To think the prices of train tickets are a disgrace

[justfoundout2014]

I live in the East Midlands and thought a trip to London would be nice in half-term, especially since DD has been full of her school topic on the Great Fire of London and Samuel Pepys etc

The cheapest tickets are £150, and those are at times that are far from ideal. I thought maybe I could get a better deal by booking further ahead, but on the sites I've looked at so far, prices are similar for Easter hols now and besides, I really want to go soon while dd's project is fresh in her mind. Sites mention peak and off-peak times, but there seems to be little variation in prices across the whole day.

Coach is a lot cheaper but takes 3 hours - a bit much for a day-trip. I could pay the money, though find it hard to justify that amount for one day, but obviously many would never be able to even consider it.

So privatisation has worked so well, hasn't it? Look at competition bringing those prices down...oh, wait a minute... Seems rail travel is the preserve of the wealthy now, aside from commuters who have no choice but to pay up.

These companies are being subsidised through our taxes - aibu to think they should be forced to do something about their ridiculous prices?

I agree, I ended booking the coach, three hours there, three hours back...

Just check the East Midlands slow trains

depending where in the east midlands you are (I live within it too) check out megabus as they do a train and it cam be significantly cheaper - same trains as you are booking through trainline etc although this close to half term it may not be

This is exactly what privatisation does, makes a lot of money for shareholders. It doesn't encourage competition, dont you believe it.

Do you have a friends and family railcard ? This brings prices down significantly and if you use it 3x over the year will pay itself back

What trains are you looking at? Try the train line, I'm from Lincolnshire I ususly pay 60 for a round trip.

The Megabus takes forever though. Most of the day will be wasted on the bus.

If you book exactly 12 weeks in advance you get the super cheap advanced tickets, they only go on sale then and only stay on sale for a short time.

As an example my sister lives in Yorkshire, she travels to Central London once or twice a month for work, any other time the tickets are £95 for a single or £120 return.
If she books it 12 weeks in advance she gets the tickets for £20 return.

Government policy to increase train fares, and to keep separate Network Rail and Train Companies. Labour policy probably the same too.

Agree, it costs me 30 for off peak travel, at just 1 hour from London

Are you definitely looking at off peak times? For example, anything leaving London between 3pm and 7pm would be classed as Peak.

To be honest, if we're all going to London we drive to an outer tube station and park there then catch the tube in.

I don't use east midlands trains so I'm not sure about their prices but I did Leeds to London return on east coast trains yesterday for £20, good times for a day trip as well. That was booked with a token collect offer from the local paper in December, it might be worth keeping your eyes open for something similar.

A family railcard is a good idea, as is booking as soon as the tickets are released (is it three months ahead?)

Yes, it is expensive but there are a few things you can do to make a bit cheaper (or check to see if cheaper). You can get a family and friends railcard for £27 which gives up to 4 adults 1/3 off and up to 4 kids 60% off travelling together. Smallest group is 1 adult and 1 child. Me and DH are travelling to London with 3yo DD and it will be cheaper for us to buy the railcard and buy a ticket for DD who doesn't need one yet (which is allowed) so we can the reduction on our fares. Can be used for buying most tickets.

Also look at the cost of 2 singles rather than a return as can be cheaper. Also On the Money Saving Expert site they have a tool you can use to see if you can get cheaper tickets by splitting the journeys, not actually getting off the train, but buying a number of different tickets for the journey, which is fine so long as the train you are on stops at the stations. The MSE site will explain better.

I've just booked one same-day return, standard class next week from Manchester to London for work - £240! It's obscene.

I think you need to be a lot more specific on what you're travelling when and where. Leicester to London Monday 9th at 10am is 23 quid, at lunchtime it's 17 and in the evening it's 9, coming back on Friday you do need to leave London before 2pm or it gets more expensive, but it's 20 quid if you do that.

So that's under 40 quid if you travel Monday to Friday next week, at pretty convenient times, if you go further into the future or travel less convenient times it's even cheaper.

That is before you go look at the even cheaper fares on megabus etc. so YABU for bashing the price of something when you don't appear to actually know it.

Bizarrely, in my experience it's cheaper to buy train tickets in advance at the station than online. The staff will help you find the cheapest ticket & explain the conditions of the ticket.

Depending where you are, Peterborough to Kings Cross off peak day return is £27.50 if you're willing to travel outside rush hour, an Anytime return is £56, and booking specific trains would be £40 each.

Can you get to a station fairly easily, and could you look at other stations rather than the one nearest to you (e.g. Nottingham might be cheaper than Derby, for example).

I agree though that the cost of train tickets is outrageous.

This is exactly what privatisation does, makes a lot of money for shareholders.

I don't mind that much whether trains are public or private, I do care about whether they are subsidised. As far as I know they still are to some extent. That needs to be phased out, which means prices need to go up or profits down. As trains are already very expensive compared to road, I expect that would put some pressure on profits.

Just googled and the first thing that came up was a Guardian article with a headline about (east coast main line) shareholders getting £0.2 billion profit and rail getting £4 billion subsidy. Seems like the "problem" of taxpayers paying for other peoples journeys might be 20 times bigger the "problem" of shareholders taking out profits. (This being The Guardian, it was the profit that was seen as the problem. Talk about missing the big picture.)

Those figures suggest a third possibility if subsidies end and we get truthful pricing: the trains go out of business. Where they really can't compete with road and air, they should.

Megabus lets you book trains from Nottingham to London, normally about 12 each way

they shouldn't

As daft as it sounds, sometimes I meet my friend who flies down from Manchester!
A return can be as little as £35

It might also work out cheaper to drive/bus to the nearest town to take advantage of better fares.