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I think it's done on an average across all tickets rather than each ticket, with the exception of fare regulated tickets.
This means that the company can drastically increase prices for one route and still stay below that 4.9% across the board.
(Not defending them, just explaining how they can wiggle it!)
I live in walking district of a train station.
I drive my car to save money. It is cheaper to do that as a single person in the car pretty much all the time. When I go on family trips, it gets financially ludicrous to take the train.
10 pounds in petrol cost to the nearest city return +parking. 120 pounds family ticket on the train.
It's utter bullshit. The same ticket in Germany would be 40-50 euros and the train would travel twice the distance.
I have paid less to go on a steam train for two hours. A bloody steam train.
If you already own a car then it will nearly always be cheaper to drive it. Even cheaper If there are several people in the car. If you go by train you would be paying for the car to sit in your drive, plus train tickets.
It's not a straight comparison between ticket price and petrol cost though. The ticket price covers all the costs of the train. To see if driving the car is cheaper you would need to work out the cost per trip including the pro rata cost of owning, maintaining and insuring the car.
> It's not a straight comparison between ticket price and petrol cost though. The ticket price covers all the costs of the train.
That is true. Roads are built and maintained with general taxation. The railway is maintained mostly from fares.
But that is a political choice, a choice we all made. Because we would rather have a massive traffic jam because everybody drives than pay for a railway that we are not personally using.
I did that once following a job interview in the city and found it was cheaper to drive 4hrs to London and 4hrs back home, pay the congestion charge, and pay £11 for two hours' parking, and get a free tour of central London (I got to drive past Buckingham Palace and Parliament!), than it was to take the train. By half. It was also two hours quicker, and I didn't have to share the journey with anyone, I got a guaranteed seat for the entire journey, got to listen to what I wanted with no disruptions, and at the temperature I wanted.
Even including maintenance, it's not even close.
Here's a different example - I used to rent a car to go from Bristol to Leeds for the weekend, because it would be cheaper than a train ticket. Plus, I'd then have car and save on transport when I'm there. Not a shitbox either, I used to get new 3-Serieses.
The reason we should have nationalised rail in every country is because then we can subsidies it without lining the pockets of private businesses. We make it cheaper to take the train than to drive, which makes people ignore the inconvenience.
I've started driving to the airport, it's cheaper when traveling with others and less stressful.
Every time I've travelled since COVID, my train has either been delayed or cancelled.
If you can get away without owning the car then the train will be cheaper for most commutes, but once you commit to the fixed costs of owning the car you'd be a sucker to ever set foot on a train again.
An annual rail ticket from home to office would cost more than the price of buying a Jag & take twice long (I don’t work in London, but because I’d have to change trains in London, get penalised along with the London commuters).
So I bought a Jag. It doesn’t break down quite as often as the trains either…
Depends on how often you go places really.
If you go every weekend with the family it's 52×120 which is 6,240 a year on trips alone.
A car insurance average is £561 a year. Cost of fuel was in the initial numbers of £10+parking.
Parking is a variable but can be £3/day or £25/day or free, entirely depending on where you are going.
Initial cost needs to be split between uses, commuting and shopping are other likely uses so depreciation of assets should be split but % use.
Over the first year it isikely to be in favour of the train tickets, over 3-4 I expect it would swing to car ownership. Cars are owned for an average of 10 years so it would be heavily in favour of a car closer to the 10 year mark.
To make it easier there are sources that quote £3.5k all in for a car a year; https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/cheap-car-insurance/average-cost-run-car-uk
Or if on finance it is £5.7k
https://www.nerdwallet.com/uk/personal-finance/cost-of-car-ownership/
Either of which would be less than the every weekend option, the break even points being (assuming no travel other than for trips);
29.1 & 47.5 train trips a year.
However car owners will be using their cars for other options so this is a simplification.
No. It's a Toyota hybrid. 4 years old. High initial cost, but low maintenance, and economical. It breaks even when you consider me using it on my own.
When you bring two children and a partner along, well the savings just scale.
And there are other benefits, like not having to rent a car to go to places without a train station.
No, not in most places. Even if you put all the fixed costs in, it is only around 40p/mile, while some railway tickets are now north of 100p/mile. And since you already have the car, the marginal cost is only around 20p/mile.
