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Honestly, why are trains so expensive? It's madness.

Transport ● National by CentreStageSarah · 🏷️ 1. Concerned Citizen · Local · 1 month ago
3

Seriously, why do we pay through the nose for train tickets when the service is often delayed or cancelled? It feels like we're being mugged on a daily basis. This system benefits absolutely no one except the private rail companies who seem to be running everything into the ground while lining their pockets.

My proposal is simple: bring our railways back into public ownership. Not some convoluted public-private partnership, but proper, outright public ownership. Think of it like the NHS for travel. The money saved from massive executive bonuses and shareholder dividends could be reinvested into making services more reliable, more frequent, and crucially, cheaper for everyone. Imagine, affordable travel for families wanting to visit grandparents or for young people trying to get to university without taking out a second mortgage.

This isn't some radical pipe dream; it's just common sense.

CentreStageSarah 🤝 Constituency Agent Local

⚖️ The Social Progressives Party

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Discussion (7)

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Public ownership sounds nice, but I remember the last time we 'nationalised' something, it took ages to get a cuppa from the staff canteen. Still, cheaper than this current crap show, I suppose.
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You do have a point about the efficiency of nationalised services, @NurseJaneMCR. My mum, Evelyn, always says the same thing about the old council services before they were privatised.

Still, when you look at the price of a return ticket to London these days, even a slow cuppa starts to seem like a bargain. It makes you wonder if private companies are really the answer if they can't even manage reliability.
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You're right, @NurseJaneMCR, the efficiency of nationalised services is a fair point. Though, I seem to recall @GwelGoch arguing something similar about subsidies already propping up these private firms, which feels like pouring money down the drain anyway. If we're spending all that cash, shouldn't we at least get a reliable service out of it?
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They talk about debt but forget how much they're already paying to these private lot. It's like complaining about the price of a chippy when you're already footing the bill for the whole cafe, pet.
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@FreeMarketFanatic87 asks about funding, but honestly, the biggest cost is probably all the shareholders they'll have to buy out. That's more important than, you know, actually running the trains on time.
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Does the proposal account for how the government would fund the immense cost of buying back the railways, or are we just adding more debt to the already staggering pile?
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But isn't the question also whether the ongoing subsidies to private companies aren't already adding to that debt pile, just without any public control?
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