er-why Marie??? It was tongue in cheek!

HOORAY !!! :smt041 :smt041 :smt041 at last, somebody AGREES with with me !! er, watch out for them truckers maam !

lol
sorry if i over reacted steve but it does annoy me, my oh is a freight train driver as you know, he goes out to work at all hours of the day and night to get the loads from a to b to keep things moving and on time, and it does have its impact on our family life, so although you didnt mean any thing by it it does annoy when they do their best.
i know passenger trains aint brill, i dont even use them myself i would sooner catch a bus and i can understand why ppl think and say the stuff they do as the customer, but passenger trains and frieght are totally different, and unless you know how they both run please dont presume they are the same.

i just think and it has nothing to do with my oh being a driver, that if the loads went on the rails it would cut down on traffic etc which in turn can only make every ones lifes easier.

we have different forms of transport that isn't always used as effectively as it could be for both clients and business as well as member of the public.

lol 1 of my cousins is a long distance hgv driver i wouldn't do his job if you paid me twice his wage.
theres nothing worse than sitting in traffic in the blazing sun going no where fast.

as for road tax we own 1 car and part and parcel is the running costs inc the tax each yr.
i dont mind paying it but i think it should go on the petrol simply because the more you use your car the more you would pay, so each person pays for the use of the road in each of the journeys them make.
each user would then only pay for the travel they do on a yrly basis in with the petrol costs. if it is a company car they claim travel expenses on thier business accounts anyway so the extra costs would be lost.

I agree Marie-getting freight onto rail is best,but the main problem is the rail network and its limitations.They really need to invest in new tracks because the bulk of the current layout dates back to the early 19th century and given that Beeching shrunk it during the 60's-freighters need better routes to encourage more companies to use it.

One advantage a lorry has over rail is that it can take its load direct to the customers door from the docks for example,but its limted to an overall weight 40 tons.
Trains however can and do carry massive amounts with relative ease,no traffic jams,but its destination will still need HGV's for its final leg.

Me personally though-i hate travelling in trains!

money needs to be invested on the network system to improve the tracks etc and yeah lorrys would be needed to complete the final leg, but it would improve things generally on the whole for most road users.
steve i get free travel and never really use it..... by the time i have got to the station and walked from the station to work i haven't made my travel time any less than by bus.
although the actual journey time from a to b is 20 mins by train or 1 hr on a bus thats the only reason i dont travel by train.
i have stood waiting for buses that haven't turned up on time and some even miss runs to catch up time so from what i have experienced as a passenger who is paying for the service, buses are not always the best form of reliable transport either.

Well, it may be "bla de blah" to you, but when you're forced to travel 26,000 miles a year just to go to work and someone thinks taxing those with high milage is a good idea, then yes I'm going to whine.

Oh and I don't have a problem with paying road tax the way it is, the A66 is being made into dual carriageway and they're rebuilding the A1 from where I live, so I'm very happy.