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?

v> Cheap tickets are released 12 weeks in advance once the engineering plan (and therefore timetable around any work) has been finalised.<

This (about the engineering plan) actually explains a lot about why it is difficult to book these cheaper tickets. Very often I have found that if you are travelling on a journey with more than one operator (ludicrous in a country the size of the UK but there you go very common) then the tickets for one leg of the journey won't be available on the same day as the tickets for another leg of the journey. So even if you try to do it in advance, you can't, or at least can't get the cheap tickets.

So is it due to different engineering schedules then?

It is very very frustrating anyway.

So, privatisation hasn't worked.

I didn't live here during the days of public ownership, but my impression is that the service was a disaster. so, prices may have gone up, but so have service quality and expectations.

Plan in advance book them when first available I've just managed 2adults 3 children rtn Lancashire to London £56

I've picked two arbitrary dates but:

Cardiff - Darlington 4th June advance single £44.20
Darlington - Cardiff 11th June advance single £44.20

So it is certainly cheaper to avoid the standard fare and get advance singles if you can find them.

Train companies, like airlines, use price as a method of managing demand. The amount of product available for them to sell (ie the number of seats on their trains) is fixed. They can't just run loads more trains at busy times, so they have to find a way to smooth out the peaks and troughs in demand.

Peak times are, by definition, when most people want to travel. Some of those people have to travel at those times, so are prepared to pay more to do so. Others could be flexible, so the company incentivises them to do so by offering much cheaper tickets on off-peak trains. Result - everyone is happy.

In theory, it should be dead easy to book cheap tickets. Simply find out what the peak times are and avoid them. In practice, this means being as flexible as possible about times and booking as far ahead as possible.

Actually, in practice it means having a degree in economics, fucking fannying around with split tickets and travelling from Edinburgh to London via Manchester and possibly Seoul or fucking Montenegro in order to save a tenner. If it were as simple as 'book twelve weeks in advance' then it would still be a pain in the arse (does it cost the railway more if I buy my ticket at the station? No.) but even that doesn't happen - I've bought tickets three months in advance (three months in advance for a journey in a small country!) and gone onto the same website and found them cheaper a couple of weeks later. Same trains, same times, same journey. Also, not all journeys - including the journey from here to where my parents live, which is a good 2.5 hours - offer the cheap deals anyway. It's a fucking mess. As is the subsidy issue - over £5bn a year of public money goes into the railways, and for that they are providing a service that is all but impossible to access at short notice, that has an opaque and confusing pricing system, and that is making us sit in trains that have no space for suitcases and where the carriages stink of shit.

YANBU - I wanted to take 2 adult and 2 children from Scotland to London - with a railcard and the cheapest fare I could get (and travelling off peak) was £200 - went up to £400. I can get cheaper flights but then getting to the airport at either end will make it a similar amount, just a few hours quicker ...if I could bear it driving would be much cheaper.
Anyway to all those saying split journeys etc be careful! Especially if you have children etc. My DSis does this a lot for journeys within the UK - uses a mixture of coaches and trains etc and she can save a fortune. But if you are delayed for any part of your journey and miss your connection because you haven't paid for the full journey no-one has responsibility to get you to your destination. So eg last time the train was 25 mins late so she missed her coach - she had to buy another ticket. (Even so she still saved money on the whole journey) but worse once a train was severely delayed for hours - because of major incident. She ended up 40 miles from home, having missed the last bus/trains...if she had paid for the whole journey they would have had to put her in a taxi for the last leg -as it was she was lucky to find a couple of people she could share a taxi part of the way with and split the cost. (You can claim compensation for delayed journeys etc - worth looking into but often not enough to cover the cost of a new ticket etc)

and for that they are providing a service that is all but impossible to access at short notice, that has an opaque and confusing pricing system

as I said, I haven't found the prices to be insane. But having 20 different fares for the same train is just plain silly. It makes sense to have advanced tix, fine, but all you need are about 5 or 6 different fares.

Opacity is a massive problem. Often I see two fares and can't for the life of me tell why one is more expensive than the other. It would be good if this information is easy to find.

I agree. It is a mess. There does seem to be no rhyme or reason on longer journeys why some fares are more than others. Why it often costs less to do 150 miles than 3 journeys of 50 miles. It is so confusing.
For instance in Scotland they have this 'Kids travel free' in Scotland off peak on certain trains. I don't think you can use a railcard but (in theory) it should be cheaper for me to book in two legs...pay the adult fare to get out of Scotland (almost half the journey) then another ticket for all of us with a railcard for the rest... but so far have run out of patience before I've managed to work out if it would be cheaper or not! (You can't select just 'Kids go free' trains - you have to put the journey in and see if it comes up!)

My train was late once and I missed my connection -I was told I (we -DCs were with me) I could catch another train at 18.20 - I noticed there was an earlier one at 17.55 - but was told I couldn't get that because I had an off peak ticket. Next time I booked, later starting train and also off peak that 17.55 train was the one that it booked me on for the last leg!