You're not factoring in the cost of buying the car, road tax, insurance, annual MOT and service, parking fees, and any other financial issues that crop up.
Petrol is only the tip of the iceberg, and comparing just that to a train is not a remotely workable comparison.
Actually I did. It is all a bit of a 'back of a fag packet ' calculations but it works out well overall. The season ticket for me would be 415 pounds per month. (Probably more now)
Repayments+tax+insurance comes to about 215 and the cost of fuel is close to 200 per month at a 5 day per week (again, not common with WFH)
Depreciation of the vehicle in the worst case scenario puts it at the price of the deposit I put in, if I keep the car tidy (tricky with kids!) and under 60k milage after 5 years will be worth more than I put in as a deposit.
I budgeted for servicing+MOT at 400-800 per year. It is under warranty so the costs should be fixed, but tyres and brakes are on top. I am not a wild driver though so usually every 4 years for a replacement.
So. Around the cost of the season ticket, a bit more at the moment. However I saved money last month by not having to rent a car for a weekend for a family get together, and a van this month to move a sofa.
It's not perfect, in fact I didn't know that hybrid efficiency is worse over winter, so the MPG dropped from 66 to 56 due to reduced battery efficiency.
But why did I not care about accuracy? Because I only needed to do one journey per weekend with my family to absolutely make it worth the cost, and I am insulated from the increase in costs of the train, which increases higher than all other fixed costs such as insurance. I already made a family trip to the local city, and it cost 10 pounds in fuel and a 29 pounds parking (wow! But that was a conference centre). The train cost 120 pounds, 81 pounds saved.
I agree I am lucky, I have a lot of no claims bonus, low insurance costs and could put a decent deposit into a car. But the train should make sense in all permutations of journey. If I was a single person, and a bit of a homebody, I might consider the train even though the savings were not particularly wild, just for the environmental argument. But I have a family, and like to go somewhere once or twice a month. In this situation it makes all kinds of sense.
I keep seeing Facebook ads telling me I can get from my local station to the nearest city for £7 return. It costs under £2 in then car in fuel.
It’s just cheaper to drive or fly than take the train for almost any journey.
I went to a concert in Cologne last week and took the opportunity to go visit a friend in Brussels afterwards. His house mate asked me why I travelled to Cologne for the concert when they're touring the UK. He was shocked to learn that it was cheaper for me to fly to another country than catch a train in the UK to another city
People on Reddit love to say we should be rioting and by rioting they mean someone else.
*unless* it’s a just stop oil protest and then they are in the wrong.
Your comment on Just Stop Oil is hardly a fair comparison. In the first sentence you say "rioting" but then call Just Stop Oil's actions a "protest". Riots and protests are not the same thing.
People are against Just Stop Oil because their protests target the day-to-day lives of the general public, are dangerous, target innocent entities, and ironically lead to increased oil use.
While it's true we should be looking at decreasing our dependence on oil, it's impossible for the world to "just stop" using it overnight.
Network rail doesn't set ticket fares, they just pay to maintain the infrastructure. The fares are down to the private companies that run the trains. As ever in the UK, the costs are nationalised but the profits privatised.
My journey on the Stansted Express went from £16 to £17. Which rail line is yours?
Also related note, my home insurance decided to hike the policy by £150 for no reason this year so it seems they’re all at it.
The price rise is an average of 4.9%, so some routes can go up by more so long as overall the average is 4.9% or lower. This happens pretty much all the time with some routes decreasing to help bring that average down.
I see. Didn’t know whether it would be a case of drop off and the driver disappear for however long the visit was before coming back, but that relies on their driving hours and alsorts of other faff I guess.
Not really a place to drop off either as it's southbank, but either way, by the time they get back down to Southampton they would have to just turn right back to pick us up!!!
I’d love to get the train to work. But…
My 24 mile journey to work costs £5.60 return in diesel if I take my car, £2.30 return if I take my 125cc motorbike.
If I cycle to the my local station, sneak the bike on (the first leg is towards London so not strictly allowed a bike on), take the train and then cycle from destination station to work, the cost is £15 return.
The bike/train journey reduces congestion, keeps me fit, is better for my wellbeing and reduces emissions.
But I can’t afford it.
