The ridiculous cost of train fares

[garlictwist]

I have a few unexpected days off work coming up and thought I might have some time in London as the weather is good there.

The train fare is coming out at over £300 return. I can fly to Spain for less than that. Then I looked at going to Devon on the train - same thing.

I understand they have their book miles in advance thing but a) I don't always know that I want to travel in advance and b) how can they justify such insane prices even at the more expensive end?

They should have put all the money they've slung into HS2 into subsidising train fares. It just makes no sense on earth for it to cost that much.

Even the coach return to London is £35 from Birmingham to London
I can book 3 months in advance and get cheaper train tickets. It’s also a quicker journey

I do an annual trip with a friend and we take our 2 dc. We priced up a weekend, train, accomodation in UK travelling around 4 hours away. It was cheaper to fly to Spain/ Italy / France / Germany for the weekend. I took 2 dc's to an event this week, booked in advance cost £120 to travel with travel cards. Took about 2 and a half hours. Its crazy.

I agree @garlictwist I never travel by train now. Extortionate train fares, can't get a seat half the time, grotty, cramped, and shabby, and hugely unreliable. I have zero desire to be stuck at Birmingham, or Manchester, or Coventry, or Leicester, or London, for 3, 4, 5 hours (or more) longer than I want to be. Just standing in the train station awaiting another cancelled train! Nowhere to go because I've checked out of my hotel. HOURS earlier.

A number of people I know have had to get family members and friends to go and pick them up - from a train station that is 40, 50, 60 miles away, and even 100 miles or more away - because their train hasn't turned up, and they have no idea when the next one is. Standing in searing heat, (or the cold) abandoned and frustrated.

Also, yeah, DH and I wanted to go to a place (for a 3 day weekend away,) that is 220 miles away, and the cost of the trains would have been £435 return for the two of us. Cost us £60 in petrol. Plus £18 for the parking for the time we were there.

Go figure!!!

We got there in 4 hours too (by car.) On the train it would have taken 6 and a half hours. And that's if the trains were running, and running on time!!!

And they want people to ditch their cars.

Not a fucking chance.

.

But if you're happy to book 3 months in advance then you would also be paying a lot less for your coach.

The cost are ridiculous, when I have to go to London, it's over £300 and even then, you can't guarantee an actual seat! Even if I've booked a seat, so many are cancelled and combined, that more than one person is booked into it.

Indeed and at least you'd be guaranteed a seat which is not the case with the train no matter how far in advance the seat is booked.

You need to book them when they come out, cost me £70!for a adult & child return tickets from Newcastle to London.

There’s a 16-25 railcard you can buy Tea. Gets her 1/3 off (you can also pay with Tesco clubcard vouchers).

And yes, British rail fares are crazily expensive.

It's called supply and demand coupled with dynamic pricing. Trains that are busy will cost more to use, when they are down to the last few tickets on a train the price goes up. exactly the same as flights and hotels. If I decide now, on a whim, that I fancy going to Rome today to meet some friends, have dinner then stay in an hotel, it will cost a lot, if I booked 3 months ago it would have been a lot cheaper. Paradoxically sometimes last minute booking can be cheaper, as airlines and hotels would rather have seats and rooms filled at a lower price as their static costs remain the same.

Also, the problem with a coach is that when DH and I looked into that option, the journey was 8 hours, with 2 changes. 4 hours in the car, straight there, stop when we like, still less money than 2 coach fares. Just CBA with 8 hours travel time for just 220 miles. You can travel 5000 miles in a plane in that amount of time!!!

.

Naturally it depends where you are going as to the price but you can't really compare with a car because obviously it's always going to be quicker to travel by car than public transportation because you're travelling directly.

If driving is an option then I assume most people would choose that. It's always going to be more convenient than a coach or a train.

Yes always expensive, I never feel totally comfortable either on trains. Slightly nervous.

@Zuve Do you feel nervous because you might be robbed or assaulted, or because the train might crash?

@TemporarilyCantDoMyself who do you book coach with? We are looking for DC to go to London. We’re from Yorkshire way. Train is easy but a fortune

I'm in Scotland and am equidistant between 2 cities. I have a senior railcard so get 1/3 off.
The fare to city A is £14, to city B it's £29, both for a day return.

No idea how that can possibly make sense

I booked to go to Rome last year on the same morning I flew out. It was pretty cheap. The train is expensive all the time - even if you do have some kind of magic crystal ball and know when you are going to want to travel and can book in advance, it's still not cheap.

The 16-25 has a minimum fare of £12 before 10am so no use for getting to college for most students who are doing local journeys.

Had no idea our fares had reached the level they had until this last year - DS was going all the uni open days and we explored train travel for him and one parent - over £200 each for a day return to Exeter, Manchester (cheaper to fly), etc. so £400-500 in fares.

By contrast we went to Italy last year. Got the high speed train from Rome to Naples: same distance as above but just over an hour in length [obv around the same if on normal trains]. A first class ticket, with complementary drinks and snacks, individual seat charging for devices, was £32. So a family of four could travel for £128. Could have cut that cost going standard.

We are so behind the rest of Europe and our travel costs are extortionate. And then they wonder why we get in our cars.

The prices are an absolute scandal. It’s just amazing how it has ever been allowed.

Train drivers salaries wouldn’t even be a rounding error in the economics of running a railway.

If you get a railcard with Tesco vouchers, and use the trainpal app, travel off peak and book in advance, it can be reasonable. So for me, taking a child to London at the weekend for example, it is much nicer to go by train than drive and find parking. We added on travelcards for the tubes and buses, which were also a third off with a railcard. It was very reasonable. It is also sometimes cheaper to book two singles rather than a return.

If you get a railcard with Tesco vouchers, and use the trainpal app, travel off peak and book in advance, it can be reasonable.

Does anyone else see the absurdity of this? 4 different convoluted steps just to get reasonable ticket prices, and even then, one person's reasonable is another person's extortionate.

It's shocking isn't it? You are massively penalised for not knowing weeks in advance that you need to travel. I have an elderly relative in the Midlands and have had to travel up and back from London a lot recently, often urgently. It's cost thousands over six months.

They’re so expensive, I did a last minute Manchester to Paris once on the train, despite booking in advance my Manchester to London ticket in standard class was more expensive than my premier plus on the eurostar.

I’m about 40 minutes away from Waterloo on the train, peak time travel to my London office costs £56 per day. People ask why I don’t apply for jobs there directly and the reason is the cost and the time it takes to travel.. Because there are frequent delays, cancelled trains and re-routed journeys. To be fair it’s usually okay getting there (there have been a few hiccups) 9 times out of 10 the journey home is disrupted in some way. No thanks!

ETA I only really need to go to that office approx once a month and my work do pay for it but if I applied for a job there obviously that would then become my main place of work and those costs then understandably become my own!