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| land fit for heroes.. | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 16 2015, 11:44 PM (589 Views) | |
| Jonksy | Aug 16 2015, 11:44 PM Post #1 |
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Senior Member
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Shame of VJ day rail chiefs: Fares cynically ramped up for a day 'to cash in' on old heroes travelling to the capital South West Trains withdrew discount offer for fares to London on Saturday Veterans and patriots travelling to mark VJ Day anniversary paid full price Company claimed it was for safety reasons but veterans slammed move Hundreds of former servicemen travelled to capital to mark the event http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3200296/Shame-VJ-day-rail-chiefs-Fares-cynically-ramped-day-cash-old-heroes-travelling-capital.html#ixzz3j1aU5jhT |
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| Steve K | Aug 16 2015, 11:52 PM Post #2 |
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Once and future cynic
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Edited by Steve K, Aug 17 2015, 06:40 PM.
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| Rich | Aug 17 2015, 12:09 AM Post #3 |
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I disagree Steve, if that is the going rate then so be it, on the other hand, had the RBL negotiated a discount then I would be fully in favour of the rail company showing understanding for such an important event...lack of communication perhaps? |
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| Jonksy | Aug 17 2015, 12:23 AM Post #4 |
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But they were supposedly running a summer promotion offer on return tickets to London in august.. |
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| Rich | Aug 17 2015, 12:27 AM Post #5 |
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Supposedly? Various governments in this country were "supposedly" in office for the benefit of it's citizens who paid their over inflated wages, what say you now of the word....."supposedly" Edited by Rich, Aug 17 2015, 12:31 AM.
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| Jonksy | Aug 17 2015, 12:32 AM Post #6 |
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Read the link... South West Trains is running a summer promotion, offering passengers return tickets to London for £20 during August. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3200296/Shame-VJ-day-rail-chiefs-Fares-cynically-ramped-day-cash-old-heroes-travelling-capital.html#ixzz3j1kBkpWB @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook |
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| Rich | Aug 17 2015, 12:38 AM Post #7 |
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Then take south west trains to task. |
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| Jonksy | Aug 17 2015, 12:42 AM Post #8 |
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That's the governments job...But I guess they are all old boys together.. |
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| Heinrich | Aug 17 2015, 12:56 AM Post #9 |
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Regular Guy
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Tories and New Labour send soldiers to die for the capitalist system. Profit means more than principles. |
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| Rich | Aug 17 2015, 01:21 AM Post #10 |
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I see and who do you have to thank for the privilege of being able to say that.? |
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| Lewis | Aug 17 2015, 06:58 AM Post #11 |
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Yes totally agree an absolute rip off. Time the railways were re-nationalised. |
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| C-too | Aug 17 2015, 07:09 AM Post #12 |
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Honourable Member
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Which non-capitalist country do you think would be a good example to follow ? |
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| Steve K | Aug 17 2015, 09:24 AM Post #13 |
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Once and future cynic
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First with that August offer they created an expectation for the veterans ad families and then at the last minute took it away. Heartless. They thought it was a good offer to attract business and then seeing an opportunity to make extra money they went all exploitative Then they decide to pretend it was on grounds of 'safety' . Is that believable for a company happy to run crowded trains at other times? Much more like And then it's bollocks if you want to be hard nosed capitalist. This was a promotion clearly intended to get people onto trains not at those prices to make money, but to create future business. Very poor all round. Great Western is part of First Group whose chief exec is Tim O'Toole. I so hope this is remembered when some fool puts his name forward for a gong and a big fat red line is then used to cross it out. Self edited to correct points made that had assumed the DM was telling the truth, it wasn't Edited by Steve K, Aug 17 2015, 06:43 PM.