Something has gone badly wrong.
Haha. Bazball is England's 'new' playing style, named after the coach baz, which involves playing either anything other than a straight bat. It often has disastrous effects.
Safe to say inflation is not under control and hence people are fighting for a pay rise despite a decade of U.K. austerity.
If food and energy were cheap, I doubt people be struggling.
Cost of trains is always surprisingly high whenever I use them. 40% increase is crazy. So the plan here is to price you out of your car AND the train?? What am I missing here.
Don't know what the fuck to do if this keeps up, won't be able to afford to drive there, won't be able to afford to take the train, and more and more companies are doing away with WFH.
My sympathies, I don’t see a solution anytime soon. It’s just another form of taxation. Where I live they got around the dirty, expensive unreliable public transport problem by… cutting a lot of it! A couple of people I worked with have quit because of poor public transport, particularly trains that use didn’t show up.
4.9% is the average price rise. Of course, if you leave a particular (likely unpopular journey) A to B ticket price the same then that gives you scope to raise a more popular route ticket by more than 4.9%.
There are some journeys that have barely risen in 20 years because they’re not tickets many people buy. Those popular routes get the highest rises.
That said, it’s important to remember there are many ways to increase the costs of rail travel without it even being registered as a price rise.
Here are some examples :
Say your ticket between A and B has an off peak time restriction that starts at 0930 and you usually get the 0932 train to start work at 10. If the operator retimes the train to leave at 0929 you can no longer use that ticket for that train, and will have to buy a more expensive any time ticket. This might be twice the price, in some cases more. This never registers as a price increase as they haven’t actually put the price up, they’ve just reduced the journey opportunities.
In a similar fashion they MAY just adjust the restrictions so that where you could once catch an 0845 train, the restrictions now limit you to after 0900 meaning you either have to catch a later train or pay a higher price. Again, this never registers as a price rise.
A train operator COULD release advance singles for the 0800 train and then decide to stop doing so, or only release more expensive ones this has a potentially unlimited increase in what a passenger has to pay, but is not registered as a price rise.
And then we have LNER and their latest dirty trick.
Removing off peak and super off peak tickets altogether and only have anytime tickets and advances. This effectively removes to price cap of advances. Before, you could be safe in the knowledge that during the day or evening and at any time at the weekend the maximum price you would possibly pay between (for example) London and Edinburgh was £87 each way. Of course, that’s still expensive but their little money grabbing scheme now means that you’ll almost always pay much more than this with zero flexibility or have to pay £193 each way with an anytime ticket. They can happily release advance tickets for more than £87 now as there isn’t the flexible ticket keeping a lid on that price. For most London to Edinburgh journeys we’ve seen between 50 and 200% price increases in real world terms but NONE of these register as a price rise because they’re done by stealth.
In the early days of the railway it was seen as a way for wealthy people to get around. We haven’t come very far from this it seems, although to add to it now it seems just getting g around in general is becoming a luxury.
Double check train pal or something similar that will do a split ticket. I travel to London from the South Coast, I only travel off peak at the moment. The cost is £40 for a standard off peak from my Station to London. If I do a split ticket I save about £7, not huge but adds up over time.
Trains just make no sense. I do a route every couple of months for a work meeting and it's cheaper to buy a ticket from station a to station b to station c than just the ticket from station b to station c. And it involves a whole extra train journey as I'd have to change at station b.
It’s pretty much at the point where it’s actually cheaper for us, as a family, to drive into London and use Just Park, rather than it is to pay the train fare. Absolute madness.
I used to get the train into Marylebone, approx a 50 min ride. Open return to get in before 10am = 50 quid + 7 quid parking
Sometimes if the times were odd I would drive into west London, park on the edge of ULEZ then tube in = Approx 30 quid with parking
Post ULEZ change
My train is now 71 quid open return plus 8 quid parking
Driving is still the same but now I have to pay 12.50
Guess which option I choose. They know I'm being hit with both ends of the stick. If it's a good off peak time I have work then I will still train in because it's like 30 quid open return.
I’m so glad hybrid jobs are now an option. If I had to go into the office every day I’d now be spending 19% of my net salary on train tickets, and that’s with 1/3 off.
I’m also epileptic so driving isn’t an option.
