Train pricing craziness

[Globules]

I'm going away at the weekend.

Home to destination is £17.20, with one change.
Home to the station I need to change at is £17.80.

Same train. Same everything.

Why does it cost 60p less to travel an hour further?

Why does it cost less and is more direct, to travel from Yorkshire to London, than it is to travel from the south coast to London.

Why does it now cost me £105 at the very very minimum (advance tickets, cheapest time of day) to get a return to London when a few short years ago I could do it for about £65? Plus the new Hitachi trains are shit and unreliable, the seats are hideous, there's no buffet car and trolley lady is usually out of hot water by Exeter, the trains are overbooked, the quiet carriage is not quiet, people behave like savages. Huh? Huh?

Do you know what, I'd be interested to hear what the management would say to your question. I mean, how can they possibly get out of that? (they will though)

Another crazy @Bluevelvetsofa Who knows?

I think a lot of passengers these days are savages @WestwardHo1 On the train last month, I saw a family insist their large wet lab got up on a seat.

Trolley lady has been long gone around here too.

Why is it that in Italy I could travel from a small town outside of Milan to lake como, into Milan, to the airport, and to Monza (four trips) for less than one single ticket from my town to our nearest city? Our railway network is a disgrace.

If you are changing trains are you switching from one train company to another?
Sometimes the algorithms seem to get confused when it's different train companies.
But train prices are a mystery.

Does the cheaper one count as long distance, meaning you can get an advance?

It’s ridiculous though.

Why is a weekly ticket for my son to go to school almost double the price of 5 single tickets?

Same company.

And the ticket type is the same @MinnieMountain . There's just no logic!

Can you use the weekly ticket at the weekend too? Could that be why?

Wouldn't you need return tickets too?
A weekly ticket will be assuming it's there and back - so that makes sense it's double 5 singles 🤔

Trains are crazy priced, £70 each to travel off peak return to London (80 minute journey each way), to drive it costs approximately £50 for fuel and £35 to park just outside the congestion zone for a day and half, though we took the coach which was £7 each way per person so £28 in total plus £8 in local bus fares our end (also the case for the station)

I’ve just booked a Eurostar to Paris and an overnight train to the south of France for £54. About the same return. It’s a 12-15 hour journey and incudes a couchette.

My colleague booked a short notice day return (first I think) to London from Wakefield…. £400. A 2 hour journey.

madness.

A day return for a child £4.50. A weekly ticket for a child is £42. it makes no sense.
(edited for typo)

Yes that makes no sense.
(you said single tickets originally though not day return....)
Although is the day return price off peak?
Travelling to school will come under peak prices unfortunately.

@itsabeautifuldayjuly "weekly" might actually cover 7 days as well not 5.

When we moved back to the UK several years ago, I was determined not to get a car. Public transport is so good, I said. Be green and save the planet, I said. Reduce the stress of following a map and driving, I said.

Now I drive everywhere. The train ticket costs for a family of three outweigh the cost of driving by such an incredibly large percentage that we simply can't justify it.

could you give me a link please? or which website? I tired the Eurostar website and it £££££ for next time we visit friends in south of France

Why is it 10 times as much, almost 11 times, to get the train to where I wanted to go than it is/was to fly?

it does. but the price of a weekly ticket is the price of 9 peak return tickets….

Very odd.
As this thread says - train prices are a mystery.

Eurostar has dynamic pricing unfortunately, so the prices vary massively. Try: travelling Sunday or midweek, out of school holidays, in the afternoon or late at night. Compare dates on the website.

The night trains are SNCF Trains de Nuit. There is an option to switch the SNCF website to English. Consult the Man in Seat 61 (seat61.com) for detailed advice.

Coming from Cornwall, it's actually cheaper for me to get a 4 day Interrail pass for this journey, mostly because the Cornwall- London leg is included in the pass. Last time I did it it cost £280 all in (I only took the sleeper train one way though), although I bought the pass in one of Interrail's regular sales.

not simple then? 😋 I’ll have a good look, thanks 🙏🏽

It's true, it's not simple! It helps if you're a logistics spod!

I read something a while back on Facebook, and this thread spurred me to try it out:

Apparently, it's cheaper to buy a ticket from Cornwall to Wellingborough VIA London Paddington and not use the London- Wellingborough leg than it is to simply buy a ticket from Cornwall to London Paddington.

I did a search for tickets for a week's time on Trainline.
08.42 Redruth- Wellingborough via London Paddington £41.50.
08.42 Redruth- London Paddington £76.50

I've never been to Wellingborough- is it so terrible that they have to pay people to go there?!