport transfer: £350, on a non-changeable economy ticket. If you miss the morning flight, go to the ticket desk and buy another very very expensive "cheapest" ticket. The next flight out is lunchtime. Super. If you miss the evening flight (there isn't another)... go find a hotel. Or more likely, go to the train station.
Cost of train: £165, on an open return ticket. If you miss the morning train, there's another 30 minutes later. And the same in the evening.
Like for like comparison, on a route you cited, booked on the basis you cited, nearly £200 more to fly.
The only problem for you taking the train on this route is that that having to "sit with proles" (as you put it). So not only do you lack credibility, you are obnoxious as well it seems.
pembrokestephen
New Member
No, only the small matter of developing + building an entire fleet of trains. Nothing to it. really.Cobbles said:
Ms T
Honey-coloured ramparts
Personally, I think carbon offsetting plane journeys should be made compulsory, or at least included as an option (that you have to opt out of), when booking a flight. It doesn't cost much (a flight to Turkey cost me a fiver), and if everyone did it it might make a difference.
pembrokestephen
New Member
Yeah, this is always the danger - that people will do their carbon offsetting and then say "There. Job done, world saved.", and miss the fact that quite often there's a lot more harm being done than a bit of extra carbon flying around the place.the B said:
Still, it's a start...
Here's you talking shit: Kings Cross to the City 40 minutes? You've either not done the journey, or you know you are lying. It's 10 minutes KX to Bank on the Tube. At 2 miles the only way you could make it last 40 minutes would be to walk.
I don't generally find that it's possible to "magic" myself instantaneously from the train to a Tube Platform (where there may not be a train waiting to depart instantly......). It takes a few minutes to get to the Tube Platform and then wait for a train and as I'm not usually involved in a meeting where the venue is actually on the platform of the destination tube station, again it takes a few minutes to get from the tube train to exit the station and walk to an office. Factoring in the inevitable delays, I'd never give any KX to city trip less than 40 minutes.
Here's you being selective with your arguments: Petrol Cost When 'the B' suggests about people driving rather than flying, you use the petrol consumption of a very ineffecient car that almost noone owns, to counter the argument.
If you've followed the thread, you'll see that I didn't propose the Veyron and in any event, I was presuming that the suggestion that a plane load of passengers should embark on individual car journeys was merely a joke.
Here's your jumble of assertions taken apart: Your London to Leeds journey. Remember that you've said that trains need to be cheap for no advance booking fares.
London to Leeds may be on the fringes of viable train usage but you can't seriously suggest that the train even comes close if we look at, oooooh say, Aberdeen to Birmingham or Leeds to Southampton, never mind the likes of Manchester to Belfast or Edinburgh to Brussels.
Cost of train: £165, on an open return ticket.
Actually the cheapest First Class fare is £250+.
I don't generally find that it's possible to "magic" myself instantaneously from the train to a Tube Platform (where there may not be a train waiting to depart instantly......). It takes a few minutes to get to the Tube Platform and then wait for a train and as I'm not usually involved in a meeting where the venue is actually on the platform of the destination tube station, again it takes a few minutes to get from the tube train to exit the station and walk to an office. Factoring in the inevitable delays, I'd never give any KX to city trip less than 40 minutes.
Here's you being selective with your arguments: Petrol Cost When 'the B' suggests about people driving rather than flying, you use the petrol consumption of a very ineffecient car that almost noone owns, to counter the argument.
If you've followed the thread, you'll see that I didn't propose the Veyron and in any event, I was presuming that the suggestion that a plane load of passengers should embark on individual car journeys was merely a joke.
Here's your jumble of assertions taken apart: Your London to Leeds journey. Remember that you've said that trains need to be cheap for no advance booking fares.
London to Leeds may be on the fringes of viable train usage but you can't seriously suggest that the train even comes close if we look at, oooooh say, Aberdeen to Birmingham or Leeds to Southampton, never mind the likes of Manchester to Belfast or Edinburgh to Brussels.
Cost of train: £165, on an open return ticket.
Actually the cheapest First Class fare is £250+.
laptop said:Cobbles is Jeremy Clarkson and I claim my €5
Not correct - I don't think that JC would even allow his mortal remains to be carried on a train after death whereas I'm perfectly happy to use trains if they can confer a benefit (which they can do on journeys of less that about 150 miles).