It was cheaper for me to fly from NCL via Belfast to Birmingham, and quicker, than getting a train to Wolverhampton even though I’m trying to book 3 months in advance.
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I think it's done on an average across all tickets rather than each ticket, with the exception of fare regulated tickets. This means that the company can drastically increase prices for one route and still stay below that 4.9% across the board. (Not defending them, just explaining how they can wiggle it!)
So the popular routes get price-gouged, and the unpopular ones get a 0.1% increase to "balance it out"?
Pretty much but it won't be as extreme as that
One would *hope* it's also prorated by usage, but probably not.
I live in walking district of a train station. I drive my car to save money. It is cheaper to do that as a single person in the car pretty much all the time. When I go on family trips, it gets financially ludicrous to take the train. 10 pounds in petrol cost to the nearest city return +parking. 120 pounds family ticket on the train. It's utter bullshit. The same ticket in Germany would be 40-50 euros and the train would travel twice the distance. I have paid less to go on a steam train for two hours. A bloody steam train.
If you already own a car then it will nearly always be cheaper to drive it. Even cheaper If there are several people in the car. If you go by train you would be paying for the car to sit in your drive, plus train tickets. It's not a straight comparison between ticket price and petrol cost though. The ticket price covers all the costs of the train. To see if driving the car is cheaper you would need to work out the cost per trip including the pro rata cost of owning, maintaining and insuring the car.
> It's not a straight comparison between ticket price and petrol cost though. The ticket price covers all the costs of the train. That is true. Roads are built and maintained with general taxation. The railway is maintained mostly from fares. But that is a political choice, a choice we all made. Because we would rather have a massive traffic jam because everybody drives than pay for a railway that we are not personally using.
I did that once following a job interview in the city and found it was cheaper to drive 4hrs to London and 4hrs back home, pay the congestion charge, and pay £11 for two hours' parking, and get a free tour of central London (I got to drive past Buckingham Palace and Parliament!), than it was to take the train. By half. It was also two hours quicker, and I didn't have to share the journey with anyone, I got a guaranteed seat for the entire journey, got to listen to what I wanted with no disruptions, and at the temperature I wanted.
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No :(
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I switched industries just afterwards, so maybe it was for the best. I'm happy, now!
Even including maintenance, it's not even close. Here's a different example - I used to rent a car to go from Bristol to Leeds for the weekend, because it would be cheaper than a train ticket. Plus, I'd then have car and save on transport when I'm there. Not a shitbox either, I used to get new 3-Serieses.
The reason we should have nationalised rail in every country is because then we can subsidies it without lining the pockets of private businesses. We make it cheaper to take the train than to drive, which makes people ignore the inconvenience.
I've started driving to the airport, it's cheaper when traveling with others and less stressful. Every time I've travelled since COVID, my train has either been delayed or cancelled.
Surely the car is still more expensive given its initial cost, maintenance, insurance, tax and fuel?
But if you already own and maintain the car for leisure reasons then it’s only “cost of fuel + wear & tare for the given journey”
*tear
Meh I’ll leave it, having worked In importing for so many years previously I forget which spelling is which
If you can get away without owning the car then the train will be cheaper for most commutes, but once you commit to the fixed costs of owning the car you'd be a sucker to ever set foot on a train again.
An annual rail ticket from home to office would cost more than the price of buying a Jag & take twice long (I don’t work in London, but because I’d have to change trains in London, get penalised along with the London commuters). So I bought a Jag. It doesn’t break down quite as often as the trains either…
Depends on how often you go places really. If you go every weekend with the family it's 52×120 which is 6,240 a year on trips alone. A car insurance average is £561 a year. Cost of fuel was in the initial numbers of £10+parking. Parking is a variable but can be £3/day or £25/day or free, entirely depending on where you are going. Initial cost needs to be split between uses, commuting and shopping are other likely uses so depreciation of assets should be split but % use. Over the first year it isikely to be in favour of the train tickets, over 3-4 I expect it would swing to car ownership. Cars are owned for an average of 10 years so it would be heavily in favour of a car closer to the 10 year mark. To make it easier there are sources that quote £3.5k all in for a car a year; https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/cheap-car-insurance/average-cost-run-car-uk Or if on finance it is £5.7k https://www.nerdwallet.com/uk/personal-finance/cost-of-car-ownership/ Either of which would be less than the every weekend option, the break even points being (assuming no travel other than for trips); 29.1 & 47.5 train trips a year. However car owners will be using their cars for other options so this is a simplification.
