NOTTINGHAM | The Transport Thread (Exc The Tram)

[kennyfresh]

Originally Posted by d4mo85

So in actual fact Leicester has the cheaper options, and that's with Arriva - First and Centrebus are both cheaper although they don't offer the number of services Arriva does.

I dont normally get saver tickets but the singles and returns are cheaper in Notts. It used to cost me £1.80 to town from the Narbs where as it is only £1.50 here and it is a similar distance.

I know what you mean on the correct change too, I must have paid 2 quid for my bus journeys when I move here as I never had any 50p's.

[BeestonLad]

Originally Posted by Ranwolf

Going off subject back to the news on the Nottingham/Leeds train. I have been waiting for ages for this since it was announced, and then when they finally introduce the timetable I find that the direct train from Northern is slower than the train with 1 change. What the hell is the point in that? 2 hours! it should be less than that (and is with a change).

2 hours?! Its under an hour and half from Peterborough and thats 50 more miles!

[thompski]

Peterborough is on the East Coast Mainline, which is served by an infrequent stopping high speed service. I guess the Nottingham-Leeds service is vastly slower stopping at all the towns on the route.

Interestingly Nottingham has a similar slow route to Manchester via Sheffield. Its quicker from Derby to go to Sheffield then it is to Nottingham, though its quicker still to change at Stoke from Derby.

Arriva Derby charge;

£2.00 for a single
£3.50 for a day ticket (Arriva Derby zone only)
£12 for a week ticket or ten trip
£3 for Night bus (currently on offer at 50p)

In Manchester I have the choice of a five minute train journey or ten minute bus journey (personally I walk unless its really bad weather) both are £1 single!

[xcatherinex]

I think NCT really should introduce a student type ticket like they have in Manchester on the routes to the universities. When I was at uni in Manchester, you could get from the city centre, all the way to Didsbury down one straight road which went past both Manchester and Manchester Mets buildings and past the student housing areas. When I first started (so this was 2004) a ticket for a week was £2. Yes, you read that right, £2 for the entire week on the one bus route. Admittedly you could only use one bus company but there were LOADS of buses, and I mean there literally wasn't a timetable at all, they just showed up every minute or so. I think it's about £5 now but its still bloody good value to say how many times a week you'd use it.

As far as I'm aware, there aren't student tickets, you just pay the standard £3 a day. NCT really should introduce something like a weekly ticket on the Unilink buses.

[MattN]

There are some discounts for students, see here.

Also, a little tip for travellers to Leeds-I use National Express, and will continute to do so, simply because journey times are often similar to that of Northern's new service and most of the time you can get £5 singles on the web. Northern Rail don't offer any advance fares, so you'll pay £26.50 at this year's fares. I know peak journey times are considerably longer and the coaches are less frequent though. It is possible to get advance rail fares to Leeds from Nottingham if connecting to an NXEC service at Grantham, and from Derby on CrossCountry (though not though from a connecting EMT service if I remember correctly).

[Stefan88]

I too will continue to use the coach until the train time to Leedss and back improves significantly.
The coach costs around £6 for a single to Leeds. The train costs £26 and takes longer. It's cheaper to drive from Nottingham to Leeds and back again than the cost of a single ticket on the train.

[Parkey]

Originally Posted by Stefan88

...The train costs £26 and takes longer. It's cheaper to drive from Nottingham to Leeds and back again than the cost of a single ticket on the train.

It's 72 miles each way and the average cost of motoring is 40p a mile (Including tax, insurance, depreciation, fuel, etc). I make that £57.60 return by car.

If there's just one of you the train sounds like a bargain to me!

[d4mo85]

Originally Posted by Parkey

It's 72 miles each way and the average cost of motoring is 40p a mile (Including tax, insurance, depreciation, fuel, etc). I make that £57.60 return by car.

If there's just one of you the train sounds like a bargain to me!

No offence but that's really anal.. Who buys a car after calculating the cost of tax, insurance and value depreciation PER MILE?

Road tax and insurance are a given, you pay them regardless if you own a car. You're still paying them even if you take the train.. so that only really works out if you don't own a car at all - and you could argue that having independance, comfort, privacy, and the freedom far out-weighs the extra cost.

If you have a sensible car, that does 50mpg, but averaging 30 due to traffic etc.. at £4.05 a gallon, makes it £20 - or there abouts for the return trip by car.

My car averages 45mpg, so it's even cheaper.

[MattN]

Originally Posted by Parkey

It's 72 miles each way and the average cost of motoring is 40p a mile (Including tax, insurance, depreciation, fuel, etc). I make that £57.60 return by car.

If there's just one of you the train sounds like a bargain to me!

