Where cheap property prices meet cheap train lines

[whole diary]

[grahame]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/10958987/Map-where-cheap-property-prices-meet-cheap-train-lines.html

How much more house could your money buy the farther you move from Britain^s biggest urban hubs? It's every family^s dilemma: will the grind of a long, daily commute be compensated for in the form of bigger homes, better schooling and a life in the (more or less) countryside?

The three main variables in the equation are property prices, travel costs and the speed and frequency of travel services.

Commuters with a 60-minute rail journey to London can save about ^200,000 on the price of a semi-detached house compared with one in the capital. But there^s a postcode lottery when it comes to savings, as rail fares vary by up to ^2,000 a year across commuter lines of a comparable distance.

[eightf48544]

There is a fourth varible to added to the equation especialy if you move to commute from a station with with a non regular interval semi infrequent service and that is will the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) relets the franchise and removes the trains you regularly use and come to rely upon? This seems to have happened to have happened to a number of places, Melksham being the classic.

Plus look at what hapened to the Thanet Stations which had frequent electric commuter  trains to London Bridge, Canon Street Victoria and Charing Cross from 1962, but now have mainly Javlin services to St Pancras with higher fares.   

I'm still not sure if Social Factors such as this are taken into account when planning service patterns. Hardship was supposed to be a factor to be taken into account with line closures but an unusable train service you seem to be stuck with. 

[thetrout]

Speed of Internet Access is also a huge factor on housing prices I have discovered in more recent times. Some price comparison websites give you an estimated broadband speed for specific properties. Some of that would be taken with a pinch of salt however. Just because a Towns Telephone Exchange is FTTx enabled (Fibre Optic / BT Infinity) does not mean you can receive Fibre Internet.

I live just over 300 yards from my Towns Telephone Exchange which is FTTC Enabled. Yet I cannot receive Fibre because my telephone line runs direct to the exchange. That is just pants when 75 yards further up the road from me is 4 flats which can get Fibre / BT Infinity. This is because they are connected to a cabinet at the top of the hill with an FTTC DSLAM Cabinet vs running to the exchange directly.

Fortunately my flat is connected to the Telewest Network (Now Virgin Media) and as much as I disapprove of their customer support at times. The product when it works, works well.