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.

Yes it’s an absolute national disgrace. It’s not like they’re even remotely reliable either.

And to everyone saying “just drive” - we don’t all have bloody cars! It is in no way cheaper to run a car than it is to catch the occasional train as per the OP. It’s also ruinous to the environment to just drive everywhere. And regardless of whether we were all driving, trains would still be too expensive!

Literally just looking at travel from Glasgow to London for work the week after next - return flight to Heathrow is £60 cheaper than the train, at the same time on the same days.

It's absolutely fucking ridiculous: I hate taking internal flights from an environmental point of view, but I can't justify a £60 cost differential.

Tell me this: Why does a flight from Manchester to Norway costs less than a train to London?

Not on the French train subsidies I was referring to, which have been since September.

I recently visited Luxembourg. All public transport is free throughout the whole country.

It's just that here it's designed to make a profit for shareholders.

Can’t answer that in detail but I do know that given the influence BALPA (Union) has on most of the UK pilot workforce, and given the fun and games SAS had a while back with it’s unions I wouldn’t be pointing the finger of blame solely in the direction of organised labour….is it just possible profiteering/bad management/government policy with regard to the railways has something to do with it?

https://www.sasgroup.net/newsroom/press-releases/2022/sas-reaches-agreements-with-sas-scandinavia-pilots-unions-ending-the-pilot-strike/

That's exactly my point. Several rail operators in this country are state-owned, and yet they aren't particularly cheaper in my experience. Why aren't the airlines capitalising on the fact that it's somewhat awkward to drive to the Azores, and profiteering like mad?

Anyone can work out that 2x sales of £10 is better than 1x sale of £15. That's ignoring things like more bums on seats = more sales on the food trollies/upgrades etc which are easy extra margin.

I replied to SerendipityJane, so I don't know what you were referring to, but the French have been subsidising their trains for years.

We subsidise the trains over here.

But the companies use the money to pay dividends to shareholders however bad the service has been.

See also Water companies, etc...

First Rail, which covers several of the largest rail operators in the country, made 124m profit on almost £3.9bn revenue in 2023. That's 3.2%.

They paid dividends of £20m. That's it.

If you evaporated their profits to zero, your tickets could be a whole 3% cheaper.

Rail fares can vary massively over a short period of time.
A quick look for single fares in 2 weeks to Kings Cross departing Newcastle:
07:04 - £161.70
07:30 - £84.50
07:57 - £53.90
The last train is run by LUMO (owned by First Group) and is a third the price of the first train which is run by LNER (owned by the government)

The first one will be the only one that gets to London before a certain time, maybe 10 am.

LUMO appears to offer a very niche service. Edinburgh and Newcastle to Stevenage and London, which is great for the OP but totally useless to anyone else.

Ah, I see. We always fly from Heathrow as the flights from MAN aren’t as good time-wise. Most don’t take off until the afternoon. I live much, much closer to Manchester but the only direct flights I’m aware of are Aer Lingus and Virgin Atlantic. The VA flight is 1345 I think and the AL one is also afternoon meaning (for me) it’s most of a holiday day wasted.

Sighs and remembers the early morning (well 0900/1000) flight from Delta 😔.

It’s down to network pricing. If I travel to Bristol which is a 2 hour train trip, that costs me £35 if I book several months ahead. But if I travel to Birmingham which is also 2 hours, that costs me £75, because I have to change network.

It’s daft, but changing trains is what bumps up the prices.

PS, quicker and cheaper to drive, which makes me sad. Coach is pretty good though!

You're not the only one with this issue...!

metro.co.uk/2017/06/27/man-flies-from-newcastle-to-london-via-spain-because-its-cheaper-than-the-train-6737975/amp/

Tell me you haven't got a clue about unions, without telling me you haven't got a clue about unions.

Cringing for you.

For trains to be a viable alternative to driving you need to be able to get decent prices without having to book months in advance or commit to specific trains.

If I want to go on a day out, if I drive I can go when I feel like, don't have to rush to catch the train, come back when I like not according to a booked train, change my mind if the weather is crap, I feel crap or something else comes up.

With the train you have to stick to the plan you made months ago even if it no longer suits or lose all your money.

It’s disgustingly expensive and funny how you made the comparison with NYC tickets because I made the exact same comparison yesterday with a friend when explaining why I couldn’t make it down for her birthday dinner in London from a place near Manchester. All the “cheap advance” tickets were £100, I said to her sorry but four of them is a return flight to NYC, I won’t be visiting London much this year.

There are also strikes as well, bad enough paying all that to travel when service is normal never mind when I’m likely to get stranded.

From what I understand is there are a lot of European shareholders on train companies who use the profits from the UK trains to subside their own countries public transport. That is one reason at least I’ve heard.

Completely agree @Bjorkdidit I was flying back from somewhere recently and I landed in London, so I had planned to take the train home from there . My flight arrived earlier than I expected and I got through customs super quick so I would’ve got to the train station about 2 hours earlier than the time my ticket was booked for.

I called to ask if I could change the ticket to the one of the earlier trains and was told it would cost £50 which is absolutely ridiculous considering the actual original ticket was £75 return.

I was basically being asked to purchase a whole new ticket. I declined and instead had a lovely cake and coffee in a bookshop for £6 and browsed the shelves and bought a book while I waited . Much cheaper & nicer than paying £50 to change a ticket.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/travel/news/europe-mercilessly-mocks-uk-government-27771225.amp

Has anyone mentioned Tickety Split yet? Especially in the morning there can be travel to work subsidies on some portions of the journey, so splitting your ticket providing the train actually stops at that station can save quite a bit of money.

It is too expensive. Will it ever change though? Most people aren’t bothered as they can just drive everywhere, they’d prefer cheap fuel on road vehicles and aviation than a system that funded public transport properly.

I am very nervous of this as when I’ve done it independently in the past (eg bought separate tickets for regional stations to mainline stations in order to get to London), if your regional train was late causing you to miss the mainline train, you’d not be allowed to travel on a later mainline service, whereas if you’d bought a through ticket, they would accept liability for the first train’s lateness and allow you onto a later mainline train without having to pay a fine.
does tickety split allow for this?

The Manchester to Yorkshire (Sheffield, Doncaster) trains are frequently extremely overcrowded, with no bookable seats. They have their share of moronic travellers who appear to think their luggage should have a seat in preference to standing passengers. Last week I had to ask a young guy to move his bag, he seemed surprised.

I think many people are bothered but they just let it happen which is typical British attitude. I have a moan about it myself but I realise I’m not doing much to change it - don’t know where to start tbh.

Driving to London from my town is 4 hours. It’s only 2 hours on the train. There are very good reasons to want to take the train instead.

Add to that an Increasing amount of people are concerned with being more “green” or can’t afford to run a car or disabilities prevent them from driving so they want cheaper trains.