To think train travel is too expensive?!

[MissDollyMix]

I'm just booking some travel for work. Recently had to book a return flight from Manchester to New York - cost £350. This morning booking a return train from Newcastle to London - cost (standard class) £390. How is it cheaper to fly to New York than it is to get a simple train down to London???? I mean, I know there are special offers available (I have a friends and family railcard for when I'm travelling for leisure) but still? Something is wrong here.

Trains cancelled be very expensive.

But the NYC flight isn't a fair comparison, how far in advance did you book? I bet it would also be super expensive to book the day before.

We recently travelled Edinburgh-Manchester £30 for a family for 4, which I think is a bargain. I pay £18 to travel 30mins to work which i feel is really expensive, but I can't park in the city centre for £18 a day so ,🤷‍♀️.

Flight to New York was booked about 2 weeks in advance - def not a super advance offer (although I did think it was a good value flight)

We use trains alot, but use all the methods for cheaper travel

To be clear, I do know that if you shop around there are some good deals to be had on train tickets and I also know that my company will pay for my train ticket to London but it's just the principle of the thing! It seems absolutely madness to me that it's cheaper to fly transatlantic than it is to do a 3hr domestic train journey!

We’re going to a show in Birmingham in a couple of months, travel from Stockport would likely be well over £100 for 4, plus the cost & hassle of getting to the station. That’s if the tickets were even on sale, which they aren’t for the day we need (which is probably at least partly the fault of the unions I guess!).

Driving will cost a fraction of that, and be more convenient. While running a car costs money, ours is a company car so apart from tax on it & electricity to charge it we don’t have any costs.

Weirdly I’m actually just booking tickets now and I know what you mean, I live in the midlands and regularly go to London (1.5 hours by train) and this is what I’ve go to pay it’s apparently a cheap split ticket too 🤦‍♀️ it doesn’t matter if I book in advance or not, it costs a fortune! Oops sorry the screen shot didn’t work properly- it’s £272…

Is it just me or does anyone else always immediately think of the Divine Comedy song at the mention of National Express??.... no? just me....

@MissDollyMix No, not just you, my kids get ridiculously excited when they see a National Express coach thanks to that song .

But once you already have it and have paid most of the cost of ownership whether or not you use it, it's almost always cheaper than going by train, plus a lot more reliable and usually quicker.

OP I don't know if it applies to other lines/services, but the East Coast Main line to get to London for a working day is extortionate. Cheap tickets aren't available on these routes.

I travel from Leeds sometimes and it's nearly as expensive. It is quicker than driving, which is rare for train travel, most routes are much slower, especially when you account for travel to and from stations. It's only really the rare fast trains between large cities that are actually quicker, and of course you don't have a car to park.

The train should be seen as the first choice. A lot greener than flying and should be cheaper and more reliable than driving but it rarely is, especially as you have to commit to a certain train to get the cheaper prices, then you lose your money if you are delayed or your plans otherwise change.

I also know that my company will pay for my train ticket to London

Later on in life I had a boss who insisted all travel was by train. No exceptions.

Well, none until I had to be in London at a client for 9, and the engineering works meant the earliest the journey with added replacement bus service would get me there was 10am, so I would have to go the night before and get a hotel.

All of a sudden £75 to hire a car for 2 days was better than >£600 for a train journey.

As I said previously, I've never found a train journey that was cheaper than the equivalent of driving.

Having worked all over Europe, I can't say UK trains are fit for purpose. Any purpose. I guess they could be used as mobile flood defences if needs be.

They also don't pay their drivers anywhere near the UK rate.

The bottom line is UK trains aren't anything to do with transport. They are merely investment vehicles for (mainly foreign) companies. And as such are a great British Success Story. OK we may not have done much for the technology these past decades. But we have developed a logic defying world beating ticketing system

(See also, NHS, water, gas and electric)

I know there are sunk costs with cars, but for me and my partner to get an off peak return to Waterloo (35 min journey) it's significantly more expensive than to take the car, pay the ULEZ and congestion charge, parking for the day and petrol.

Network Rail ie: the government (us), paid for the electrification of the network. Not the private railway companies.

How else could they funnel money back to their offshore mates ?

My answer to that (and it may not be possible) is to ask them to move the meeting to later so you can get a cheaper train? Or do it via Teams, or go down the day before (that requires accommodation but could still be cheaper)

I wanted to take my kids to Cardiff for a few days from London, the train was extortionate even with a rail card, booking in advance etc. ended up flying to Dublin for half the price.

I have to do London to Leeds and Newcastle quite a lot, usually last minute, and getting an open return. ££££££ company policy is train for ESG so they pay it.

All of those costs would be cheaper than paying that train fare. Plus your job would cover mileage anyway which covers fuel and wear and tear. They'd also cover parking costs and some would cover ulez etc too. I'd rather leave a bit earlier and sit for 4-5 hours in my own car than 3+ hours on a train.

That would be the state owned rail operator, correct?
See my point about public bodies ignoring market forces. They also get larger subsidies than operators in the UK

A company car is not really comparable to a private car

30k on a car could buy alot of train tickets

I thought state subsidies weren't allowed in the EU and that's why we had to leave ? You know - to save our steel industry.

^ This 100%

No, it isn’t, but people often say “but a car costs money to run/insure/service”.

For many people that is either not true (because they have a company car) or not relevant as they need a car so have already signed up to those costs.

Govt will never convince car owners to take often unreliable and often inconvenient public transport if you don’t make it cheaper and preferably quicker than the car.

Train travel is ridiculously expensive. Id like to turn up at the station and buy a ticket knowing it was a reasonable fare. Rather than scouting round trying to get offers.

The high prices in the UK are still not caused by Unions.
Most countries recognise that public transport is a universal service and a degree of taxpayer subsidy is beneficial for a variety of reasons.
If left to the free market most UK rail fares would probably be even more insane and a lot of routes would close.