Rip-off train tickets

Author
Discussion

Gazzab

21,218 posts

288 months

Tuesday 17th March 2009
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I am doing Chesterfield to London tomorrow. Expect it to cost £150 ?! Aggghhh

Gazzab

21,218 posts

288 months

Tuesday 17th March 2009
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Aha ! It is £40 cheaper if I go from Sheffield (ie one station north of here!).

croyde

23,832 posts

236 months

Wednesday 18th March 2009
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jamesson said:
I helped a member of the public get a train ticket from Gatwick Airport to Preston. He only wanted a single, which was bad enough at £79, but an anytime return was a flabbergasting £428.

That's £428, in case you thought you'd read it wrong.

How is that possible?
Did you buy the ticket for him;)

muckymotor

2,321 posts

227 months

Wednesday 18th March 2009
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Gazzab said:
Aha ! It is £40 cheaper if I go from Sheffield (ie one station north of here!).
I do this journey quite often and usually pay less than £20 each way.

The trick is to travel off peak and book in advance [/states obvious]

andy400

10,728 posts

237 months

Wednesday 18th March 2009
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Silver993tt said:
Heathrow to Paddington, about £17? Unbelievable.
Hmmm...scratchchin Heathrow to Paddington - approx 14 miles. About £1.21/mile. Bargain!!!

Not.

Gazzab

21,218 posts

288 months

Wednesday 18th March 2009
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muckymotor said:
Gazzab said:
Aha ! It is £40 cheaper if I go from Sheffield (ie one station north of here!).
I do this journey quite often and usually pay less than £20 each way.

The trick is to travel off peak and book in advance [/states obvious]
thanks !! ;-)

sniff diesel

13,112 posts

218 months

Wednesday 18th March 2009
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Bowler said:
jesta1865 said:
Then one Saturday I got to st pan-crass to find the train was cancelled ….. then had an almighty row with the 'train manager' as I was on the wrong time train. she wanted me to pay full fare or get off, and I pointed out that the reason i was on 'her' train at the wrong time was because her company had cancelled mine. She finally backed down when I started asking for the telephone numbers of her superiors to ask what she should do. changed her tune very quickly.
That’s because many of the Train Operators incentivize their staff to make on-board ticket sales: Like 50% of all revenue above £1k……
I can't think of one TOC that pays anything like that in commission. Our firms pay the guards 4% commission.

steve_amv8

1,906 posts

216 months

Wednesday 18th March 2009
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If you want annoying prices, let's talk car parking season tickets at Grantham.

Until recently, there were two car park operators - National Express and Grantham Estates. G.E. had a new carpark, identical to the N.E. one next door but only charge a fraction of the cost (£5/day vs £10/day). Oddly enough, the G.E. car park was always busy and the N.E. one not.

Obviously N.E. didn't like that ... as they've bought the other car park from G.E.! End result is that when our season ticket expires in June we will have to renew it at N.E. prices - which will be nearly double at over £1000!!

Silver993tt

9,064 posts

245 months

Wednesday 18th March 2009
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I find rail tickets, particullarly SWT are overpriced by about 75%. In other words the tickets are 4 times what they should be for what you receive in service. This is based on overcrowded trains, very slow trains, dirty trains, dirty stations, unmanned stations, long interconnect times, bad timetables etc. A few weeks ago I tried getting from Gatwick to Woking. It took more than 1 1/2 hours and cost nearly £14! The jouurney should take no more than 30 mins and cost no more than £4 based on the distance and service involved.

Edited by Silver993tt on Wednesday 18th March 22:50

steve_amv8

1,906 posts

216 months

Wednesday 18th March 2009
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Best rail service I use is the Transpennine service from Doncaster to Manchester. Only been late once in the six months I have used it (usually travel once a week) and the trains are nice enough. Best thing is the price - £25 return for the journey.

King Herald

23,501 posts

222 months

Wednesday 18th March 2009
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Dr KT said:
Hi All,

How on earth do people expect us to stop using our cars when the cost of train ticket is so high?
Stafford to London, return, for me and the mum in law, they wanted £120 each.

I left the station in shock. A bit of research on the interweb and I found I could buy a family rail card, £25, take the MIL, the wife AND our daughter, for £101 all in, so we did.

Now somebody please explain to me how the holy fking hell they can justify such stupidity, bks and gobshyte when running a business?

Webber3

1,228 posts

225 months

Thursday 19th March 2009
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Silver993tt said:
imp123 said:
Its not like your forced to travel on the train you have options and this particular option is in your opinion to expensive.

The train company is a company out to make profit and it sells its goods at a price it thinks it can get away with rather than one to make everyone happy, seems like a reasonable business practice to me.
That's fine in a normal competitive environment...
and if people vote with their feet and these train companies look like they're going under, the government will just bail them out.




The Moose

23,075 posts

215 months

Thursday 19th March 2009
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Silver993tt said:
I find rail tickets, particullarly SWT are overpriced by about 75%. In other words the tickets are 4 times what they should be for what you receive in service. This is based on overcrowded trains, very slow trains, dirty trains, dirty stations, unmanned stations, long interconnect times, bad timetables etc. A few weeks ago I tried getting from Gatwick to Woking. It took more than 1 1/2 hours and cost nearly £14! The jouurney should take no more than 30 mins and cost no more than £4 based on the distance and service involved.

Edited by Silver993tt on Wednesday 18th March 22:50
Just out of interest, not looking to pick a fight!! but how do you calculate the value of the trip to be £4 or less???

fk, I would imagine by your scale that some train companies owe me money ;-)

Barreti

6,680 posts

243 months

Thursday 19th March 2009
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They've just built a new train station near to where I live.
Its Notts Parkway.