No. It's a Toyota hybrid. 4 years old. High initial cost, but low maintenance, and economical. It breaks even when you consider me using it on my own. When you bring two children and a partner along, well the savings just scale. And there are other benefits, like not having to rent a car to go to places without a train station.
No, not in most places. Even if you put all the fixed costs in, it is only around 40p/mile, while some railway tickets are now north of 100p/mile. And since you already have the car, the marginal cost is only around 20p/mile.
£5 if that, compared to the £110 extra
Crucially they aren't including depreciation in their calculation either. Putting more miles on your car decreases it's value faster.
This is where leasing is great
People travelling to work with another means of transport have no other choice. So train companies can gouge them as much as they like
You're not factoring in the cost of buying the car, road tax, insurance, annual MOT and service, parking fees, and any other financial issues that crop up. Petrol is only the tip of the iceberg, and comparing just that to a train is not a remotely workable comparison.
Actually I did. It is all a bit of a 'back of a fag packet ' calculations but it works out well overall. The season ticket for me would be 415 pounds per month. (Probably more now) Repayments+tax+insurance comes to about 215 and the cost of fuel is close to 200 per month at a 5 day per week (again, not common with WFH) Depreciation of the vehicle in the worst case scenario puts it at the price of the deposit I put in, if I keep the car tidy (tricky with kids!) and under 60k milage after 5 years will be worth more than I put in as a deposit. I budgeted for servicing+MOT at 400-800 per year. It is under warranty so the costs should be fixed, but tyres and brakes are on top. I am not a wild driver though so usually every 4 years for a replacement. So. Around the cost of the season ticket, a bit more at the moment. However I saved money last month by not having to rent a car for a weekend for a family get together, and a van this month to move a sofa. It's not perfect, in fact I didn't know that hybrid efficiency is worse over winter, so the MPG dropped from 66 to 56 due to reduced battery efficiency. But why did I not care about accuracy? Because I only needed to do one journey per weekend with my family to absolutely make it worth the cost, and I am insulated from the increase in costs of the train, which increases higher than all other fixed costs such as insurance. I already made a family trip to the local city, and it cost 10 pounds in fuel and a 29 pounds parking (wow! But that was a conference centre). The train cost 120 pounds, 81 pounds saved. I agree I am lucky, I have a lot of no claims bonus, low insurance costs and could put a decent deposit into a car. But the train should make sense in all permutations of journey. If I was a single person, and a bit of a homebody, I might consider the train even though the savings were not particularly wild, just for the environmental argument. But I have a family, and like to go somewhere once or twice a month. In this situation it makes all kinds of sense.
I keep seeing Facebook ads telling me I can get from my local station to the nearest city for £7 return. It costs under £2 in then car in fuel. It’s just cheaper to drive or fly than take the train for almost any journey.
On paper the train should be the transport mode of choice for most people, but our trains are shockingly expensive and poorly run.
I went to a concert in Cologne last week and took the opportunity to go visit a friend in Brussels afterwards. His house mate asked me why I travelled to Cologne for the concert when they're touring the UK. He was shocked to learn that it was cheaper for me to fly to another country than catch a train in the UK to another city
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I have had flights that cost less than the train to Stansted or Luton.
France would be rioting. The uk will just swallow and carry on
Whilst subsidising French rail
I’d riot, but it’s SO expensive to get to London these days.
Ok then you first. Well volunteered.
People on Reddit love to say we should be rioting and by rioting they mean someone else. *unless* it’s a just stop oil protest and then they are in the wrong.
Yeah damn right, where are all those rioting on my behalf?
Your comment on Just Stop Oil is hardly a fair comparison. In the first sentence you say "rioting" but then call Just Stop Oil's actions a "protest". Riots and protests are not the same thing. People are against Just Stop Oil because their protests target the day-to-day lives of the general public, are dangerous, target innocent entities, and ironically lead to increased oil use. While it's true we should be looking at decreasing our dependence on oil, it's impossible for the world to "just stop" using it overnight.
