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Yep £130 return to London from Glasgow or Edinburgh by car for four people. You might get less than £100 return on the train for one adult if you book 2 months
by willyt 4y ago
Yep £130 return to London from Glasgow or Edinburgh by car for four people. You might get less than £100 return on the train for one adult if you book 2 months ahead and don’t travel in the school holidays or when there’s a gig or a football match on. Last time I looked it was over £400 return for my family. You can’t tax cars to make them cost as much as transporting 4 people by train; that would strangle the economy. The government has to make running the trains more efficient and subsidise them properly. One glaring example; why is HS2 costing something like 5x more per km compared to French costs.
- tankenmate 4y agoA big part is right of way; it's non declared government policy that land prices must always go up.
- willyt 4y agoFor HS2? No its not, even if you deduct the £8bn for land purchases it’s still way more expensive. Most expensive French line so far from Lyon Marseille was around €35m/km crossing the Haut Massif on 50 tunnels and bridges. Most recent Tours-Bordeaux was ~€23m/km. London Birmingham is costing something closer to €300m per km. I can’t be bothered to google the sources again and think about inflation but even with inflation and land prices I’m confident that it is costing at the very least 3 times more than it would in France maybe as much as 10x; something doesn’t stack up.