The price of train tickets!

Most are state owned! Network Rail (infrastructure) is state owned. Many of the train operating franchises are now controlled directly by the state and paid a fee for running the trains. It wouldn't really be much different if there was overt state control - the likes of drivers etc wouldn't be directly employed by the state - nor would train manufacturers, maintenance etc - it would still all be contracted out.

*Kazzyhoward · Yesterday 11:49

The reality is that trains are a job creation exercise rather than a public service. Unions have ruined them, like everything else is ruined when there's a strong stroppy union in control*

They were ruined when they were privatised. They should be a state owned service. You can even guarantee catching a train near me.

Oh yes, life would be so much better if everything was more like the uncontrolled privatised water companies, just pumping shit into the rivers whilst ripping off customers and giving our money to shareholders.

The rail unions are pretty much the only thing stopping the government dismantling what is left of the railway service.

Rubbish, it was the Major government who took the lean, well-functioning BR that existed by 1994 (the reputation it deserved in the '70s was no longer true) and broke it up into bits.

Breaking it up created duplication, inefficiencies, and a competitive market for skilled staff so the poverty wages paid by BR (people were working 30 days without a day off in those days to feed families) escalated as private companies fought to poach skilled staff off of each other rather than pay to train them from scratch.

Privatisation also (ironically) resulted in far more government interference. BR used to be given an annual budget and told to get on with the job. Through the Labour, Coalition, and Conservative years DfT control has got progressively tighter to the extent now that MDs cannot so much as fart without permission from Whitehall. Any expense over £500 needs a sign-off from a civil servant and given how much Unipart charge for spares that's resulted in a considerable extra admin burden for Production Managers in Fleet. Strikes? It's worth noting that Scotland, Wales and Merseyside haven't been affected by industrial action, the action has been confined to staff under the control of the English government.

@melj1213 I agree, it shouldn't be necessary. But I just don't understand what you mean about it taking 2 hours to beat the algorithm. It's instant. No fuss at all.

They are bonkers!

In September I took the train from Northampton to Brighton, and that was nearly £80.

Nowadays, if I'm not in a hurry, I get the National Express. It's about £16 return, if that, and perfectly pleasant.

But the point is that we should not have to use an app specifically to fiddle the algorithm to work it out - when you book a ticket it should show you the best option available.

If a journey goes A-Z then the ticket should cost the same regardless of whether you have one ticket going A-Z directly or 24 tickets going from A-B; B-C; C-E; E-F ... X-Y; Y-Z - you shouldn't be penalised if you want to go A-Z and don't know (or just don't have the time) to search all the possible combinations to work out if the ticket can be bought cheaper in stages, not to mention all the different prices based on when you book.

I use the Trainline who also use split ticketing but you shouldn't have to have a degree to get a ticket for less than £100 for a journey that costs £40 in petrol but can be bought for £17.65 if you've got two hours to beat the algorithm.

The reality is that trains are a job creation exercise rather than a public service. Unions have ruined them, like everything else is ruined when there's a strong stroppy union in control.

@Bainbridgemews @DdraigGoch TrainSplit app will work it all out for you - it could not be simpler.

My family regularly uses cross-country trains on the Manchester to Bournemouth route. TrainSplit can be as much as half the price quoted by the cc website. Amazing first class bargains too.

For anyone unfamiliar- there is no changing trains, just that you might have a few separate tickets for the journey. All on your phone.

From Bristol parkway to London, an any time return ticket costs close to £250. For a journey that takes c. 1hr 15m each way. Horrendous, but I expect they know that employers will generally be picking up the tab for journeys taken at peak times

It is truly a rip off. In Belgium train fares are subsided - can travel anywhere in the country at any time of day for max €11! A return to Brussels (40 mins) costs €5.70. A bargain. Trains are often late though!

I found the opposite tbh I went Doncaster to Liverpool and back for £30 a few weeks ago. And I’ve done Leeds to Blackburn return for £19 a few times.

This is very helpful to the pp but it shouldn't be the case that you need this level of knowledge to book train tickets for anything like a fair price, nor that you need to fiddle around with the journey parameters. It's half of what puts me off train travel; I just want to pay a fair price for the journey I'm undertaking, not worry about the fact I could have paid less if I'd known some random tricks.

I bought my car outright for £7k about 5 years ago. I'm already paying for insurance, MOT, tax, service and maintenance (which on average totals less than £750 per year since I've had the car). The 300 miles for the London-Cardiff round trip is not impacting the running costs or value of my car in a noticeable way at all, and saves me about £240 vs the cost of an anytime return (when I travel, this is the only suitable ticket due to the times I need to travel and needing flexibility for the return journey). When four of us drive together, that's over a grand saved (£240 saved for the first ticket, after covering petrol, £280 saved for the next three tickets).
The amount we save just on long journeys more than pays for the running costs of the car for the year.

