Rip-off train tickets

[Somewhatfoolish]

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...

[F i F]

Somewhatfoolish said:

1) More taxation. Well frankly anyone who supports this can fk off.

Road users pay umpty billion of which a miniscule amount is actually spent on roads, therefore the rest goes into general taxation fund.

Yet, supposed the Treasury ring fenced transportation sourced tax for transportation spend, then one wonders what setup we could really have.

Of course this won't happen because Labour will give examples of the most vulnerable will suffer by such practice, fewer hospitals, elderly care will suffer, bla di bla, trying to get the sympathy vote. Yet in reality most of the tax revenue is pissed up against the wall in the business of just running the Govt itself both badly and inefficiently.

[theaxe]

Couldn't we have cheaper fares by removing the early booking disounts and just make all tickets the same price (although perhaps with flexible fares being more expensive)?

[andy400]

Somewhatfoolish said:

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.

Not sure about this. I still think nationalisation done properly is the answer - I can't quite get my head around the fact that a lot of private rail companies still receive massive subsidy whilst still paying dividends to shareholders and/or big profits into the pockets of owners. Makes no sense to me - shirley if nationalised, you'd get the benefit of both 'incomes' - subsidy from government, plus any 'profits' staying for use by the railway.

[zac510]

If there was a flat rate for train routes wouldn't there be an increased risk of overcrowding on peak time routes?

[Somewhatfoolish]

andy400 said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

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.

Not sure about this. I still think nationalisation done properly is the answer - I can't quite get my head around the fact that a lot of private rail companies still receive massive subsidy whilst still paying dividends to shareholders and/or big profits into the pockets of owners. Makes no sense to me - shirley if nationalised, you'd get the benefit of both 'incomes' - subsidy from government, plus any 'profits' staying for use by the railway.

A lot of the problem is the fecking stupid way in which the nationalisation was done... I mostly blame the Adam Smith Institute for this. In particular the short term duration of the franchises encourages short term thinking and discourages investment in infrastructure.

[Somewhatfoolish]

theaxe said:

Couldn't we have cheaper fares by removing the early booking disounts and just make all tickets the same price (although perhaps with flexible fares being more expensive)?

WAG is that the vast majority of ticket revenue is season ticket or walk-up fare anyway...

[randomman]

As a rail user I can also say they are fooking ridiculous.

I know its hardly the point but the train goes anyway so why not drop the prices? If it wasn't nearly twice as expensive as driving for a one way ticket (yes just me on my own, and last time I checked my car can seat 4 others) then people might start to use it.

[Somewhatfoolish]

randomman said:

As a rail user I can also say they are fooking ridiculous.

I know its hardly the point but the train goes anyway so why not drop the prices? If it wasn't nearly twice as expensive as driving for a one way ticket (yes just me on my own, and last time I checked my car can seat 4 others) then people might start to use it.

Almost all the trains I go on are packed, although that might just be my fans.

We need a proper high speed rail line if you ask me, preferably up the east coast because that's got the better people in it.

[bazking69]

I haven't been on a train for nearly 10 years for this exact reason...
Given the massively prohibitive cost of using the train, there is simply no reason for me to every consider using the train over my car, let alone bus or plane.

[King Herald]

Pat H said:

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.

Just like airlines and ferry companies. When nobody wants to travel they are dirt cheap, but during the school holidays, Xmas, rush hour, weekends, any time they KNOW people need to go places, they'll jack up the price as high as they have carefully calculated the market will stand before it begins to lose sales.

Good normal business policy I think.

Until some scumbucket cocksucker in gubberment tells you to take the train to save the environment, and if you don't you are a bad person!

[alock]

King Herald said:

Pat H said:

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.

Just like airlines and ferry companies. When nobody wants to travel they are dirt cheap, but during the school holidays, Xmas, rush hour, weekends, any time they KNOW people need to go places, they'll jack up the price as high as they have carefully calculated the market will stand before it begins to lose sales.

Good normal business policy I think.

Until some scumbucket cocksucker in gubberment tells you to take the train to save the environment, and if you don't you are a bad person!

This is the core of the problem. It's run like a business but pushed as an ideology by the socialist government.

An equivilent to public tranport is Tesco online shopping. Imagine if all local small shops were highly taxed and their use was discouraged by government. We were then all pushed into using Tesco online where the company define delivery times and quality of goods. Tesco then starts receiving huge government grants and buy up all their competitors. Do you think the service will get better?

[tr7v8]

Just done Chatham to Walsall 1st class 272 Quid! Luckily my Co. pay & we're allowed to go 1st class so we can work.

[zac510]

King Herald said:

Good normal business policy I think.

