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?

Ha yes!
I priced up returns to London from Birmingham; then changed the start point to Wolverhampton to add the local train first. It was cheaper than just Brum- Lon. And it was the very same train to London.
And don't get me started on all the different sites - initially the cheapest return I could find on most were around the £60 mark, finally found one via Trainline (but then purchased on the operator's local site to avoid fees) for £24 return.
It is just the amount of EFFORT required that is a pain.

@Globules "I've never been to Wellingborough- is it so terrible that they have to pay people to go there?!"
I hate to say it and no offence to those that live there......but yeah 😂

@crackofdoom hold on.... Wellingborough isn't on the Paddington line. It's on the St Pancras line.
You can't go "via Paddington".
That price structure makes even less sense.

You can! The ticket you buy is from Redruth- Paddington, then St Pancras- Wellingborough (and there's a little note telling you to get the underground between the two). So yes, it's technically "via London Paddington AND London St Pancras".

Is this one of the reasons the ticket is cheaper? Because it factors in the perceived inconvenience? 🤔 I think it's more likely that the train companies' pricing is based on demand for the destination. I wonder if someone out there has done the work of comparing loads of destination stations and ranking them in price order?

Years ago I needed an annual season ticket from Guildford to London. I went to buy it at the ticket office near my parents home just outside Portsmouth. When the guy put the details in he was rather taken aback to see that the season ticket from Guildford was more expensive than the season ticket from miles further down the line. I ended up with the season ticket from Portsmouth and it meant that I didn't have to pay for my trips home. Absolutely crazy.

Why does it cost less if I go from a station near my house, change at Paddington, then on to Exeter, than it does to get a train just from Paddington to Exeter?

We have this because it’s cheaper from a mainline station but not all trains stop there. I think once priced a trip to London that was hundreds of pounds more expensive from our small local station than it was from the station 6 miles further away. There were 6 of us hence the huge difference but still. We ended up buying form the other station and then getting the local train at its usual cost. A through booking was extortion. 2 different companies involved though.

And why is it so unreliable in the 21st century?

We are car-free by choice so we do a lot of journeys, of varying distances, by train. I would estimate that over 75% of them will have some sort of disruption or delay, sometimes resulting in missing connections etc (LNER from Kings Cross heading north in the afternoons, I'm giving you a particularly Hard Stare).

Whilst I know it is fiction, when I read Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, they're always confidently saying things like "A letter has just arrived from Lady Twaddle of Tinyton Hall, who requires our assistance this very lunchtime. The timetable book says there's a train at 8:14 from Paddington, changing at Bristol, we shall be at Tinyton-on-Beeble at 11:33."

@crackofdoom that is most bizarre.
Wellingborough isn't even an interchange station.
Very very odd.

This is such a great tip!! Thank you.

I don't even know where Wellingborough is but I'll be doing this.

There’s a special offer which ends today. It’s for travel in Nov /dec. Adding photo.

Have looked.

A return from a West Cornwall station <taps nose> to Wellingborough leaving at 9.10 on 24th September and returning on the 28th is £86 all in.

The cheapest I could find to Paddington and back was £105.

CRAZY.

Wait for fares to Wellingborough to skyrocket as it unfathomably increases in popularity 😆

When I get a moment I'm going to experiment with a variety of obscure sounding destinations...

Wait for fares to Wellingborough to skyrocket as it unfathomably increases in popularity 😆

When I get a moment I'm going to experiment with a variety of obscure sounding destinations...

That is exactly the same scenario as my ticket. It's absolutely crazy, isn't it?

Woohoo!

A long term money saving tip 💕

Absolutely ridiculous that this is as it is.

And the weird thing is that I've just tried to replicate this journey with other destinations in the SE that I would imagine had a low footfall and involve going via London- Sandy, Witham, Shoeburyness. And it doesn't work!

It's a nightmare getting a train in this country - expensive and utter crap.
But that's privatisation for you.
Well done Tories.

Oh, the other South West- London wriggle is to search for trains to London via Clapham Junction, as it then reroutes you onto the SW Trains network, which is cheaper (but slower). Mind you, last time I did that SW trains were in such chaos that I was allowed to get on a GWR train instead 😆

I think the route from Exeter St Thomas goes into Waterloo on SW trains doesn't it.

The other crazy thing about getting to West Cornwall from Paddington is that you can get to Exeter in just about two hours with a single stop at Reading if you pick a fast train. It then takes over THREE MORE HOURS to get to the bottom end of Cornwall, and it stops at more or less every lamp post. Trundling along estuaries and over viaducts at 50mph is all very pretty (if it's daylight) the first couple of times....

Is Wellingborough in Northamptonshire?

Northamptonshire is one of those places I know NOTHING about apart from that thing on Netflix I watched about the pollution and the Scots in Corby. And shoes, or is it gloves?

Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire - two more counties I know literally nothing about. No offence to anyone who lives there.

Perhaps I should buy that ticket to Wellingborough.

Generally (though not always) stations where you need to change are bigger cities where people commute (and are willing to pay). That’s why you’ll find those tickets tend to be more expensive as people are prepared to pay.

Here in the SE we are always moaning that our ticket doesn’t let us travel
on the cheaper line without a fine.
So it it’ cost £65 to London and you get the cheaper £45 off peak train but because that’s not your ticket you get a fine!

An off-peak senior single trip to London for me is £9.70. An off-peak return is £9.80. Clearly, no-one wants me getting stranded in London.

You have lost the memories of British Rail and their pork pies.