SNCF use them on non-electrified routes (top speed 185Kph) - they're self-contained multi-car units a bit like Virgin Voyagers (but without the stinky blatting diesel engines).pembrokestephen said:No, only the small matter of developing + building an entire fleet of trains. Nothing to it. really.
the B said:
40 minutes is how long I allow to get from just outside one end of Zone 1 to anywhere in Zone 1 (except the far end). From standing up.
So.
Cobbles dismisses science.
Cobbles dismisses economics.
Cobbles dismisses geography, now.
Could this be a simple case of irrational fury at transportation taxes of all kinds?
The only other explanation I can think of is a wind-up.
laptop said:
Yeah, I've been puzzling this one myself... I think it's the first. I used to hang around in a major aviation industry forum alot (I have a pilot's license), and never read anything like this stuff - made up journey times and stuff. The bloke - I assume it's a bloke - is slightly unhinged.
the B said:
Whether it takes 20 minutes to get from the end of the rail terminal platform at KX to a destination 9 minutes walk away from the entrance of Bank tube station or 40 minutes, that still means that an Edinburgh-London or Birmingham-Bristol trip is still massively longer by rail (as opposed to impossible e.g. Cardiff-Dublin) so that rail does not offer a viable alternative to short haul flights past the 150 mile threshold.
Yes, an economy seat on a Virgin Voyager may well be bigger than all the seats on a FLY-BE ATP or a BMI Embraer, however you're only on those seats for about 50-60 minutes-Max, as opposed to being stuck there for several hours, surrounded by hissing crackling leakage from MP3 players and idiots braying into their phones.
I can't help but feel that Cobbles is demonstrating exactly why we need an aviation fuel tax.
Most people make transport decisions based on the direct cost to themselves. And by cost I mean the trade-off of actual financial cost of tickets, time, comfort, convenience etc.
Indirect costs and wider costs (to the environment, to other people) don't tend to factor.
The only way to make people switch mode is to shift the balance of the trade-offs. Which can of course be to make the alternative more appealing (eg cheaper train tickets or faster journey times - see Virgin Manchester/Leeds to London or Eurostar for examples of where journey time reductions are trying to compete directly with air travel).
But often the only viable short-term solution is to increase the cost of travel on the mode you want to disuade people from using.
Hence congestion charging, hence the talk of road tolls, hence aviation fuel tax.
Particularly when we are talking about short internal flights, there has got to be some serious thought about how the trade-off against rail can be improved. There is something really wrong when air can come out as the preferred option on a journey like Leeds-London.
Most people make transport decisions based on the direct cost to themselves. And by cost I mean the trade-off of actual financial cost of tickets, time, comfort, convenience etc.
Indirect costs and wider costs (to the environment, to other people) don't tend to factor.
The only way to make people switch mode is to shift the balance of the trade-offs. Which can of course be to make the alternative more appealing (eg cheaper train tickets or faster journey times - see Virgin Manchester/Leeds to London or Eurostar for examples of where journey time reductions are trying to compete directly with air travel).
But often the only viable short-term solution is to increase the cost of travel on the mode you want to disuade people from using.
Hence congestion charging, hence the talk of road tolls, hence aviation fuel tax.
Particularly when we are talking about short internal flights, there has got to be some serious thought about how the trade-off against rail can be improved. There is something really wrong when air can come out as the preferred option on a journey like Leeds-London.
pembrokestephen
New Member
I haven't seen too many SNCF trains zipping around the UK rail network. This might, of course, not be entirely unrelated to the fact that, thanks to various short-sighted government decisions, we've only ever had one line in this country that was built to Continental loading gauge (the Midland Main Line), and that's been truncated thanks to our Dear Leaderene selling off part of the route for development.Cobbles said:
So the point still remains: we'd have to develop and build a new fleet of trains to achieve what you're proposing.
pembrokestephen said:
Needless to say, I wasn't suggesting that we ship them across the Channel wholesale, we could simply get the manufacturer to adapt the model for UK usage (e.g. double up on the seating capacity and render the toilets permanently blocked).
In order to compete with air travel we need a whole new set of rolling stock, capable of at least twice the current "speeds", never mind new track, stations and signalling. Now who's going to pay for that - if we triple the fares, then rail will be even less competitive and taxpayers aren't going to be happy to shell out billions on something that most people only use infrequently - apart from commuting.
In the real world, there is no viable alternative to short haul flights.
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