Welsh internal flights

[editor]

Hmm, my home is in NoWa and my country pad is in Camberwell, but some aren't interested in reality as myths are so much easier to cling to, especially for the unimaginative.

That's total gibberish, I'm afraid. Please explain what point it is you're trying to make.

As I've pointed out before there is only £6 difference between riding a train and an airplane but some people would rather spend that £6 on a few cans of lager, I guess.

No, some people give a shit about the environment and *choose* to travel by train. People like me, for example.

I've no idea why you're bringing in comparisons with cans of lager either. What point are you trying to make? FYI, I very rarely have a drink on a train.

One can sit back and judge based on unreality or one can listen to those who live the life and learn from it. But then again, ignorance is such bliss for so many

Once again, I've no idea what you're on about. Who's "ignorant"?

 

[King Biscuit Time]

According to other posters it is. Which has me as I was certain it was privatised yonks ago.

Nah, buses were still full of signs saying 'This is *your* bus' yadda yadda yadda when I left Cardiff 6 months or so ago.

Fucking good job too - When they dropped dayriders to £3 it was like having the freedom of the city in your pocket - especially for evening drinking in other parts of town. Now I have to put with fricking First and Stagecoach in competition in Sheffield .

 

[MrFalafel]

That's total gibberish, I'm afraid. Please explain what point it is you're trying to make.No, some people give a shit about the environment and *choose* to travel by train. People like me, for example.

I've no idea why you're bringing in comparisons with cans of lager either. What point are you trying to make? FYI, I very rarely have a drink on a train.Once again, I've no idea what you're on about. Who's "ignorant"?

You certainly do not have a clue as to what I'm talking about

I'll simplify it for you:

- I live in North Wales and rent a flat in Camberwell
- I haven't owned a car since 1989 and travel huge amounts of distances on trains
- One is more apt to encounter unsavoury people on a train then on an airplane as unsavory people quite often would rather spend money on lager then on upgrading their travel costs to be able to afford a flight.

So, while its totally groovy to use the train to save the earth, the reality is that for many people the unsavoury and unsafe nature of many trains makes saving the earth in this manner not an option. So they can either take a flight or drive themselves.

And isn't' anyone going to tell me the carbon footprint of a propeller driven Jetstream 31 for 45 minutes vs a diesel engine running for 4 hours?

 

[editor]

- One is more apt to encounter unsavoury people on a train then on an airplane as unsavory people quite often would rather spend money on lager then on upgrading their travel costs to be able to afford a flight.

Yes, you've already delivered your snobbish lecture on how unpleasant you find poor people and the "sub proletariat " who obviously can't afford your self declared "great life."

 

[llantwit]

You certainly do not have a clue as to what I'm talking about

I'll simplify it for you:

- I live in North Wales and rent a flat in Camberwell
- I haven't owned a car since 1989 and travel huge amounts of distances on trains
- One is more apt to encounter unsavoury people on a train then on an airplane as unsavory people quite often would rather spend money on lager then on upgrading their travel costs to be able to afford a flight.

So, while its totally groovy to use the train to save the earth, the reality is that for many people the unsavoury and unsafe nature of many trains makes saving the earth in this manner not an option. So they can either take a flight or drive themselves.

And isn't' anyone going to tell me the carbon footprint of a propeller driven Jetstream 31 for 45 minutes vs a diesel engine running for 4 hours?

You are fucking unbelievable, 'son'.
'Unsavoury'. You fucking tosser.

 

[chainsaw cat]

Well I did do the train back ot NoWa after taking the flight down to Cardiff so I can compare and contrast.

Walking through Cardiff bus station to the train terminal past the bums and drunks leftover from the following evening certainly wasn't the same as arriving at the clean and remote airport.

Was it a train or a time machine?

 

[pembrokestephen]

I just can't help thinking that no matter how "shit hot" public transport was, if there were enough buses running in enough areas, and at frequent enough times to get myself and my children to where we needed to be, when we needed to be there with any level of convenience then there'd be so many of the damn things running that they would be unenvironmental too.

Well, not sure about that.

Even a smallish bus can carry 15-25 cars' worth of people, and well-maintained buses have the potential to be particularly good on emissions, so the switch from cars to buses would represent a significant environmental benefit.

But good public transport (including those buses) would increase travel! True, that might negate their environmental benefits, but what it would do would be to hugely increase the economic opportunities. And, even if travel rose by, say, a factor of 4, we'd STILL be emitting LOADS less carbon dioxide than we were with crappy buses, and a quarter of the traffic driving itself around in cars.

 

[pembrokestephen]

I ride the train from NoWa to London twice a week, son. Been doing it for years now. I know what I'm talking about.

Hop a weekend train from Chester to Rhyl sometime and tell me its a pleasant experience. Go ahead.

But that's not necessarily an inherent fault of the transport system itself.

Fair enough, you're comparing things as they stand at the moment, but this thread is about what to change for the future. At the moment, the WA is subsidising an air link from North Wales (can't bring myself to call it "NoWa" - maybe it's because I'm secretly an expat Sais in Pembrokeshire), and the government is doing its level best to unsubsidise rail. So you have an artificially low (but still high enough to dissuade the proles) air fare, against a somewhat more market-oriented rail fare. I'd argue that, if you're going to subsidise services, it should be the other way around.

The big factor in this is cars. It just shouldn't be able to cost less to go somewhere by car, even two-up, than it does by train: that's ridiculous. And it shouldn't really take twice as long to get somewhere by train as it does to make the same journey by car (though I'll admit that Wales has plenty of far-flung and remote bits that couldn't reasonably sustain direct train services).

And - to bolt another little bugbear of mine onto this thread - the transport infrastructure should be integrated. I ranted a while ago about the extant North-South link, viz the X40 bus that goes between Aberystwyth and Carmarthen, and thence to Swansea and (I believe Cardiff). This bus service arrives outside Aberystwyth Station seven minutes after the two-hourly rail service has departed. In other words, purely thanks to timetabling, there's an 1h50m penalty added onto any journey that involves a bus/train interchange at Aber. That's just madness, and is going to have pretty much anyone reaching for their car keys.

It's not even just north-south traffic. I live in Pembroke, and work variously in Haverfordwest, Carmarthen, and various points in between. Even in the winter, one of the major hassles with the A477 Pembroke to St Clears road is the level of heavy traffic, mostly lorries going to the ferry at Pembroke Dock. I can't believe that we're shifting stuff on what is, in effect a point-to-point link between (say) Swansea and Pembroke Dock/Fishguard in individual lorries. Why aren't they being put on the back of trains and taken to the ferry(ies) like that, freeing up a restricted road corridor (the A477 has two decent overtaking spots in its 25 miles between St Clears and Pembroke) for local traffic?

For that matter, why is a county that is hugely dependent on tourist traffic effectively forcing holidaymakers coming here to drive? We're just finishing building the Bluestone holiday complex in the middle of the National Park, miles from any serious public transport infrastructure - the only way to get there will be to drive, unless they've set up some kind of shuttle service from Carmarthen or Haverfordwest. And, meanwhile, the WA is talking about spending uge amounts of money on doubling the A40 Carmarthen-Haverfordwest-Fishguard road. It all seems very short-sighted.

Me, I'd go for a hydrofoil/SeaCat service from Swansea-Tenby-Milford Haven-Cardigan-Aberystwyth-Pwllheli.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

It says a lot about the capitalist system that it is cheaper to fly to Italy than catch a train to Scotland. It is cheaper to travel by car often than to travel by bus or train