Hope they never sell pints like that

Edited by zac510 on Thursday 19th March 19:45

[Engineer1]

tr7v8 said:

Just done Chatham to Walsall 1st class 272 Quid! Luckily my Co. pay & we're allowed to go 1st class so we can work.

bad luck on it having to end in Walsall

[alphadog]

F i F said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

1) More taxation. Well frankly anyone who supports this can fk off.

Road users pay umpty billion of which a miniscule amount is actually spent on roads, therefore the rest goes into general taxation fund.

Yet, supposed the Treasury ring fenced transportation sourced tax for transportation spend, then one wonders what setup we could really have.

Of course this won't happen because Labour will give examples of the most vulnerable will suffer by such practice, fewer hospitals, elderly care will suffer, bla di bla, trying to get the sympathy vote. Yet in reality most of the tax revenue is pissed up against the wall in the business of just running the Govt itself both badly and inefficiently.

How about spending the 9 or 12 or whatever billion that is being thrown at the Olympics on transport? Shame we pissed up however many hundreds of billions on wars. There's plenty of dosh really, the govt has its priorities wrong!

Edited by alphadog on Thursday 19th March 20:30

[5unny]

Travel the Manchester to Edinburgh route often and to be fair even booking up to 5 days before, the fares are pretty reasonable.

Heading south though is another matter - Trains from the north of england to London are extortionate but then I suppose its all supply and demand so can't really blame the train companies.

[wobert]

Went to from Chester to London (return) yesterday with my 9 yr old son for a hospital appointment.

With a family railcard including 2 zone travel card it cost £62.

Which isn't too bad when you consider it's 2hrs journey time each way - it takes me 75 mins to get from Chester to Brum, twice a week, so there's no way I'd do it in the car.

[AJS-]

Somewhatfoolish said:

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...

You've missed a third option: Slavery.

If railways were built and maintained by slaves, and stations and trains were staffed by unpaid workers the cost savings would be enourmous. Make people on benefits work like this and keep them interested with the chance of becoming a paid slave driver if they do well, then you could cut rail fares.


It really should not surprise anyone that trains are more expensive and less convenient than cars. With a car, provided there's a useable road, you just throw your stuff in, and set off when you choose, going exactly where you choose and by the exact route you want, and the costs before tax are fairly negligable to the average working man.

With trains, firstly you have to dig, build and tunnel flat straight lines between two points, then you have to have acres of land in city centres, and finally you have to get a great big machine to tow carriages along on a given schedule, full or not.

The fact is they are just a fundamentally less useful technology than cars, and really designed for a different purpose. Their advantage being low friction they are very good at hauling a massive load between two fixed points, like a coal mine and a power station. Or taking office workers from Clapham Junction to Waterloo at 8am. They are totally useless however at transporting dispirate groups of people between the various places they want to go in an economical fashion.

Some major routes between city centres might be viable, and could be quicker by rail. Newcastle to London is about 3 hours on the train, or 5 hours by car. However if you're doing the much more likely journey of say, Ponteland (about 10 miles out of Newcastle) to Heathrow, then it's going to be quicker and cheaper to drive.

When I come to power, I will tarmac over most of the railways and turn them into express roads with no speed limit and limited access to reduce traffic flow. Until then it's taxes or death trains. In which case I would go for death trains.


Interestingly, as a hater of most forms of public transport, I did actually go on a train journey I enjoyed last year. From Hat Yai, in southern Thailand, near the Malaysian border, north to somewhere else, the name escapes me, about 4 hours north. The train was late, jam packed with screaming kids and pensioners all throwing litter from the window with merry abandon, and the seats were like wooden park benches in the carriages that had seats at all.

It was great fun though, trundling through paddy fields and deserted villages, buying fried chicken, peanuts and beer at every station and hanging out of the open door to get a cool breeze and smoke a cigarette. It cost about £3.50! And since I didn't have to be anywhere at any particular time the fact that it was delayed was meaningless to me.


So there you are, if you want a train ride, go to Thailand. If you want to get between two cities in England, drive a car.

[Blown2CV]

Standard ticket price warrington to euston return is now £240 or something. Only takes 2hr 15m which is properly quick, but you really do feel like you are the lowest of the low on the train. My train journey yesterday was a bit more eventful than usual however as when I felt the call of nature and sauntered off down the aisle and pressed the button to open the electric swoosh toilet door, I was met with the sight of a young business lady already on the toilet. She expressed a bit of surprised. I stepped aside and apologised, and i think made some kind of recommendation that locking it would be a good idea... but i think she might have realised that already! I didn't see if she was hot, and I didn't offer to assist with anything so I think that qualifies me as honourable