Public Transport.

[ABBEY]

All the "do gooders" tell you to ditch the car and go on public transport. Anyone here use it regular?
My experience is rail fares are shockingly high if you need a train to London less than 3 months in advance . I have used Virgin trains twice in since October and one was 30mins late and the other cancelled and then had to find a seat in unreserved even though we had pre booked on the cancelled train. I also went to Leeds and that was an hour late getting in .Reading a few peoples reviews on facebook the train I would catch in a morning to work is always late or very nearly always late and the price of bus fares for a return makes the car a more viable option.
If I was in London the tube is fast and services every 3 or 4 mins with disruption m,ainly on sundays.

 

[Drog]

I don't do much travelling by rail but in conversation I do find some of the tickets prohibitively expensive. For example the cost of a return fare to London is way too high (tomorrow at £300 / £500 1st class) and if 3 or 4 people are going together they may as well fly or better still do corporate transport and hire a Merc and a driver! No wonder the MWays between here and the South East are chocker. On the other side of the coin er indoors bought two return rail tickets from Preston to Edinburgh for a short break two years ago and I couldn't believe how cheap they were. In fact my only gripe was the cost of the car park at Preston. Compare the M6 north of Lancaster and it feels deserted to the same road South by comparison which is arse about face tbh.

As for overcrowded trains the standard answer is that platforms aren't long enough to add more carriages. So surely at times of increased demand carriages could be added with those at the back of the train kept locked until people in the carriages at the front have got on / off before the train moves forward when the carriages at the rear be opened and those at the front and now beyond the platform locked. Is that too simplistic or am I missing something?