Gonzalez wrote in message ...
>>Gonzalez wrote in message ...
>>>>In my experience of train travel, significant delays have occured far
more
>>>>often than in my experience of car travel. For example, on the most
recent
>>>>train journey I made, the train was cancelled, the following one half an hour later was twenty
>>>>minutes late and grossly overcrowded.
>>>
>>>Try this little experiment.
>>>
>>>Set a start time for your journey by car.
>>>
>>>Calculate the distance travelled in town, on B roads, on A roads, on trunk A roads and on the
>>>motorway.
>>>
>>>Estimate the average speed in town at 25 MPH, on B roads at 40 MPH, on A roads at 50 MPH on trunk
>>>A roads at 60 MPH and on the motorway at 70 MPH, and from that calculate your arrival time.
>>>
>>>Then see how often your journey by car is delayed.
>>
>>If the speed limit on a motorway is 70 mph in practice you are not going
to
>>be able to achieve a 70 mph average without breaking the speed limit - especially given that
>>typical speedos overread by 5-10%. You wouldn't want me to exceed the speed limit, would you?
>>
>>Realistically, I would say achievable average end-to-end speeds are:
>>
>>20 mph in urban areas 40 mph on mixed, mainly rural roads 50 mph on high-quality A-roads 60 mph on
>>motorways, perhaps more in very clear conditions
>>
>>If you try to work out comparable average speeds on railways, don't forget to include waiting time
>>and time taken getting to and from the station.
>
>Shall we take my recent experience, Lewisham to Dartington as an example.
>
>TRAIN
>=====
>
>5 min cycle ride to Lewisham station 5 min wait for train to Charing Cross 20 min journey to
>Charing Cross 15 min cycle ride to Paddington 10 min wait for train 195 min journey to Totnes 15
>min cycle ride to Dartington
>
>Total time 265 mins = 4hr 25min
>
>CAR
>===
>
>30 min Lewisham to Hammersmith @ 20 MPH (fat chance!) 2 min Hammersmith to Chiswick @ 40 MPH
>(Chortle!) 120 min Chiswick to Bristol @ 60 MPH 75 min Bristol to Exeter @ 60 MPH 30 min Exeter to
>Buckfast @ 50 MPH 15 min Buckfast to Dartington @40 MPH
>
>Total time 272 mins = 4hr 32min
>
>The alternative: A2 - M25 - M3 - A303 - A30 - M5 - A38 - A384, would be even slower.
You have picked a route where there is a particularly convenient train service and congested roads,
especially on a Friday evening. Fancy having a go at, say, Cardiff to Aberystwyth?
My second most recent commute could reliably be accomplished by car within 40 minutes for 27 miles,
even in the rush hour.
By public transport? God knows. 600 yard walk to bus stop. Bus. Train. Another train. Bus. Half-mile
walk from bus stop. Whether any of these services actually connect with each other I haven't a clue.
Likely time -
2.5 to 3 hours. And what would be the odds of at least one bus or train being cancelled?
>>>About 4 or 5 times a year I venture to the Lake District from South East London with my
>>>mountaineering club. The time taken for a one way journey can vary between 4.5 hours and 8 hours.
>>>Timing the journey to within 5 minutes is almost impossible, but that is what is expected on the
>>>trains! And if just 20% of the time trains do arrive within 5 minutes of schedule, they are doing
>>>far better than a car ever could.
>>
>>Not so. On the journey I was describing, apart from one or two examples of congestion caused by
>>accidents, I knew the likely duration to within a couple of minutes. Sometimes, due to unusually
>>favourable conditions, I
was
>>early, but I wouldn't be so unrealistic as to categorise that as normal.
>
>I don't believe that a rush hour car commute can be more reliable than a train commute.
ROTFLMOL!
Even in London it probably usually is. Within the rush hour, many commuting journeys will reliably
be free of congestion.
--
http://www.speedlimit.org.uk "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."
(John Stuart Mill)