I agree, I’m currently taking driving lessons and hope to be driving in 2024 because I can no longer rely on public transport. They can’t tell us to be green and ditch cars etc while having such an overpriced and unreliable and quite frankly dirty and crowded service.

Have you checked if there are any local coach tour operators in your area? We have a good one that offers day trips, short breaks and UK holidays - very good value.

@LangMayYerLumReek2024 ah I go
for leisure which is easier for flexibility. I don’t think I’ve ever not got some level of delay refund on the Berkshire to Edinburgh route when going via Birmingham, although the east coast route seems to be a bit more reliable

I really want to travel and see places but I'm not a confident driver and I actually get really upset with the cost of trains which then prevents me getting about because once you add on hotel transport from the station it costs an obscene amount.
I check out any coach service but no choice except national express but thier timings Choice of locations and journeys are pretty useless.

And yet £37.98 return to fly. https://www.easyjet.com/en/buy/flights?isOneWay=off&pid=www.easyjet.com

An open return from Glasgow to London is £170... and 40p.

@enchantedsquirrelwood

I am not sure fare evasion is massive as most stations have barriers now.

Lots of stations don't have barriers and some don't even have ticket machines.

If you know the journey and the stations on, say, your regular route, you'll know whether you can evade the fare or not.

Our local branch line is very short, just 10 minutes. On busy trains (i.e. the school times or rush hour), there's no way the guard will get through the train selling/checking tickets and everyone goes to one end of the train safe in the knowledge the guard starts at the other end and won't even get half way down the first carriage before it pulls into the station where everyone gets off at the other end. It's been like that for many years. The train company knows and clearly doesn't care as they never put any ticket inspectors on the train and the guards never even try to catch people out by starting at the other end of the train nor the middle. It's just accepted - it's the mugs who don't travel regularly who pay.

Trains just aren't cost effective especially if more than one person is travelling - I live in the Lakes and to get to Manchester on the train takes at least 2hrs on the train and costs about £40, and that's before travel to/from the nearest mainline station ... to drive is about the same amount of time but far cheaper in petrol/parking and gives me 100% control over when I travel. I do try to use the train when it's just me travelling (eg if I'm meeting a friend in Manchester for an evening, going to a football game where traffic isn't worth the hassle or going to see a show solo) but as soon as there's 2 or more of us travelling then it's just not financially sensible to pay the train fares when it's cheaper to drive, especially for someone on a tight budget, even if you get railcards (if you are eligible for one).

If I'm going to Manchester then sometimes I can get a cheap super advanced train ticket that has 10001 restrictions but that's provided I book weeks in advance, and even when you do do that the train will invariably be cancelled on the day or, like the last 3 visits I've made to Manchester I've been getting the last train home (22:30) and had it be terminated at Lancaster for some reason or other and I've then had to get a taxi or bus replacement service home, adding hours on to the journey.

It also is restrictive - unless you know your plans weeks in advance you are paying through the nose. A friend and I got tickets to go and see the Lionesses play Scotland at Hampton Park last month, we couldn't confirm until 4 days before due to other circumstances (babysitters/work etc). The train options were fine to get there even if it did take 4hrs one way but there was no train back after 8pm (15mins after kick off) so we would have had to stay over and come back the following day. To take the train would have been £120 each (£60 return - journey can be done cheaper but no cheap fares at the point we were booking - and £60 each to cover food/hotel costs) ... Instead we drove which took 3hrs door to door, cost £125 total (£80 total in petrol, £5 parking and £40 for dinner so £62.50 each) and allowed us to leave right after the game and be home in bed by 1am. Not all of those costs were directly train costs but when the restrictions of train travel mean you have to factor in accommodation costs because the last train is before your event finishes then they are relevant, and that's before the added cost to us of lost working hours if we'd have had to take the day after off too (we were both knackered but both made it to work by 9am the following day)

The only benefit of train travel for me is that invariably I get 75-100% refunds due to the delays/cancellations so I don't really pay for train tickets, the train company just borrows money off me for a short period before giving it back via delay repay.

We don’t even have trains in the north.

Trans Peninne is so bad it’s destroying the economy.

We need something like the German Bahncard that anyone can buy to get a discount.

But the UK government doesn't want it.

Dh and I recently looked at travelling down to London on the train. Worked out at around £120 return for two of us. We took the car. Cost about £30 in fuel. No brainer.