Public money 'wasted on railways' (BBC News)

[RF News]

Spending more money on roads not rail would get much better value for the taxpayer, motoring body the RAC says.

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[swisstrains]

I like the bit where the RAC say, in a desparate bid to sound non-biased, that they are "not against rail travel"
Bodies like the RAC seem to think that "value for money" should be evident immediately instead of looking at the long term advantages.

[John H-T]

This is the whole reason why we have such a poor rail system. As John says we contiually look at the short term instead of investing for the future. We simply have to get into the habit of using our cars less. We cannot continue to build more and more roads in this small island.

The snag is that cars are so convenient. We go where and when we want unrestricted by timetables (just by trafic jams!)

Tomorrow I will use my car to go to the Chasewater Gala because I have to transport display materials. It will take me about an hour. It would take me half an hour to get to Derby Station with a lot of heavy kit to carry!

On the other hand I had a great day out going to the NRM by train and it probably didn't cost me any more than taking the car.

Best wishes,

John H-T.

[richard thompson]

John H-T makes a number of accurate balanced views of travel. The RAC foundation is going to argue for the car and road lobby. We too have made journies on the train which have not cost more than using the car, but then there are times when the car has to be chosen for practical reasons.
Of course they might be being bribed by an MP to say this so there will be yet more cars which means more car tax to fund MPs claims. I will now wash my mouth out.
Richard

[DSY011]

The The RAC foundation is a separate organisation from the RAC. They split many years ago, before I joined the RAC, and I have worked for them for over 13 years now.
Being Friday today, I sat at my desk at work in the RAC building at the junction of the M4 and M5, (Great view from the tower) and watched the normal build up of traffic heading south. It was getting quite heavy by about 14:00 and it is not even school holidays. I was one of the people that used to give out traffic info on the radio and TV stations a few years ago. RAC gave that part of its operations away to another party. So I now can sit and watch all the fools wasting there time sitting in Que's of traffic going nowhere. Come September I'm off to the south coast for my holiday. The south of Durban, South Africa that is.

[swisstrains]

Thanks for clarifying that Syd. Someone needs to tell the BBC that there is a difference between the RAC and the RAC Foundation as they use a mixture of both these titles in their article.