Why is train travel so bloody expensive?

[icantgetnopeace]

I’m going away in a couple of weeks with some friends and nobody fancies driving into the city so we are looking at trains.
A one hour journey (return next day) is around £50 😳 It’s no bloody wonder people don’t bother. Am I missing something? Are there ways of getting discounts that I’m not aware of? I looked at a friends and family railcard to see if that would make any difference but when I added one to the potential booking it didn’t give a discount (maybe cross country don’t accept them 🤷🏼‍♀️)

Comic Sans? 😱 Well, that's put me off the West Midlands for life.

I think that's my phone....
Everything is like that 😂
My daughter changed it and I can't figure out how to change it back.

It’s not just British trains. European trains are often terrible and expensive, despite having a great reputation in the UK for some strange reason. German trains are much worse than ours for long delays. French trains aren’t much better. I’ve had partial refunds on about 60% of journeys I’ve done in the past two years (delays of over 2 hours) and I travel by train a lot. They’re expensive too unless you book months in advance. A return from Paris to Lyon this week is €163. Compare that to London - Newcastle, a similar distance for about £60-70 return.

In the UK, I find the regional trains are much worse than the long distance ones which are usually quite efficient.

It's not right, but I guess they have to have some people unable to get a railcard as if everyone could get a Railcard thevwhile concept of getting a railcard to get a discount would become meaningless.

Christ, what did you do to deserve that? 😬

I'm used to it now.
If I use my husbands phone I think his (perfectly normal font) looks odd 😂😂

It's basic supply and demand - train companies want to encourage people who can to travel at times when the trains are less busy, and the only real way they have that is by cost - either by offering off-peak fares or railcards that offer discounts at off-peak times.

You may not agree with dynamic pricing, but it;s generally the best way to ensure you get as much revenue as you can whilst using your resources most effectively - that's why electricity companies, hotels ,holiday companies etc all do it - it;s not just train companies. .

Not only is it expensive it's also so unreliable. I had to take a train just over a week ago and my train was delayed by almost 2 hours.

Nah! Much of Europe has fantastic trains.

Travelled all over The Netherlands by train, turn up, pay. All linked with the buses and cycle parking provided.

Also travelled many times through Spain, Portugal, Croatia…i could name more. Nowhere as poor as the UK.

@BackinGear To be fair I can’t fault Italy’s either, I was very impressed. But France and Germany are shockingly bad.

I see someone up thread has already linked this comparison between the uk and European trains https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html. My recent experience of attempting to book train travel in France for a family of 4 (planned to go from Paris to Avignon, over £400 return when we wanted to go, looking about 4 weeks out, we didn’t go!) and actually booking in Spain (just over £200 for a one way journey from near Madrid to Oviedo in the north, around a 5 hr journey - had to book as accommodation and flights already arranged!) tells me it’s not cheaper there. Both these journeys are similar distance from London to Scotland and I can get that for far less than £400 return if I book around a month ahead and use the family rail card.

travelling as a single middle aged adult is often more expensive. I don’t own a car so have no choice to do this sometimes but when you factor all the sunk costs in a car - buying the vehicle, insurance etc - train doesn’t work out so bad. Plus it’s about 20 times safer.

uk trains do piss me off sometimes but overall I’d say that they aren’t that bad price wise and in fact more punctual than German trains these days https://www.ft.com/content/d3b6e6b5-eddb-4230-b866-932d284cef9c

Hopefully you claimed under the 'Delay Repay' scheme and got a good proportion of your fare refunded

I think this is something that people don't factor in enough. What do you get if your flight is delayed for 2 hours? Or you're stuck in a traffic jam?

Currently sat in declassified first class on a very busy super off peak train where the first class customers have been told there won't be food and drinks served. They've been told these are complimentary only and don't form part of the ticket cost. I think there might be a mutiny!

DH would be very passed off, he uses First class for refreshments and dinner on his 4hr commute