Not if you compare it to the cost of a journey on National Express it doesn't. Also, in addition to other posts on this subject, the car remains considerably quicker than any public transport option.

[Parkey]

Originally Posted by d4mo85

No offence but that's really anal.. Who buys a car after calculating the cost of tax, insurance and value depreciation PER MILE?

Precisely! Nobody calculates it! Everybody thinks the car is cheaper, when often it's by far the most expensive. If people came to their senses and did the maths they might be a little bit more rational about it.

The majority of car owners take that ownership of a car is a given, write off hundreds to thousands of pounds at a time buying one, taxing it, insuring it, and maintaining it; then they convince themselves that the only cost of motoring is the petrol they use.

Cars, if driven a lot, loose their resale value faster, or need to be scrapped and replaced sooner. Insurance is based on annual mileage. Brakes, clutches, tyres etc need replacing every so many thousand miles. Then there's parking fees, tolls, congestion charges...

My household owns one car, no bigger than we need, and I use it when it's the best option, but I've done the maths and I know I'm saving money if I leave it at home and catch a train when that option is available and especially if I'm travelling alone.

Independence is my own two feet, I don't have to haul a tonne and a half of metal everywhere. Comfort is not having to sit holding a wheel for several hours concentrating on nothing but tarmac and red lights. Privacy is a pair of headphones, but perhaps coming into contact with other people isn't a bad thing? Freedom is not having to worry about traffic blocking the road or finding a parking space.

[Stefan88]

Quite alot of people have company cars though so the worry about maintenance costs, new tyres etc etc is redundant.

[thompski]

Ultimately it is short sighted 60s planning to blame for this sorry mess.

[xcatherinex]

Originally Posted by MattN

There are some discounts for students, see here.

Yeah, but £40 a month is hardly a saving. It's £42 a month for a standard Easy Rider.

[MattN]

I know the savings aren't vast, but they are there, and do increase a little the longer you put on the card.

[MattN]

Interesting thing I just noticed re: the new Nottingham-Leeds Northern service: It is in fact quicker to use the Northern service from Nottingham-Chesterfield, then change to the CrossCountry service or vice versa (especially travelling northbound to Leeds). And, advance fares are available on here (though I believe they can be a little more expensive than via the longer Grantham route). How very odd...

[Ranwolf]

Its not odd its ridiculous. What the hell was the point of making a new service that consistently takes longer. I wasnt satisfied with how long it took changing, now to have it take even longer direct. It beggars belief.

[xcatherinex]

Originally Posted by MattN

I know the savings aren't vast, but they are there, and do increase a little the longer you put on the card.

But thats the point, a lot of students won't be able to fork out a huge amount in one chunk, they often want to just pay for a week here and there (for example if there are reading weeks, or vacations). I know when I was a student I wouldn't have been able to afford to pay £40 for a months worth of travel. It was a really great system and it must have made an absolute fortune for the bus companies (as there are a few in Manchester, they all did week tickets).

[Stefan88]

Check out this website. It has a shit load of pictures of the Great Central Railway, with pictures of the tunnels that were used for Nottingham Victoria and all the viaducts that were built in the city.
It's such a shame that it all went tits up really. I think Nottingham would be a much wealthier city now if all this infrastructure was still there and still being used.

http://www.transportarchive.org.uk/s...tem=Nottingham

[Ranwolf]

I see the new timetable for EMT is out. well i had a quick look and 1hr 45min to 2hrs 5mins from Nottingham to London is really poor for a mainline train service of that distance. I cant believe Derby to London is about 15-20 mins quicker. I wouldnt mind so much but this is supposed to be the end result of new signaling upgrades etc and yet the time seems to be 5 mins slower at its fastest than i was taking 4 years ago..

[xcatherinex]

Originally Posted by Ranwolf

I see the new timetable for EMT is out. well i had a quick look and 1hr 45min to 2hrs 5mins from Nottingham to London is really poor for a mainline train service of that distance. I cant believe Derby to London is about 15-20 mins quicker. I wouldnt mind so much but this is supposed to be the end result of new signaling upgrades etc and yet the time seems to be 5 mins slower at its fastest than i was taking 4 years ago..

I wouldn't trust a word EMT says to be honest. I was told that the works going on between Chesterfield and Sheffield (meaning 2 changes on my regular journey to Manchester) would cease on 14th December. As the train I normally get on a Sunday evening was never affected (ie, it was a direct train), it really did make me wonder why on the day the work stopped, my journey had 2 changes in it. Also, My train was left outside Derby station 'waiting for a platform' (erm, hello?! It's a Sunday night, not rush-hour!!) for 30 minutes, meaning I missed my connection. Seriously awful train service in my opinion.