Trying to go 'green' and travel by rail:

Spent the new year oop north in Durham, 392 miles round trip door to door, no driving once we got there.

Cost of diesel: £24 pound at 94.9 p per litre. Averaging 53 ~ 56.2 miles per gallon. Two people traveling plus our crap.

Wondered what it would cost by train:

http://nationalrail.co.uk/

'Anytime' return fair via whatever GNER is these days:

£205 per person.

Taxi from Alconbury to Huntingdon station: £9

Two return tickets to Durham £410

Taxi to Belmont (nr. Durahm) est £5

Taxi from Belmont to Durham ( inc headache) est £5
Taxi from Huntingdon to Alconbury £9

Total £438

It seems like they dont want us to travel - even buying 4x single tickets at £91 each is still way too expensive compared to driving.

No wonder people still use their cars.

Yes, but you aren't factoring other costs on the car - and try the booked tickets. Open tickets are always expensive, pre-booked is much cheaper.

Actual costs if we decided to go by train that day.

'other car costs' - minimal

My point was: How it is still too expensive to use the trains for long journies compared to the car.

Even if we had pre-booked - (got it down to about £45 each one way), its still cheaper to drive.

I do understand your original point and yes it is daft.

But people habitually assume car costs are the fuel and nothing else. It was after I worked out the true costs of our second car (tax, insurance, fuel, depreciation, servicing) that I worked out it cost me around 65p per mile to drive the thing. So I sold it.

Of course the more mile you drive per year the less it is, but even so with a service interval of say 10k miles then a 500 mile trip is several pounds extra as a slice of a service bill.

You forgot to mention that the door to door journey is also quicker by car, plus you actually get a seat, and get to choose the music.

Know what you mean... We've got to go up to London at the weekend (2 of us). I'll be driving most of the way - far enough to park within walking distance of a tube station. The diesel'll be £10, or £15 maybe if we take her car. The train ticket just for me would be £35+, & as far as I can tell would be no cheaper if I booked it a month in advance (which I couldn't have done anyway). I think the tube travelcard is slightly (as in about £2) more as I'll park further out than I'd get a train to, but the costs are still so different as to be a joke!

According to my quick calculations, my car costs me around about 11p a mile...

And all this is under the assumption there isn't any engineering or any other delays on the trains!!!

And to put things in perspective, a friend of mine found a deal to go skiing in Whistler for a week all inclusive (flights as well!!) for about £380 recently....

Transport is eff-yoo-kayed, basically- too much traffic on the roads, but the alternatives aren't cheap enough/convenient enough.

Ban all forms of transport aside from Old Bikes and Space Hoppers- that'll sort it.

Short of buying a £600 diesel fiesta, driving it into the ground and not servicing or taxing it I don't know how you can do it!