The price of train tickets!

[PopNotPolitics]

The cost of train tickets is rising AGAIN! We seem to get this every single year!

I earn okay, but I almost always take the coach when I travel between cities as I just can't justify the cost of the trains anymore as they are.

Surely they will just be unaffordable to most people soon, and what will happen then?

It's already unaffordable for us. If we ever go into London, it's cheaper for the four of us to pay the ULEZ and Congestion Charge and parking than to buy tickets, and we're only 2 stops from our nearest underground station. We just don't go to London most of the time and we're only just outside the M25.

Yep - we have already 'defected' to coaches for many longer trips where we don't fancy driving.

It's particularly galling that you are paying £££ for a train service that is often unreliable and overcrowded. Trains cancelled altogether is increasingly common, and being late is pretty much a given nowadays.

And by "we just don't go to London" I mean I've even seen decent-paid jobs that I'd love to apply for but that I can't afford to take because of the cost of commuting on the train.

I begrudge paying for the train. It was £50 return to London for me during covid.

Now on a good day it’s £85, normal £135 and that’s with a railcard.

Driving is far cheaper, even with fuel, maintenance, tyres, insurance etc

OP we live east of Oxford which runs the Oxford Tube, double decker bus/coach, wifi, toilet, comfortable, darkened windows, quiet, civilised, busy at weekends as you can imagine, prices just risen about £11 single, cheap return, into Victoria via Notting Hill Gate, Marble Arch. Its wonderful.
As students at Leeds took the coach to Victoria booked in advance, a smooth journey albeit longer, headphones, book, sandwiches, flask, bliss, a gentle hum of conversation, .we prefer it now.

Train travel is so grim. Chiltern Railways will run a busy 11.00am Saturday train Marylebone to Birmingham via Bicester Village, either direction, with 2 carriages, standing room only, prams, luggage, crying babies, fretful children, stuffy.
Awful.
This Shows the utter contempt in which rail passengers are held, a scandal and
disgrace.

RH, this is meaningless information if we don’t know from where you are travelling?

Grantham to Kings Cross.

My wife (no railcard) sometimes has to pay £190 for the same journey as me, if we are not together.

(prices are return tickets)

Train prices are utterly ridiculous.

I wanted to go to a specific place with DP & DS in the summer, Major South Midlands station to Liverpool, not even on a Saturday or in the am/pm rush hour windows - over £80 EACH!

Absolute madness. It would take less than £80 of petrol in my little car to drive there and back!

The whole thing is just messed up.

I can’t drive due to disability so I’m stuck with public transport. Even with a Railcard the prices take the piss. I wouldn’t even mind if it was a good service we’re paying for, but it’s not, it’s unreliable, infrequent, overcrowded, dirty, and just generally grim. I have to book assistance to get help on and off trains, around stations etc, without which it’s impossible for me to travel, and it fails to turn up more often than not. I’ve been left stranded on platforms more times than I care to remember.

I've been thinking the same, recently. I loved a 4am coach into London, as a student. Slept the whole way, came back late and slept on way back, too. Think is was a tenner return, back then.

Might do that next time we pop down.

I’m familiar with that journey. I would sit online, keep scrolling down, sometimes every morning and evening until a £25 fare showed up, with my railcard. £190 is
extortionate.

I have to get trains as I don't drive

Are trains just an outdated form of public transport now, in a country as backward as ours? Coaches are our future because we aren’t as technically competent to get it together as our euro/Far Eastern counterparts?

It's awful. I could cry when I see train prices in e.g. Belgium, Netherlands.

Not meaningless as can see how fares have increased

It really is a disgrace. I never get trains in the uk in recent years. Ironically (given the government apparently want to get people using public transport) it more comfortable and cheaper to drive and pay carparks, even the extortionate NCP ones!

I don't understand it. I use trains in Spain every year. They are clean, on time, air conditioned and very affordable. Why is it so bad in the uk?

I live an hour and a half from London and if more than one of us is travelling, it’s cheaper to drive in, pay for ulez, congestion charge AND park than it is to get the train. It’s ridiculous.

It's ridiculous. We went to London recently and one of us didn't even have a seat it was so busy (one of the only weekend days in weeks there was no rail replacement services).

Yup. I need to travel to my aunts funeral in the new year but I cannot afford the train ticket so it looks like I can’t attend. It’s horrendous.

Privatisation. Thanks Tories!

Very frustrating. Councils up and down the country are doing everything they can to stop people driving while at the same time public transport is bloody awful and trains especially so.

I'm so sorry

My dad lives about 10 minutes by train from the nearest city and it costs £5 return.

If we can make early booking then we save a lot. DS lives a long way away but we need to see them and luckily can book in advance we can cut the fare by two thirds with a Railcard

I paid £157 return Bristol to Penrith. Luckily it turned out to be free as the service is so horrific that I was delayed over 2 hours.