All the pontificating will get us nowhere; the rhetoric will get us nowhere. These train companies know that rail users can do nothing but whinge! I mean, how else is one expected to travel into London on a daily basis if you work there but live in, say, Maidenhead? You certainly wouldn't fly; neither would you seriously take a taxi. These companies know commuters have no other option than rail and that's why they'd continue to squeeze us dry. So, whinge all we like, nothing will change unless we decide to take up jobs in our little villages instead of commuting to London.

Annie, Cambridge, UK

I pay £1800 council tax a year for 3 bed semi in Gravesend Kent. Now I face a further rise of 10% on my season ticket his year just to go to work!! I thought Labour principles where for the working man? Is it time for a change? It's quite clear Labour is not doing the job properly.

Harry, Gravesend , Kent

Archaic innefficient labour practices, top heavy overpaid and unaccountable government bureaucracy, the lead foot of vested historical land and property ownership, and consequent lack of self correcting free enterprise spirit, are the reasons Britiain is the lowest value for money country in the world.

Quijote, Marbella,

People seem to forget that here in the UK the railways are not in place to serve the travelling public, but to make as much money as possible for FatCat shareholders and Executives at the expense of the travelling public. The railway companies collective motto should be "Charge More, Provide Less". What's that in Latin?

Neil, Gloucestershire, England

I have the misfortune to travel from Hayes (Kent) to London. My annual season ticket will rise from £992 to £1,140, that's 14.92%. In 4 years my ticket has risen by 53%.

Southeastern claim better services, but that is debatable at best. Even now over the last year, according to Southeastern's own published statistics the percentage of trains "on time" - ie up to 5 minutes late in train parlance - is 87%, less than 1% better than the level at whcih discounts become mandatory. In period 9, covering the latest month, the "on time" level was 73.6%. That's more than 1 train in 4 "late".

Now there is an extra wheeze. All trains from Hayes to London are now timetabled to take an extra minute, so whereas a train taking 41 minutes from Hayes to London Bridge was deemed "late" - official time 35 minutes - it is now "on time" as the journey is timetabled at 36 minutes. When I first started to use Hayes the train took 30 minutes!!

bob, London,

Andrew not just the 1970's trains, but do people recall the slam door carriages? A guard told me that these were 1920's and 1930's stock. Can this be right?

How how a mighty engineering nation has fallen.

Buy to let anyone?

Austin Tassletine, South West, UK

It is now even more logical to travel by car than by train. So much for emission targets and carbon footprints, buy a car you have no choice!

Andrew, Harrow, England

The rail "watchdog" has condemned the fare increases, none of the companies takes a blind bit of notice of this organisation, it is totally Toothless! There is no option but for passengers to take matters into their own hands.

Neil, Gloucestershire, England

Without doubt the biggest cock-up of the last Conservative government was the privatisation of the railways. It is impossible to run a profitable national rail network so it must be partly subsidised by the state - and I say this as stauch advocate of the free market. Incidentally, we are now subsidising private companies' profits rather than the public weal. British Rail was better than the current set-up, it was more reliable and on time much more often. Much of the rolling stock currently in operation was bought under British Rail. I wonder if these Italian made trains of Branson's will be working 30 years from now like the the stuff BREL produced in the 70s.

Andrew, Suffolk,

Wow! A £137 for a standard return from Bristol to London; these people clearly have no idea how to make money.

D.J., Hampshire,

Where is the independant audit from the passenger association?

T.R.E. Hugger, South Pacific ,

This is madness. Trains are the primary instruments the government can use to reduce UK atmospheric carbon output. Yet ticket prices are increased both to capitalize on demand and to restrict demand to within the confines of existing infrastructure capacity. Folly.

We should seek to rapidly improve the infrastructure to take on more and more passengers and freeze prices. This probably won't come about however until the government renationalizes the entire rail industry.

Took a lot of blood on the tracks to get the government to budge on Railtrack. Will it take several similar ecological disasters to get them to budge on the trains?

LC, Ely,

no to rail rise

Sebastian C Eisenberg, Bromley Kent, United Kingdom