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| Oddball | Aug 17 2015, 09:27 AM Post #14 |
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Land fit for 'Heroes' - where are the promised 'prefabs' for all? |
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| Affa | Aug 17 2015, 06:05 PM Post #15 |
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| johnofgwent | Aug 17 2015, 06:23 PM Post #16 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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... no, they were running a summer OFF PEAK DAY TRAVEL promotion to get people to think of travelling to London at times when they normally would not... had you read the small print, you would have found out this of only one of many restrictions ... Summer Promotion 2015 terms and conditions 1. Offer consists of Off Peak Day Return tickets between two stations for travel on South West Trains and Island Line services only. 2. Excludes stations west of Salisbury (between Warminster – Bristol Temple Meads and Tisbury – Exeter St. Davids inclusive). 3. Tickets are priced at £20 per adult and £8 per child. No further discount is available for Railcard holders and the offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount. 4. Offer is valid between 20 July – 28 August 2015, excluding Saturday 1 and 15 August 2015. 5. Offer is valid on Sunday 16th August 2015 & Sunday 23rd August 2015 FROM all stations on the South Western Mainline between Waterloo and Weymouth ONLY, to over 170 destinations across the network. For a list of stations that are valid for Sunday travel click here. 6. Tickets are valid for travel at off peak times – please use our journey planner to check which trains you can travel on. 7. Evening peak ticket restrictions are in place when travelling from London Waterloo, Vauxhall and Clapham Junction stations, Monday – Friday. Travel is not permitted on trains departing from London Waterloo between 1600 and 1907; Vauxhall between 1600 and 1909; and Clapham Junction between 1603 and 1915 8. Some journeys may be affected by engineering work – please use our journey planner to see if you will be affected. 9. Tickets are available through our website, self-service ticket machines, any staffed ticket office and via telesales (0345 6000 650). 10. Discounted cross-Solent tickets to/from the Isle of Wight available from Hovertravel and Red Funnel ticket offices in conjunction with this offer. If you buy a ticket to Portsmouth Harbour or Portsmouth & Southsea, it is also valid for a return journey on Island Line services for no additional charge. 11. Weekend First Upgrade is available with the promotional fare, subject to availability. 12. South West Trains reserves the right to refuse the sale of discounted tickets to any person they believe will transfer, trade or resell them. 13. This promotion is available for journeys where we set the Off Peak Day Return rail fare. We won’t offer a promotional fare if a journey is priced by another train company, even if it’s on our network; or if an Off Peak Day Return fare doesn’t exist. 14. Tickets sold are subject to the National Rail Conditions of Carriage. Normal refund conditions apply. 15. South West Trains is part of Stagecoach South Western Trains Limited, which is registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 5599788. Registered office: Friars Bridge Court, 41-45 Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 8NZ. (note to Steve K: Condition 15 rather suggests this is not a lot to do with First Great Western. http://www.stagecoach.com/about/our-companies/uk-rail.aspx points out the Managing Director at whom all shit over this policy should be aimed is the aptly, or maybe unfortunately named, Tim Shoveller) I agree with Steve K that this is poor marketing strategy. Regardless of whatever other travel companies may or may not have done in the way of pricing journeys undertaken by veterans, families of veterans and the public in general who chose to travel by rail to attend VJ Day commemorations, South West Trains now hopefully find themselves tarred and feathered as "money grabbing bastards hell bent on screwing every last penny out of those whose war experiences Britain rather preferred to forget about". However, about the only thing in the newspaper article I agree with is the statement made by one person attempting to take up the offer for VJ Day travel who comments "the full terms and conditions are not visible on the mobile form of the website when you use a smartphone to make the required online booking, as to see those you have to use the full site". Now THAT really IS shooting oneself in the bloody foot, well that plus advertising the offer on mobile phones on the very day it is not being offered. |
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| Steve K | Aug 17 2015, 06:39 PM Post #17 |
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Once and future cynic
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Well found! And as a result I've found a version of those T's and C's dated July 6th that has that same August 15th exclusion I stand corrected and will now correct my earlier posts My own fault, should have known better than to have believed the Daily Mail |
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| Heinrich | Aug 18 2015, 03:42 AM Post #18 |
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It mystifies me how ordinary English people have allowed their trains to be sold to private companies to feather the nests of the few rich at the expense of the public. There must be a masochistic streak in English people that defies explanation. But some people have a remnant of outrage left. I read that "passengers and staff will call time on the failed privatisation of Britain’s railways today — as it emerged fares have risen nearly three times faster than wages." Morning Star Will Tory politicians be persuaded to renationalize the railways, I wonder ... NOT. |
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| Jonksy | Aug 18 2015, 05:54 AM Post #19 |
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The problem is that people didn't have a choice when the railways along with our utilities were stolen from us...The only good thing to come out of it is the FACT that the pro privateers are being shafted along with the rest of us but they cannot moan or groan as that would make them look even more foolish.. Edited by Jonksy, Aug 18 2015, 05:54 AM.
