Life without Car

Recently my  aged motor car suffered a terminal failure.  Over the past six years it had cost me GBP1500 per anumn to operate and maintain.  My bank declined  to loan me money for a replacement. They would have loaned the money  if I had a mortgage, but as I own the freehold to my house no loan was forthcoming, how perverse is that? So until I have saved enough for a replacement car I shall have rely on my feet and public transport.  Other alternatives such as car hire (the nearest hire company is 20 miles away) and car sharing (no such scheme exists in our local authority area) are non-starters.

I live in a small town 33 miles east of the Yorkshire city of Sheffield. Buses run six days a week during the day (no evening or Sunday services). The town service is half hourly and interurban services are hourly (with gaps morning and evening when the buses are on school duty).

My nearest railway station is just 1km away from my home and close to our award winning  shopping centre. That's the good news. Three trains from Sheffield stop there each week, all of them on Saturday. That is  a great improvement as  it used to get of one train a week in one direction only! However there is another railway station 3km away from my home  and 2km from the shopping centre which is served by an hourly train  (except Sundays, when the first of 4 trains calls at 3.30pm).

Using public transport  will mean I am obliged to stay at home on Sundays, which might be fun for church going Christians, but I'm not one of them.

Recently I had to revise plans for a journey to London as there is no evening public transport to get me home so a day return to the capital is out of the question. I am obliged to stay overnight in London or anywhere else  beyond the range of our local rail and bus services.

Of course trains and buses are not co-ordinated so any interchange will entail a long wait.  For example changing trains from the local  to an East Coast Main line train to London invaribly results in a 50 minute wait.  Thus the total journey time to London ( a distance of some 150 miles)  is around  2 hours 35  minutes plus 30 minutes to walk to the station. Coming home from London I was lucky to have a 9 minute connection from the express train to the local except that when I arrived  at the interchange station the  local train was cancelled  so I ended up with a 69 minute wait.

Local trains maintain an average speed of around 33 miles per hour,  when they are not cancelled or late. The late running is usually caused by signalling faults on the line. The trains themeslves are aged and based on a bus design that is no longer to be seen on the streets of Britain. As the British government buys new trains for the private railway companies and as the British government is bankrupt these trains will  have to be kept going for many years yet.


Using public transport is slower than  jumping into  your car. In fact overall journey times  when not using the fast East Coast Main Line is the same now as it was 100 years ago.

Using public transport keeps you fit. To reach my useful rail station I need to walk for 30 mins through the town.  There is a bus but it takes 20 mins to cover the 3km and the bus stop is a 5 min walk from my home.

I have not yet attempted to cost the journeys I would make in a year but I do benefit from an OAP's bus pass (free bus travel after 9.30 am)  and Senior Citizen rail card which gives 30% off most rail fares.  If I were neither young nor old I suspect my public transport bill would exceed the GBP1500 my car cost to run.

Of course public transport is not as comfortable as the car.  Main line trains are fine provided they are not full. I'm tall so I have leg problem on most trains and buses. The notable exception is the 36 bus from Leeds to Ripon. This has leather seats with arm rests and plenty of leg room. However the ride is as bad as any bus these days. Timetables require drives to go flat out once they leave town and on  the upper deck of a bus you will need to hold on tight.

Bus and coach travel is not like I remember from my childhood days. Trolleybuses were smooth and  fast with seats that were adequatley spaced and supportive. They were also environmently friendly so Britain got rid of them. Coaches were  both smaller and slower than today ( the maximum speed would be 50 mph). Actually coach interiors have improved (except for leg room)  and they have air conditioning these days.

There are places public transport does not reach, one being the trolleybus museum at Sandtoft where  this photo was taken.  Such locations are out of bound until I have another  car. If only my next car was electric like the trolleybus of old. Hybrids (petrol electric as developed by Stevens of Maidstone back in 1906) are well out my price range.