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.

@Zuve I'd love to see fares come down but I don't think you could fit more people on my commute trains. So, how is that going to work, if the trains are already at peak capacity at peak hours?

More likely, driving costs will be increased so that expensive train fares look cheap by comparison.

I wish instead of HS2 they had widened the tracks so we could have more space and quicker trains. £100bn + on one route that will probably be too expensive for most families to use is a huge waste and could have been used more effectively.

@40yearoldapprentice interesting to get a comment from a train driver! Can you give us your insider perspective on the problems with the rail system and whether you think nationalisation will help or not?

Most of the crappy things about uk trains is because there's not enough capacity on the railway to run enough trains. So they are simultaneously overpriced and overcrowded. This is mostly because of sustained underinvestment. HS2 is at least an attempt to solve the problem for the west coast main line. (Or it was until Rishi took an axe to it - who needs public transport when your wife has half a billion in the bank?)

Didn't realise in other regions there are no regional railcards like we have a Devon & Cornwall Railcard for all ages here in the south west. Granted it can only be used for local lines rather than long haul journeys. I rarely travel solo long haul so the family and friends Railcard then comes into use.

I am not eligible for any railcard except the Network Railcard which is only valid in SE England (where I live) so I cannot use it for anything other than local lines. Long distance I have to pay full price.

Now most of my journeys are to London and back and I do use the Network railcard for that. But I do regularly travel long distance on my own and it costs a fortune, so I do quite often fly because it is cheaper and quicker.

I am also not eligible for any railcard. There are some good offers for Northern Rail by collecting newspaper tokens at off peak times of year and I sometimes buy a day ticket that allows unlimited travel on one of the local operators that covers all of northern England as that is cheaper than open tickets but more flexible than advance tickets.

But I have to be careful because if I go from Leeds to Manchester for example, some of the trains are a different operator so the ticket isn't valid.

There's a full list of schemes here so worth a look to see what you might be able to use where you are. I think train pricing is better than it was, especially if you can use a special offer, but it's still not financially viable compared with a car for a lot of journeys, especially if there's more than one person travelling.

The usual claimable mileage rate is 55p/mile, this is based on the costs of running an average car. My fairly frugal hatchback currently costs about 14p/mile just for the fuel. London would be a nearly 300 mile round trip, add in the congestion charge,parking etc and the train fare isn't that unreasonable, unless I want to travel on a Monday morning along with people travelling back to work from their second homes. I can sit and read my book, pre-retirement get on with some work or even go to sleep, you can't do that while driving.

Honestly, I don’t know. The biggest cost is infrastructure, which is already not-for-profit. The main profits are made by the people who lease the trains themselves and the train operating companies (TOC). The latter work on fairly tight margins and the government can’t afford to buy the rolling stock outright so must continue to lease it.

There will be some cost savings from the TOCs no longer needing to make a profit, and one assumes some economies of scale from centralised purchasing, but overall I don’t think there’s a massive cost saving to be made.

One of the biggest problems is capacity on the network, and one small delay to a train can have a knock of effect on other trains using that same line for many hours as there often isn’t a large time between trains.

Train presentation and toilet maintenance, known as tanking, could easily be improved for not much money at all, so there’s one thing they could focus on, as dirty trains with no toilets is a common passenger complaint.

It usually costs me £20 to get a return London to Milton Keynes, £45-50 for a Leeds/York return. I’m surprised by some of the prices people are sharing. I just book through Trainline.

A bit like ChatGPT, they only choose examples that fit the desired narrative.Is a Guildford-London return worth £100? "Of course it will allow to travel on any train, even Paddington-Reading -Guildford and you can sit in first class".

It's Standard Gauge. You would have to widen all the track beds and lift every piece of track. Only Russia has wide gauge

They would have needed major upgrades to be able to run bullet trains, for example, but if back in 2009 they were told they could upgrade our tracks nationwide for £110bn so we could actually run competitive train services it would have been a much better option than the still escalating cost of HS2

Well that’s privatisation for you. Don’t say us mad, old lefties didn’t warn you!

The toilet situation on UK trains is so annoying and gross. My big complaint is the Elizabeth Line. It makes sense not to have toilets on the actual train. But they were making these new, huge stations, and didn't bother to put toilets in. For human comfort, they should have made it so you can get off the train, go and find and loo, and be back on the next or next next train.

Tokyo manages it. The every station no matter the size, over or underground, has toilets past the barriers, and large stations have toilets before the barriers too because there's a shopping/dining space attached. London seems to only have toilets on the concourse at large mainline stations. Shout out to the London Victoria ones, which are high capacity and were always spotless.

The fast train from Reading to London takes 23 minutes but if you also include a tube trip to and from your place of work in central London that’s going to cost you £62 a day. That’s insane.
If you just get a return to Paddington then it’s £55. That generally doesn’t include a seat.

Ye train is stupid prices...my sister coming to stay bristol-newcastle almost £800 return and an 8 hour journey....flight £24.99 and 40mins no brainer

Yes, way too expensive.
Italian trains are magnificent- fast, cup holders, snacks, on time.

Australian trains are inexpensive though not as fast or smartly designed as Italian or Japanese trains.

Trains world wide are amazing compared to the cistly British rail travel.
Bus/coach are better value.

@Laughingravy

In very simple terms an airline needs a plane, crew and a runway, the air is in effect free.

So very simple that it's just a bit slightly missleading TBH:

On the ground the airline has multiple charges to cover, Cost of keeping the lights on in the terminal, costs of running security, costs of ground handling, other charges, various and varied, for example charges (often hundreds of pounds, if not thousands) just for a take- off or landing.

Get airborne and the air certainly isn't free...to keep you safe there's a whole ATC infrastructure - radar heads, radio facilities, linking comms infrastructure and controllers to do the watch
..all that gets paid for by the airline by way of navigation and overflight fees (often hundreds/thousands pounds a flight)...and then of course there's the fuel...

Probably the main reason for rail v air being so expensive is air travel these days is so competitive and (relatively) unregulated, and (relatively) unsubsidied the airlines have to keep fares down to attract enough customers to survive.

Rail (UK anyway) doesn't seem to work that way.

Transport for Wales is now owned by the Welsh Government. The service is no better, and probably worse in some areas.

I use TFW quite a lot as my son lives in Cardiff and I can assure you it’s cheaper and better than we have in Bedfordshire. However, I would agree more investment is needed which I believe is on Plaid’s agenda.

Increasing rail fares by the level of inflation most years has been the policy of all governments for many years.

Whereas fuel duty or indeed any costs for cars have hardly increased at all, and there is no real action on unsafe driving.

I think she meant widen the tracks by adding more lines. From two to four, for example.

Ireland has broad gauge, so does Australia, Spain, Portugal, India and others. DH is a bit of a railway geek.