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| johnofgwent | Aug 18 2015, 06:32 AM Post #20 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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To be fair steve if I wasn't in the job I am now, I wouldn't have had the faintest idea where to look ... But it still stinks and it's lousy PR. Given that if it wasn't for those blokes in those wheelchairs on that parade Mr Shoveler would be working for Deutsche Bahn or Nippon Air you'd think they would have gone out of their way to offer them and anyone with them severely discounted or even free travel. Mind you, unless Corbyn not only wins the leadership election but also the 2020 General election, Mr Shoveller might still end up working for deutsche Bahn, they own half our railway already ... |
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| johnofgwent | Aug 18 2015, 06:36 AM Post #21 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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The ordinary citizen of the united kingdom had fuck all opportunity to do anything about it. Swiss law prevents any foreign company from taking over a Swiss chocolate maker. Regrettably English, and Scottish for that matter too, contain no such restriction. But fear not, Corbyn will rectify this ... |
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| Heinrich | Aug 19 2015, 07:16 AM Post #22 |
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Regular Guy
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Indeed, yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn pledged to introduce "a new railways Act if elected in 2020 to progressively renationalise franchises, abolish private ownership of rolling stock, increase capacity and slash fares." Morning Star Now this is a policy that the public can get behind. |
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| Oddball | Aug 19 2015, 07:25 AM Post #23 |
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Did he say how it would be funded? -Or should that be, how he hoped it would be funded? Maybe start by diverting the Scottish premium - perhaps? Edited by Oddball, Aug 19 2015, 07:27 AM.
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| Heinrich | Aug 19 2015, 08:40 AM Post #24 |
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I suppose by reinvesting profits into British Railways instead into the pockets of private companies' CEOs and shareholders and for initial investment to divert billions from nuclear bomb Trident weapons of mass destruction. Who cares? He'll do the necessary. |
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| Steve K | Aug 19 2015, 09:00 AM Post #25 |
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Once and future cynic
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I mourn that basic economics isn't taught in Swiss schools |
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| ACH1967 | Aug 19 2015, 09:16 AM Post #26 |
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By printing money and reducing the value or everyones savings and pay packet...yay. |
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| Deleted User | Aug 19 2015, 04:58 PM Post #27 |
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So everyone would pay for it.
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| Deleted User | Aug 19 2015, 05:01 PM Post #28 |
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No he wont. He wont be allowed to get anywhere near the position to do it...if he's own colleagues have their way. |
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| Lewis | Aug 20 2015, 07:09 AM Post #29 |
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Sounds good to me. |
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| Oddball | Aug 20 2015, 07:43 AM Post #30 |
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Heinrich - I am old enough to remember when the British {not English] Railways were nationalised. It was run on a neglected shoestring technologically, there were masses of fiddles going on from the top down or the bottom up, whichever your political perspective/bias - and still ran at a thumping great deficit. Even after Beeching applied his thumping great axe to all those picturesque branch lines, and took off all those magnificent trains such as Mallard, Nigel Gresley, Cock of the North, Battle of Britain, King George V, Golden Arrow - all those magnifcent steam trains that at one time or another pulled along my young carcass - yup, you guessed it, it still made a thumping loss. |
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| Heinrich | Aug 20 2015, 07:59 AM Post #31 |
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Regular Guy
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Public transport used to be about providing a necessary service not about getting money from the people. |
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| johnofgwent | Aug 20 2015, 08:07 AM Post #32 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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I'm JUST old enough to remember freight - as I later found out mostly coal destined for the coal fired power stations that kept Cardiff And Newport's lights on - being hauled by steam along the rail line at the end of the road my grandmother's house stood at, a line later pulled up and the track bed used for the line of the A48(M). And I can just about remember a trip t London on a train pulled by one of those new fangled diesels ... And I remember the underinvestment and the losses ... The fact remains the East Coast Main Line, when operated by Direct Railways Ltd or whatever the fuck the government of the day called it in order to camouflage the fact it was in public ownership, made a thumping great P*R*O*F*I*T My two questions would therefpre have to be 1) "why is that" ... and 2) "why do our current political masters demand adherence to ideological dogma that state ownership is the work of the antichrist and the only true religion is the one in which it is written that the profits made by our railway operations must be handed on a plate to the taxpayers of another country, and not enjoyed by our own... |
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| Oddball | Aug 20 2015, 08:07 AM Post #33 |
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Money has to come from somewhere, it don't grow on trees - ah, perhaps we could print some, or borrow some like the Greeks? Not all folks actually use the trains, not all find there are suitable rail links, so is it fair that they should have to stump up significant amounts of money through taxation for a service they would/could hardly ever avail themselves of? JoG - 'PROFIT', yeh, by means of a tree card trick, monitary sleight of hand no doubt. Edited by Oddball, Aug 20 2015, 08:14 AM.
