I've already stated that I don't use the car to drive to Amersham, I
take it that you mean environmental costs, pollution etc, well as I
don't use the car to get to work (unless I have to) they don't really count.

My point is that at 23p per mile for a 15 mile journey (It's probably
more as I get more AL than the assumed figures) I think that it is
expensive and I could do the journey for less in the car.

Incidently an annual season ticket all the way is about £3000 from
Aylesbury to Marylebone, anyone know how much that works out at per mile?

Brimstone wrote:
General Von Clinkerhoffen wrote:

I already own the car, I already tax it, I already fill it with petrol
(petrol is cheaper in amersham as well), I already MOT and service it,
there really aren't many other factors to take in.



So you don't take into accout all the costs of driving to the station?

Tony Polson wrote:

I really wonder if you are talking about the Aylesbury I know, because
that is where I live.

Let us assume that your question is rhetorical and leave it at that.

Aylesbury has superb rail links to London, with fast, modern, clean
trains offering a punctual and reliable service. There are excellent
connections into the London Underground system, with whose services
the Aylesbury service of Chiltern Railways is well coordinated.

Chiltern have been an outstanding operator. Probably one of the few
success stories to emerge from privatization.

There are two routes to London, one via Amersham and the other via
High Wycombe. The latter route offers an easy interchange at Princes
Risborough with express trains to Banbury, Leamington Spa and
Birmingham, which have recently doubled in frequency.

One is aware of the above. And, again Chiltern can be commended for
their improvements.

Presumably you would like the little-used rural lines that used to
radiate from Aylesbury to be kept open with large government subsidy,
rather than spending the money on services that people actually want
to use, in very large numbers.

No I don't think Waddesden Manor should re-open. No do I think the
Brill Branch has a place in the modern world except possible and a
preservation project. I do think that extending, or re-opening, lines
to centers of population like Banbury and Milton Keynes has real value.
Not only would this offer local service but the opportunities for
connection to longer distance services. I do not think re-opening the
line to Cheddington has any merit, but I think re-connecting Aylesbury
to the WCML at Watford and/or Milton Keynes offers real travel
possibilities.

Can you explain why the citizens of Reading, Oxford, Watford, Leighton
Buzard, Luton, Bedford and Welwyn should all enjoy through services to
the North whilst those residing in Buckinghamshire's County seat do
not?

Chiltern Railways is a great success, and enjoys strong local support.

As it should. They are a good company.

Please don't knock it.

I think your criticism of Aylesbury's excellent rail services is
wholly misplaced, being based on old fashioned sentiment rather than
common sense rooted in reality.

Does "Old" equal "Bad"? I happen to think the loss of the Great
Central Route was a bad thing. Evidently Chiltern Railways agree with
me. They have discussed extending northwards.

Moreover I believe the Pacific Electric Railway better served Los
Angeles and its environs better than the present day freeway system.
In that respect my view is a minority one. But my view on that is far
from unique. New and shining is NOT always better. All that glitters
is not gold.

When the Great Central main line was closed, the SW main line to Exeter
was also slated for closure. Now that line is viewed as a valuable
aset. Yet if I apply your logic to that line, it should also have been
closed. I doubt you really believe that.

Your response appears to come from a man who is tired and whose pet
project has gone badly wrong. Neither of which will I hold against you


:-)

A.

LACo, CA.

Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Tony Polson
gently breathed:

Presumably you would like the little-used rural lines that used to
radiate from Aylesbury to be kept open with large government subsidy,
rather than spending the money on services that people actually want
to use, in very large numbers.

I don't know the area, but given that the govt seems hell-bent on
converting the entire SouthEast into one vast sea of Barrat box houses,
I suspect those same "little used rural lines" will indeed be needed
before much longer, except they'll no longer be rural, and be running at
inner-city-metro type frequencies in a desperate attempt to stave off
the inevitable gridlock.

Just why does gov.uk seem so utterly convinced that the entire
population of England, bar a few west-country hoteliers and the landed
gentry, should live within 50 miles of Central London?

NP: Razed In Black - Oh My Goth!
--
- Pyromancer Stormshadow.
http://www.inkubus-sukkubus.co.uk -- Pagan Gothic Rock!
http://www.littlematchgirl.co.uk -- Electronic Metal!
http://www.revival.stormshadow.com -- The Gothic Revival.

Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Martin
Edwards gently breathed:
Adrian Auer-Hudson wrote:
Nevertheless having grown up near a town (Aylesbury) with fine rail
links both north and south. Said routes having the potential for
development into a fine network, you will understand my disappointment
at the leftovers that Aylesbury has for it rail link today.
This is particularly strange in so far as Aylesbury was part of an
area
that was expected to see, and did see, expanded housing and employment
as companies and individual were encouraged to relocate away from
London in the 1960s and 1970s.

This was typical of planning in the period, which assumed universal car
ownership. After all, we all watched Perry Mason, didn't we?

Back in the 1980s I recorded a long Channel 4 series about public
transport. Alas I never got round to watching all of it (what was that
Douglas Addams said about having videos to watch programmes so you
didn't have to? g), but from one of the episodes I did watch I
remember someone commenting that the New Towns had been based on the
concept of universal car ownership, but completely ignored the fact that
one car per household does not mean one car per person, as usually the
main breadwinner will drive the car to work and leave the rest of the
family marooned in their
impossible-to-serve-sensibly-with-public-transport house for the day.

