Virgin Trains - pay for extra luggage!

[druga runda]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12051

well is it :D or :fu: dependable if you have to use the trains or not...


TO MAKE more room on Richard Branson's cramped new Voyager trains, Virgin Trains plans to send passengers' luggage by road and charge the fare paying passenger for the privilege. Can you believe it? [Yes, Ed.]

The train company said the luggage delivery service would be optional. But if it introduces baggage limits, those who exceed it will have to pay.

Not surprisingly, passenger groups call this proposal bizarre.

The Jellygraph, which published the story, reported

Stewart Francis, the chairman of the rail passengers' council, said Virgin's cramped new Voyager trains were to blame. "This is unbelievable," he said. "We warned Virgin about luggage space when they were designing the Voyager and they simply ignored us. If they had listened there would be no need to spend extra money on road transport and pass the cost on to passengers."

This is like Boeing or Airbus designing a civil airliner that doesn't have enough room for luggage. It's incompetence of the highest order. [Surely Britain at its best? Ed.]

:rofl


I guess this can only happen in UK

anyway the original article is here

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/10/12/nvirg12.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/10/12/ixportal.html

edit: I guess this falls under public transportation vs private therefore political forum - if admins think otherwise please transfer ;) )

[sytaylor]

yeah of course it can only happen here.. i mean in india they have trains that do a whopping 2 miles an hour, i'd trade for that in a second

those voyagers are way more comfortable than the old trains.. 80% of travellers are business and hte majority of the rest dont have much baggage, so i think they got the balance about right

[vampireuk]

I think the first step would be to get the damn trains actually running on time.

[Sazar]

I'd rather take a british train than ride on the DeathTrak anyday :)

[sytaylor]

Originally posted by vampireuk
I think the first step would be to get the damn trains actually running on time.

which faster less cumbersome trains move towards

[vampireuk]

And of course they require the new track which turned out to be more expensive than they thought, typical Blair leadership, start a job and leave it half finished:rolleyes:

Hell bring back the flying dutchman, that thing went faster than most of our trains.

[sytaylor]

FYI, the train replacement programs were RailTrack controlled, then when railtrack was replaced by the government controlled NetworkRail the funding was drastically cut (while RailTrack were private the government had a legal duty to provide the funds). So its more labour cop outs on the public sector. That and 60 odd tax rises since 1997, what happened to "New" Labour anyways? Same old labour just a better media/PR department imo

[druga runda]

Ok in India they have 1 billion people too and of which 1/3 don't have a proper home :o I guess UK is not shooting to match India's standards :p

And well if you try to design a new train you "can" design for better comfort and for enough luggage space too... it's not a new engineering feature :D... I guess whoever was approving made some gross miscalculation / negligence... of was it purposefull - that is easier to think - to take more money/business from the same line. Perfect business thinking.

[sytaylor]

I notice you completley ignored the fact that the majority of the travellers are business of with light luggage. Tell me why should the vast majority suffer for a few exactly?

[druga runda]

Originally posted by sytaylor
I notice you completley ignored the fact that the majority of the travellers are business of with light luggage. Tell me why should the vast majority suffer for a few exactly?

hmmm, I do not think that the people with less luggage would suffer if the trains would be properly designed and have enough space and comfort as they have now + enough luggage space as they do not have at the moment.

Making a comfortable train with enough space for everyone is not an engineering miracle rather something that is easy to do. Actually making a train without enough luggage space is more of a suprise to me... that's all... That is the reason why I think it is either gross incompetence (less likely) or a conscious business decision (more likely) to make more money by creating a totally uneccessary service by design.

I think it is quite obvious that trains do not have any space constraints if designed properly meaning the space for luggage does not compromise comfort of passangers or profitability of the rail lines, at least it is not the case in other developed countries.

[sytaylor]

Space is not the issue cost is.. and space costs more money. Thus saving money while catering to the vast majority of your customers is a wise move if it improves efficiency and service. Why would you want to have to setup a whole extra service if everyone was going to be using it?

It costs because they don't expect many people to use it. Money isn't irrelevant to the design of new trains, projects have to cost in, and catering for massive luggage areas simply doesn't.