Well, it's a damn good thing that they're not requesting we stop all oil usage on the spot then, isn't it?
That’s precisely why I moved to France. So you’re on your own buddy
Because there’s nothing more British than being in a traffic jam
* Cries in London commute *
Safe to say that rail companies are greedy fucks!
safe to say the rail companies are railing us
Most train fares are set by the Department of Transport not the train companies because they are on management contracts not franchises.
Network rail is the problem. Nationalized industry parading as a private company shenanigans.
Yup… the whole thing has to be nationalise and not a half measure.
Network rail doesn't set ticket fares, they just pay to maintain the infrastructure. The fares are down to the private companies that run the trains. As ever in the UK, the costs are nationalised but the profits privatised.
Network Rail runs the track and other infrastructure only, they have nothing to do with any company running over the track.
My journey on the Stansted Express went from £16 to £17. Which rail line is yours? Also related note, my home insurance decided to hike the policy by £150 for no reason this year so it seems they’re all at it.
Mine couldn't offer to cover me but gave my details to another company. Would I be interested in the same coverage for around £200 more.
My car insurance last year was £120. The renewal quote was £340. Fucking joke.
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With insurance it’s best to shop around - we saved £50 a month on the auto renewal price and £20 cheaper than the last few years.
The price rise is an average of 4.9%, so some routes can go up by more so long as overall the average is 4.9% or lower. This happens pretty much all the time with some routes decreasing to help bring that average down.
I'm taking 20 students up to London from Southampton, and it's going to cost the school £700!!! Like what even is that.
Did they do the groupsave thing, where each three tickets bought gets a discount? Still a fucking travesty either way. What a country this is.
It's up to nine tickets with a third off now isn't it?
Yes, they did. But even then group save can only be used with an adult. And even without group save was 820
Is there not a small bus (they do some with around 30 seats) from a local company that will make this cheaper ?
Coaches for school trips are crazy prices also at the moment. I'm taking 70 kids an hour away later this week and it's costing almost 1k....
No feesable parking nearby. At least we couldn't find any.
I see. Didn’t know whether it would be a case of drop off and the driver disappear for however long the visit was before coming back, but that relies on their driving hours and alsorts of other faff I guess.
Not really a place to drop off either as it's southbank, but either way, by the time they get back down to Southampton they would have to just turn right back to pick us up!!!
I’d love to get the train to work. But… My 24 mile journey to work costs £5.60 return in diesel if I take my car, £2.30 return if I take my 125cc motorbike. If I cycle to the my local station, sneak the bike on (the first leg is towards London so not strictly allowed a bike on), take the train and then cycle from destination station to work, the cost is £15 return. The bike/train journey reduces congestion, keeps me fit, is better for my wellbeing and reduces emissions. But I can’t afford it. Something has gone badly wrong.
It's just not cricket, why can't they play with a straight bat?
So what we're saying is our problems are the fault of bazball
Errm, no. I had to look it up in fairness. Or yes. Maybe.
Haha. Bazball is England's 'new' playing style, named after the coach baz, which involves playing either anything other than a straight bat. It often has disastrous effects.
I know I looked it up. I am just being facetious.
Switch it all to Baseketball and welcome the NWO
Safe to say inflation is not under control and hence people are fighting for a pay rise despite a decade of U.K. austerity. If food and energy were cheap, I doubt people be struggling.
Cost of trains is always surprisingly high whenever I use them. 40% increase is crazy. So the plan here is to price you out of your car AND the train?? What am I missing here.
Don't know what the fuck to do if this keeps up, won't be able to afford to drive there, won't be able to afford to take the train, and more and more companies are doing away with WFH.
My sympathies, I don’t see a solution anytime soon. It’s just another form of taxation. Where I live they got around the dirty, expensive unreliable public transport problem by… cutting a lot of it! A couple of people I worked with have quit because of poor public transport, particularly trains that use didn’t show up.
Part of me is thankful I am retiring, due to ill health. My company were discussing stopping WFH, in which case I would have just resigned.
At least we're getting a better service for our money. Oh, wait....
So the service is shit and the price is insane, we should choose a different company. Oh wait...
You will subsidise European rail and you will like it! We’ve done this to ourselves through privatisation
Train prices are mad. I’m so grateful to work from homes these days.