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| johnofgwent | Aug 20 2015, 08:14 AM Post #34 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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Really ? Whose ? Public Transport in the united kingdom used to be totally in the hands of the private entrepreneur. Public transport on our waterways were the business of private individuals called ferrymen. Public transport on our roads was the preserve to the atage coach companies and the roads themselves were built and maintained by turnpike operating companies Public transport on our omnibuses when they developed from their horse drawn ancestry were the exclusive preserve of privately owned companies, often operating routes secured by significant bribery to city aldermen... And public transport on our railways were the exclusive preserve of the privately owned privately operated permanent way companies whose powers of surveillance, powers of ownership, powers to set their own byelaws and powers of land and property seizure really are to this day the envy of almost any and every despot going. You really should research your history of the united kingdom before mouthing off one line platitudes based on your strange perceptions of how it never actually was ... |
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| C-too | Aug 20 2015, 08:24 AM Post #35 |
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The problem for British Rail/Beeching was the growing competition from the motor car. I believe the car was the first real competition for the railways. I think there is now a case for both the car and the train, and there is increasingly a case for trains. Maybe they can bring back the old 'Namers' as the lads used to call them ? |
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| johnofgwent | Aug 20 2015, 08:24 AM Post #36 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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I don't know Oddball... All I do know is that national express gave up its franchise and walked away from the deal in 2009, after they were refused further subsidy for their operations, and that for the next six years a public company ran the railway in a manner that caused a net inflow of cash to the exchequer. That company was wound down for ideological reasons and the operation handed to Stagecoach under the guise of Virgin Trains. I note with dismay the picture on wiki is of the HST125 dieselelectric units which made their debut in 1975/6 ... and I should know, I was bloody well there to ride on the maiden public fee paying voyage of the first one, 252001, to run Paddington to Swansea, still fitted with her BREL Research Cowling, ... I took this photo just before boarding her at Cardiff General for the final leg to Swansea, my ticket paid for by the Institute of mechanical Engineers who were at the time trying to persuade people taking A level maths or (as in my case) Physics to consider Mechanical Engineering as a career ... ![]() The problem with those units is they fit well with the popular image of Virgin Trains ... as Richard Stilgoe put it in his song about the enfranchisement, "you can tell this train's a virgin, cos' she won't go all the way ..." Edited by johnofgwent, Aug 20 2015, 08:31 AM.
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| Oddball | Aug 20 2015, 08:28 AM Post #37 |
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JoG - Are you old enough to remember when a strapped for cash UK went cap in hand to the IMF for a bailout, and the fiscal pain of repayment, oh, and also the feeling 'we' had been naughtly kids, as the IMF insisted we follow their behavioural rules? |
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| johnofgwent | Aug 20 2015, 08:40 AM Post #38 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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If you refer to Dennis Healey, you might recall I refer pointedly on here from time to time to having been forced to pay the bastard £5 in income tax having crossed the threshold through my offer to help run the paper shop for the widow of my erstwhile employer while she sorted out her affairs, a process that took longer than expected. Was that not the same parliament that denied me (by virtue of my being slightly more than 17 and a half years old at the time) the right to tell Wilson to shove his bloody EEC, or was there an election following Wilson's resignation and Callaghan's takeover.... |
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| Steve K | Aug 20 2015, 09:20 AM Post #39 |
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Once and future cynic
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It does? To nationalise you would have to find the money up front to buy out the companies and even more if you want to buy out their franchises early. Big problem and you're not going to solve that by diverting the less than £1B a year on Trident (you did know the big spend on Trident is years away didn't you) |
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| Pro Veritas | Aug 20 2015, 09:31 AM Post #40 |
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Just pay the current shareholders the same as was paid for the shares when they originally went to market, adjusted for inflation. Much of the profitability of those shares has been paid for ongoing and ever increasing taxpayer funded subsidies anyway. Most will have had many years of dividends to show a profit from their investment, and there is NO GUARANTEE that shares will always be worth more than you paid for them. All The Best |
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