[druga runda]

*and space costs more money

- I agree there

*Thus saving money while catering to the vast majority of your customers is a wise move if it improves efficiency and service

- hmmm... fist - vast majority is dubious, and second how does "not having enough luggage space" improve efficiency and service :p ;)

ie... does paying for something that should be free, and potentially resulting in your luggage being sometimes lost "improve efficiency and service" :angel:

*Why would you want to have to setup a whole extra service if everyone was going to be using it?

- well "you will make more money of the service of course"
-even more so the customers do not have a choice of a train where they can take the luggage for free as an alternative (at least I think so, if there was an alternative than all would be fine and economic principles would kick in to show what is the better approach)

*Money isn't irrelevant to the design of new trains, projects have to cost in, and catering for massive luggage areas simply doesn't.

While money isn't irrelevant to design/build of new trains, the added cost of something that used to be "normal" in train travel is certainly not prohibitive.

[sytaylor]

Tell me why should a service be free exactly? Do the employees of Virgin Trains not deserve to be paid?! :eek:

how does "not having enough luggage space" improve efficiency and service

Like i said the majority of Virgin Trains travellers are business, (in the region of 80% iirc), and of the rest very few have enough luggage to make a small settlement on mars.

Virgin have to adapt to their customer base, areoplanes don't have tennis courts for budding tennis players to practise.. and i'd imagine the percentage of travllers on areoplanes who regularly play tennis are about the same as those with more luggage than the voyagers can handle.

[druga runda]

Originally posted by sytaylor
[B]Tell me why should a service be free exactly? Do the employees of Virgin Trains not deserve to be paid?! :eek:


Ie... it's not a service, it's just some space for some luggage... you drag it in yourself :D





as for the rest, how happy will be the remaining 20% when they have to pay extra for their luggage :eek: ... I guess they'd rather take the car or relocate to Germany :D

[sytaylor]

Originally posted by druga runda
as for the rest, how happy will be the remaining 20% when they have to pay extra for their luggage :eek: ... I guess they'd rather take the car or relocate to Germany :D

..yeah their public services are wonderful but take a peek at their economy and you'll see the disadvantages of the large public spending..

[vampireuk]

Well we have massive public spending but its all been sucked up because Blair and his cronies couldnt balance their own check book let alone manage a large economy. His 10 year travel plan is a complete failure, and the latest scheme of tough on crime is about, umm how long has he been in power? I'll say 5 years too late for now. The gun amnesty was a failure, there are still many many weapons on the streets and we all know they won't get a minimum of 5 years in jail. So when the next massacre over here happens Blair will probably run off to norway because a wale hurt its fin.

[sytaylor]

...and if you look to history public spending ALWAYS goes this way, trying to run everything like the chinese red army just doesn't work. Whitehall needs to be de-centralised desperatley, local councils don't have the funds to give to schools, which the teaching unions say will result in the loss of 8,000 teaching jobs next year (hence the rises in council tax in many areas).

New Labours "promise" to never rise taxes broken yet again, well past the 60th time they've done it :rolleyes:

[vampireuk]

But the red army does work:D

[sytaylor]

...as prooven by their world beating victory over?

Besdies that the point was making a comparison that is NOT like for like, eg public services vs an actual army

[vampireuk]

Korean war when they pushed the American forces back, thankyou:p

[sytaylor]

bye bye world.. oh wait they don't rule it, they pushed some dudes back? WOW! Fetch the confetti.. that prooves its a good way to run public services because?


They're Slow reacting?
They're Hard to control?
They're Utterly unorganised?


Its hardly like we can send some big military general in to clean up the hospital service is it? :banghead:

[vampireuk]

Since when has a army had to defeat the world to prove its worth? America has never taken over the world with its army neither has Britain and they are regarded as some of the finest armys. Don't get into a argument about the military, you can't win;)

The chinese have a well functioning armed forces, point proved. Back to public transport perhaps? :p

[sytaylor]

yeah lets get back to ground in which


you can't win ;)

[vampireuk]

Probably because I'm not actually arguining against their decision. Kind of hard to argue against something you agree with;)

[sytaylor]

yes it is ;) but not impossible ;).. ;) one more cos theyre annoying ;).. how about another ;)