NP: Paralysed Age - Bloodsucker 2000 (Empire Of The Vampire).
--
- Pyromancer Stormshadow.
http://www.inkubus-sukkubus.co.uk -- Pagan Gothic Rock!
http://www.littlematchgirl.co.uk -- Electronic Metal!
http://www.revival.stormshadow.com -- The Gothic Revival.

Pyromancer wrote:
Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Tony
Polson gently breathed:

Presumably you would like the little-used rural lines that used to
radiate from Aylesbury to be kept open with large government subsidy,
rather than spending the money on services that people actually want
to use, in very large numbers.

I don't know the area, but given that the govt seems hell-bent on
converting the entire SouthEast into one vast sea of Barrat box
houses, I suspect those same "little used rural lines" will indeed be
needed before much longer, except they'll no longer be rural, and be
running at inner-city-metro type frequencies in a desperate attempt
to stave off the inevitable gridlock.

Just why does gov.uk seem so utterly convinced that the entire
population of England, bar a few west-country hoteliers and the landed
gentry, should live within 50 miles of Central London?


Because it has long been the case that people running businesses and other
organisation think they have to be near the seat of government which in turn
drags in other businesses and so it goes on. It's nothing new and if one
casts one's mind back governments spent large sums of money persuading
businesses to move out of London.

In message , Pyromancer
writes
Just why does gov.uk seem so utterly convinced that the entire
population of England, bar a few west-country hoteliers and the landed
gentry, should live within 50 miles of Central London?

Because the asking price of an ordinary terraced house in Reading is GBP
215k
http://www.austinandco.co.uk/details.php?prop=AUCO206
and for something similar in Bolton, it's GBP 80k?
http://www.regencyestates.co.uk/detail.asp?PID=479

Which is not to say they shouldn't be doing something to reduce demand
in the south east and increase it elsewhere.
--
Goalie of the Century

In message , at 07:59:00 on Thu, 7 Jul
2005, Goalie of the Century remarked:
Just why does gov.uk seem so utterly convinced that the entire
population of England, bar a few west-country hoteliers and the landed
gentry, should live within 50 miles of Central London?

Because the asking price of an ordinary terraced house in Reading is
GBP 215k
http://www.austinandco.co.uk/details.php?prop=AUCO206
and for something similar in Bolton, it's GBP 80k?
http://www.regencyestates.co.uk/detail.asp?PID=479

Which is not to say they shouldn't be doing something to reduce demand
in the south east and increase it elsewhere.

Which has a lot to do with rail transport. There are many businesses,
which even if relocated away from London, will involve significant
movements of senior management to and from London where they will meet
with all the people who haven't yet relocated. (And who probably never
will, as if they were dispersed then such meetings would be even more
difficult to arrange).

These are the people who buy the expensive open tickets, with "other"
people's money. But they aren't completely blind to the cost or to the
personal sacrifice on a day to day basis. Their experience does little
to encourage others to make the same lifestyle change.
--
Roland Perry

Adrian Auer-Hudson wrote:

Moreover I believe the Pacific Electric Railway better served Los
Angeles and its environs better than the present day freeway system.
In that respect my view is a minority one. But my view on that is far
from unique. New and shining is NOT always better. All that glitters
is not gold.

Don't jump up and down on the bridge, if you get my drift.

--
You can't fool me: there ain't no Sanity Clause. -Chico Marx

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/1955

On Wed, 6 Jul 2005, Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

In article ,
(Tom Anderson) wrote:

I think there was a bit more order to it than that, even if only a bit
more. For example, i understand that the government required railway
companies to build connections to other companies' tracks wherever
possible; it's only thanks to that that we have a single network at all!

ROFL! They had to put some in after the grouping or during the war but
few if any connections were Government-imposed.

But ... but ... i read it on a website!

Specifically, Chris Tolley's Railway Junction Diagrams site:

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cj.tolley/rjd/rjd-intro.htm

Which says:

"Although laws from the mid-1800's required newly-built railways to
connect to existing railways wherever practicable, thus building up a
network, like many well-intentioned pieces of legislation, this did not
lead to complete co-operation between the multiplicity of companies."

Have i been bamboozled?

tom

--
They travel the world in their ice cream van ...

On Thu, 7 Jul 2005 01:33:12 +0100, Pyromancer
wrote:

Back in the 1980s I recorded a long Channel 4 series about public
transport. Alas I never got round to watching all of it (what was that
Douglas Addams said about having videos to watch programmes so you
didn't have to? g), but from one of the episodes I did watch I
remember someone commenting that the New Towns had been based on the
concept of universal car ownership, but completely ignored the fact that
one car per household does not mean one car per person, as usually the
main breadwinner will drive the car to work and leave the rest of the
family marooned in their
impossible-to-serve-sensibly-with-public-transport house for the day.

That certainly was not the case in Crawley, where the provision of
both garages and parking places assumed a very low level of car
ownership in the initial developments.

The thinking seemed to be that, if you relocated people from inner
London, they would not want to own cars, and would be happy with
public transport. They were wrong.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org