Return train tickets to be scrapped

[Bucketheadbucketbum]

Yet more punishment for rail users

Back to the car for me!

There is a lot of work going on in the background on train tickets. You won't have heard about it yet because we are exploring lots of options. Lots of stuff to do with demand based pricing etc.

Source = me.

The rail system is so shockingly bad in the north of the UK that it might as well be scrapped entirely.

We all (UK tax payers) subsidise the railways extensively and yet other than in the south they're barely functioning. I begrudge any more money being siphoned off from the treasury for the appalling service most of the country pays for but doesn't get, so if changing the ticketing system does anything to cover a funding gap I can't complain.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Yeah tbh it won't effect me anyway seeing as I've had to drive from the NW to London for my last two trips thanks to non existent trains.

Not really, you can still see the headline and some may be members (so can read the lot)

TPE, Northern Fail and West Coast are shocking. We aren't that far from Manchester in terms of miles, but trains over the Pennines are so unreliable that I have to put up with the horrible drive over Woodhead Pass if I want to go there.

That's probably because of the current £2 cap on single fares. For some journeys buying 2 singles at a total of £4 will currently be cheaper than the return fare. It unlikely it would be cheaper without the cap.

I'd no more believe anything I had the misfortune to read in the Telegraph than I would in the Daily Mail. And the Guardian piece is just quoting the Telegraph.

If the upshot of this was some kind of logical, predictable harmonisation of fares then that would be great.

However such an outcome would fly in the face of all rail ticket pricing decisions over the past 30 years so I won't hold my breath.

I have travelled by train in many parts of the world including lots of bigger countries with infrastructure that on the face of it is more precarious and whose rail network covers much greater distance than that dealt with by UK rail operators but I have yet to come across a more capricious less intuitive charging system than the one we have here. We are a tiny country with no great extremes of politics, weather or landscape but it is astonishingly hard to figure out how to go from one place to another for a sensible price, by rail.

Are you saying you don't believe this?

everyone has this story, Dept of Transport will say more in the week.

Price of singles will go down briefly and then quickly go back up to what it was before I expect.

What on Earth is the point anyway?

For me today two singles was 5% cheaper than a return.

the article I saw specifically said that the prices of returns will be staying basically at their current levels (with normal price rise structure) but a single will start being half the price of a return rather than only a couple of pounds cheaper. I think this is good news!

Thanks Garlic

do you know what they're aiming for with this move?

No paywall:

www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/05/return-train-tickets-expected-to-be-scrapped-in-uk-rail-shake-up

It isn't just the trains that are utterly rubbish in the north, try crossing the Pennines by coach...

We moved to the north to be nearer my family and thought the journey would take less time by public transport but I'm really starting to regret it. It was faster and cheaper to fly from the West Country and at least the planes turned up. Even the coaches and trains were more reliable and didn't take that much longer (change at Birmingham rather than Leeds).

The truly appalling state of public transport here may prove to be a major factor in making me go back down south. I've lived here before but it was 20 years ago and I have been appalled at just how bad the north south split is now. Where we are currently is almost unliveable and it's pretty much breaking my heart.

Maybe they'll start on really selling the multiflex tickets - not sure if all train companies do them, tfw do.

Basically you buy 12 tickets for the price of 10 and are valid for any inbound and outbound journey on the particular line they are purchased for. They are valid for 3 months. So if you are only in the office say, 3 days a week instead of having to buy 3 returns you can use this ticket.

Only half an answer here though sorry as I don't have the App so can't work out what the cost is and whether its cost effective and/or better - sorry!

This is because the single fare is capped at £2 until the end of March, but returns, day passes etc are at the usual rate.
Massive savings for me if I fancy popping into the city, but it doesn't apply to child fares so I'm still paying through the nose for the kids' school buses...

They should also roll out a fixed per-km price, so it’s the same whenever you travel and costs exactly the same there as well as
back. And all tickets must be valid on all operators. And fixed price 2hr, half day and day passes for the whole network including buses and tubes etc. All you can eat. Make it so attractive you just can’t not use the trains.

Rail ticketing in this country in ridiculously complex. Standard, off peak, advance, cheap day return, special cheap day return, over 50s prices, student card, season ticket, etc etc etc

All those websites helping people work out split ticketing because it is cheaper to buy a ticket from Glasgow to Lancaster then Lancaster to Manchester than a through ticket on the same trains.

If government or the train companies are looking to simplify the entire system then that's a good thing. If it means more expensive tickets than that's not going to encourage more people to use the trains.

Since I’ve moved back here from Australia, the price of the train is probably the thing that has taken me by surprise the most. Where I lived in Sydney, to get into the city took 40 minutes and cost around $5.00 (about £3.00).
Today we’re getting the train from Guildford to London (30 minutes) and it’s costing £30! That’s about $50! I can hardly believe that people do this for work regularly.
I would never choose to go on the train except into London.

I didn't know this. Thanks. All seems silly to me.

Two singles are currently often cheaper than a return though. That’s been true for many, many years.

Is the outrage about this largely from people who haven’t booked train tickets in a long time?

The big problem with train tickets is that you can get really cheap highly restrictive advance singles if you book the minute they’re released (12 weeks in advance) but people who can’t do this end up paying a fortune to not even get a bloody seat.

Or the absurdity that it can be cheaper to split your fare. That’s also ridiculous.

Want the Swiss SBB to take over the whole shitshow and make it work.

That's right. Inflation is hitting shareholders, too, you know. They need to make money somehow. Be grateful you have a job, etc.

<sarcasm>