Yes, I fully agree that long distance commuting is with us for the forseeable future and simply stopping trains after 7pm to discourage it is going to do nothing of the sort.
People will simply get into their cars and go home that way. It is incredible that our national railway simply goes to bed after tea - compare that with practice elsewhere in Europe and even on our own doorstep in Northern Ireland...
Here in London many thousands of people make a daily roundtrip of 200 miles by train and think nothing of it. If the British TOCs decided to shut down after 7pm to discourage long distance commuting this city would grind to a halt with gridlocked traffic.
It's high time those who manage our railway started thinking on a strategic basis rather on the basis of "this is how we have always done it and we don't want the NBRU getting upset either"...
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