Not recently because I haven't tried (and the internet helps because you can spend looking for yourself) but a couple of times in the past I have been flexible - could travel at any time within a few days. Asking on the phone and even at the station they told me I had to give them a day and an approximate time...there was no way they could just tell the cheapest fare for that journey so I could work around that !
Adult fares come up for some journeys that are several hundred - but you can do the same journey 30 min later for less than £100 - I can't believe that anyone pays the expensive fare - unless they just go on their (eg BBC) expenses bill!

I've been a regular rail user for about 20 years (as I don't drive) and I've got the knack of finding good rail fares now! I've just had a short break to Edinburgh from London and it was £57 return for me and my DD for a direct train, which I think is quite reasonable for a journey of 4hr20 each way. The travelling experience was very pleasant too, I'd much rather be on a train than dealing with airport security or having to drive which would mean I couldn't relax with my ipad! I'm signed up to the main rail companies who send me details of cheap promotions, always use a railcard, book in advance and travel at off-peak times, and use the split ticketing tool (you don't actually have to split the journey and can travel on the same train the whole time).

I have often been on a low income in the past (single mum) but always managed to afford trips to the seaside or a short break away. I use a disabled person's railcard, which is a great deal at £18 a year and gives 1/3 off for me and a companion. But even if you can't get that (have to provide proof of disability), the family railcard is good value too and anyone with children can use it, so I have one of those for when I'm travelling with the dc.

DD had an interview for University in London; it was at 10 in the morning and they kindly told her just 10 days before. The peak time train she would have needed to get was extortionate. It actually turned out cheaper for both her and DP to go late in the evening, on the night before, and stay in a youth hostel. Still a lot of money though, and prohibitive for people on lower incomes.

pasty what's the split ticketing tool? Where do you find it?

It's not just long distance journeys that are a joke. I find it sad and irritating that it's cheaper for me to run a car and commute to work than get the train. In fact, because public transport here is so awful, I'd have to drive to get to the bloody train station in the first place.

Split tickets is the way to do it.
Find out where the train stops on the desired route and buy two or more tickets.
There is a website but it only does single fares.

This is the split ticketing site I use:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/split-cheap-train-tickets/?_ga=1.180867687.1394798771.1396446490

It doesn't always work out cheaper though - there's a regular route to my parents which doesn't come up with any cheaper fares when using the tool, but I still get a decent discount on my railcard.

Thanks pasty - fantastic link
I've had a look and it seems I could save money on just the adult single...but not on the return...and no railcards etc...
But then it will be really handy to use to work out where to split journeys etc ...

Thanks, pastylegs. Unforch, as well as not doing returns or railcard tickets, it also has told me there are no splits available on the journey I do most often (ie from here to my parents' house). Guess it's not as easy as all that to find cheap tickets. Who knew?

(me)

I am not sure. I travel by train regularly from Taunton to Plymouth. This costs me £8.45 or thereabouts. To get from where I live to Taunton costs me a £4 single (or £6 return but I am trying to keep this simple).

If I get the bus the mile in to town to get that bus it costs me £2.

So, local bus £2 per mile, next bus (26 miles) 15.38 pence per miles and train 11.12 pence per mile.

I think the train compares favourably.

Good for you.

I'm sure your experience is universal and therefore there is nothing to worry about at all in regard to ticket prices. The fact that the rail regulator itself has found that walk-on ticket prices have increased by 245% in the last few years is as nothing because one person in Taunton doesn't think it's a problem.

I take many, many trains from the East Midlands to London. PM me where you live or your nearesr station and I'll look for you.

Split the journey. For example i can half my cost of train travel but buying return to one station then return from that station to final destination.

I hate how expersive / unrealable the UK rail network is one of the most expensive and one of the worst service in the western world with only USA and some Eastern European nation rivaling how bad it is......

Look at the scandivian railway networks to actully see how nationalized railways are a good thing (Denmark all public transport is owned trains/buses/ferries to the islands are run by the government

I hate our train system too and the fact that we, as a nation, apparently now pay more towards them than when they were nationalised is a disgrace

We travel fairly frequently from the NW to London and the prices, even with a railcard, are steep. We are not near a mainline station either so have to drive 30-40 minutes and pay for parking or allow stupid amounts of time to get to one via local trains whose arrival never ties in with departure times.

Add message | Report | Message poster Dowser Fri 03-Apr-15 16:50:46
Just looked at the train line for a journey from Cardiff to Darlington. A whopping £140 return and thats for 14 weeks in advance.

Would love to know how to get these cheap deals.

Just given this a bump

Just managed to book the journey for 8 nights at £73-25 including postage and booking fees.

I got the outward journey for £26. Don't ask me how. When I tried to book a month earlier it wouldn't let me anywhere near it.

I've done it as two separate stages outward and inward. I shaved £30 off that £26 price ££56 originally ) by actually going to another station further up the line.

Ridiculous isn't it. I don't understand it.

Anyway, very happy with a much more reasonable price.

Try trainsplit.com

It does all the split ticketing for you and is better than the mse tool aa that only looks for up to two splits and doesn't find all the different splits. This one is quite a new site which does all the work for you, it's brilliant, you can buy off there too to do it all in one go.

Also yes definitely get a railcard.

It is madness really, train fares are just all over the place.