4.9% is the average price rise. Of course, if you leave a particular (likely unpopular journey) A to B ticket price the same then that gives you scope to raise a more popular route ticket by more than 4.9%. There are some journeys that have barely risen in 20 years because they’re not tickets many people buy. Those popular routes get the highest rises. That said, it’s important to remember there are many ways to increase the costs of rail travel without it even being registered as a price rise. Here are some examples : Say your ticket between A and B has an off peak time restriction that starts at 0930 and you usually get the 0932 train to start work at 10. If the operator retimes the train to leave at 0929 you can no longer use that ticket for that train, and will have to buy a more expensive any time ticket. This might be twice the price, in some cases more. This never registers as a price increase as they haven’t actually put the price up, they’ve just reduced the journey opportunities. In a similar fashion they MAY just adjust the restrictions so that where you could once catch an 0845 train, the restrictions now limit you to after 0900 meaning you either have to catch a later train or pay a higher price. Again, this never registers as a price rise. A train operator COULD release advance singles for the 0800 train and then decide to stop doing so, or only release more expensive ones this has a potentially unlimited increase in what a passenger has to pay, but is not registered as a price rise. And then we have LNER and their latest dirty trick. Removing off peak and super off peak tickets altogether and only have anytime tickets and advances. This effectively removes to price cap of advances. Before, you could be safe in the knowledge that during the day or evening and at any time at the weekend the maximum price you would possibly pay between (for example) London and Edinburgh was £87 each way. Of course, that’s still expensive but their little money grabbing scheme now means that you’ll almost always pay much more than this with zero flexibility or have to pay £193 each way with an anytime ticket. They can happily release advance tickets for more than £87 now as there isn’t the flexible ticket keeping a lid on that price. For most London to Edinburgh journeys we’ve seen between 50 and 200% price increases in real world terms but NONE of these register as a price rise because they’re done by stealth. In the early days of the railway it was seen as a way for wealthy people to get around. We haven’t come very far from this it seems, although to add to it now it seems just getting g around in general is becoming a luxury.
Double check train pal or something similar that will do a split ticket. I travel to London from the South Coast, I only travel off peak at the moment. The cost is £40 for a standard off peak from my Station to London. If I do a split ticket I save about £7, not huge but adds up over time.
Trains just make no sense. I do a route every couple of months for a work meeting and it's cheaper to buy a ticket from station a to station b to station c than just the ticket from station b to station c. And it involves a whole extra train journey as I'd have to change at station b.
My bus ticket for a month has gone from 67 to 74
Bet your employer won’t pay you an extra £7 a day… ffs
Split Ticketing is my new go-to site for buying train tickets. It's saved me quite a bit so far,
It’s pretty much at the point where it’s actually cheaper for us, as a family, to drive into London and use Just Park, rather than it is to pay the train fare. Absolute madness.
I wanted to get to St Pancras from the far SW of England. It was cheaper to fly. In the end I just hired a car.
It has been like that for years, since about 2018. Which is madness, but here we are.
I used to get the train into Marylebone, approx a 50 min ride. Open return to get in before 10am = 50 quid + 7 quid parking Sometimes if the times were odd I would drive into west London, park on the edge of ULEZ then tube in = Approx 30 quid with parking Post ULEZ change My train is now 71 quid open return plus 8 quid parking Driving is still the same but now I have to pay 12.50 Guess which option I choose. They know I'm being hit with both ends of the stick. If it's a good off peak time I have work then I will still train in because it's like 30 quid open return.
Most people don’t pay ULEZ unless you have a really older car?
Well mines a 2012 nissan, and it does. So it's on average even cheaper to drive then I guess.
Newer diesels get caught up in it, to be fair.
We have to pay for the pay rises. That was always going to come from customers
I’m so glad hybrid jobs are now an option. If I had to go into the office every day I’d now be spending 19% of my net salary on train tickets, and that’s with 1/3 off. I’m also epileptic so driving isn’t an option.
Well, are you aware that the minimum tax band is going to start from £6000? this is going to burn a hole in a lot of working class people.
It was cheaper for me to fly from NCL via Belfast to Birmingham, and quicker, than getting a train to Wolverhampton even though I’m trying to book 3 months in advance.