What a bloody misnomer that name is.
When the initial incentive prices disappear, it will cost around £3.50 for a train ticket into Nottingham which is about 9 miles away. That's not bad actually and just a bit more than the park and ride so should be a great money spinner for them.
Only they have welshed on the deal to provide transport from local villages to the train station and its about 2 miles away so not walkable. So I'd have to take the car. To park the car will cost £12

I'm at a complete loss as to who exactly they are trying to market this new train station at.
It was sold to us on the grounds it would reduce traffic. Well who in their right mind is going to pay more than £15 for the last 9 miles of their journey when they can drive into the city and pay £3 to park all day.

I've had a couple of rants now so its all off my chest and I can go to bed.
Night Night.

speedchick

5,195 posts

228 months

Thursday 19th March 2009
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We flew from Manchester to Heathrow at the end of February, not sure how much that part cost, but I was in charge of sorting out the train back in the evening. I think we booked with about 3 week notice, and booked from Euston to Wilmslow on the Virgin Service and then Wilmslow to Manchester Airport, all in for £9 each. That was leaving London at 20 to 9 at night, an hour earlier and it would have cost £45 each.

Pat H

8,058 posts

262 months

Thursday 19th March 2009
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speedchick said:
Stuff
Yep.

I had to go down to London on the train to collect my Alfa a couple of months ago.

Booked online a few days in advance and paid £12 for Manchester-Euston.

If I had been prepared to travel in an evening, it would have cost less than a tenner.

But the same month, I had to pay for a collegue to go to the Court of Appeal at short notice. That cost £270 for the return ticket.

confused

Pricing is determined by holding to ransom those desperate to travel at peak times or at short notice, rather than by any correlation between the cost of the service plus profit.

For what it's worth, the train was clean, comfortable and on time. The food was good and not too expensive.

But amazingly, even at £12 a ticket, the train was almost empty.

drink



dern

14,055 posts

285 months

Thursday 19th March 2009
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I had to take train from Newbury to Norwich a month or so ago so I could drive my dad's car back. Booked my ticket a couple of weeks in advance and it cost me substantially less than it would have cost me to drive... £18

funkyrobot

18,789 posts

234 months

Thursday 19th March 2009
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steve_amv8 said:
If you want annoying prices, let's talk car parking season tickets at Grantham.

Until recently, there were two car park operators - National Express and Grantham Estates. G.E. had a new carpark, identical to the N.E. one next door but only charge a fraction of the cost (£5/day vs £10/day). Oddly enough, the G.E. car park was always busy and the N.E. one not.

Obviously N.E. didn't like that ... as they've bought the other car park from G.E.! End result is that when our season ticket expires in June we will have to renew it at N.E. prices - which will be nearly double at over £1000!!
Yep, good old Grantham. I'll be using the carpark in April as I need to get a train to Scotland and back in a day. I also live 15 odd miles from there so its the easiest way to get an East Coast train.

Talking of infuriating rail practices, I have just been in my local station this morning to book two single tickets to London. If it wasn't for the nice chap in the office I would have been livid. He told me that you aren't allowed to book an advance ticket (which is an off-peak cheapo) in an office at peak time. WTF!!

So I wasn't supposed to be able to book these tickets for next Weds as it was about 7am today. Even though the ticket I wanted had nothing to do with the time of day (9am Weds) I was booking it! What on earth is that all about!

Anyway, I must praise him though because he said as it wasn't 'busy' (the station was completely empty) he would book it for me. What a relief. The one time I want to use this country's sorry excuse for public trasnport I'm being told to come back later. I can imagine what would have happened if I had to talk to a jobsworth rail idiot!

The prices I paid were £21.50 each, but if I booked them for the earlier train it would have been nearer £50.00 each!!

Add to the fact that when you do get a train they are smelly, dirty, the tickets are locked down by no end of draconian rules and they struggle to run on time, it makes paying such high amounts of money even more stupid!!

As long as public transport is like this I will never give my car up. I can't even get to work without my car as there is no bus or train service to the site I work at.


theaxe

3,567 posts

228 months

Thursday 19th March 2009
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steve_amv8 said:
If you want annoying prices, let's talk car parking season tickets at Grantham.

Until recently, there were two car park operators - National Express and Grantham Estates. G.E. had a new carpark, identical to the N.E. one next door but only charge a fraction of the cost (£5/day vs £10/day). Oddly enough, the G.E. car park was always busy and the N.E. one not.

Obviously N.E. didn't like that ... as they've bought the other car park from G.E.! End result is that when our season ticket expires in June we will have to renew it at N.E. prices - which will be nearly double at over £1000!!
Wouldn't that count as anti-competitive behavior. Like Tesco buying up all the local shops and doubling the prices?

Somewhatfoolish

4,618 posts

192 months

Thursday 19th March 2009
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Way I see it there are two ways to have cheaper fares:

1) More taxation. Well frankly anyone who supports this can fk off.
2) Less emphasis on health and safety - the major cause of inefficiency and spiralling costs. I could go with this, I'm quite happy with reasonably dangerous trains, but most people are pathetic s scared of wasps and old women with walking sticks so this is a non starter.

So we're stuck, pretty much.

Again I have to say you can't emphasise the importance of booking in advance, even by a day, and emergencies excepted almost everyone can do that.

Last night decided on the spur of the moment to go to Glasgow this weekend, £112 to go up on Friday and £165 to come back on the sleeper on Sunday night, and that's 1st class... so this is the same price as the OP's tickets to be on trains for about two and a half times as long...