£1,000 train fare

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail....e-soaring-prices.html

In the past some on this site have said that British train fares are quite reasonable.

After reading this report do they still come to the same conclusion?

[another-view]

Well true but don't forget this is for a first-class 'walk-on' return from one end of the country to the other.

[craft1948]

I don't know if things have dramatically changed but I used to get the overnight sleeper from Calais to Port Bou in Northern Spain for slightly more than the cost of a first-class ticket from York to London.

[Gromit]

The results of another successful Tory Privatisation exercise. Add that to paying a fortune for Gas, Electricity and Water, and see foreign companies making huge profits at the expense of the British public.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, didn't it?

[craft1948]

Trains are like every other form of transport in their pricing policies. If you are prepared to travel in off peak times and book early you get a very good discount.
Up until about 10 years ago I had to regularly attend meetings in London (from York) so had to catch an early morning train at a cost of about £140.00 second class. If I travelled after 8:30 am the same trip was £68.00, but of course I wouldn't make my meetings. The vast majority of travellers at peak times have their fares paid by their employers.

[Oneeyedvic]

Just booked from Great Yarmouth to London in January - £14 return.

Whilst train fairs can be extortionately priced, this is an example of a journey that I doubt anyone would actually do. I do think that public transport shouldn't have been privatised though

[Gromit]

Zeuhl

If you need to travel to get to work, that is a travel expense which most of us pay and we have to decide when we take our jobs, whether the expense of getting to it is worth it.

Anyone else can plan in advance and travel off peak.

AOG
Train fares can be expensive, as the Mail example shows, or they can be cheap, especially compared to driving it. The RAC says your car will cost you 52p per mile. So, if you take vibrasphere's example of London to Manchester return (That's 400 miles), a car journey will cost you over £200 and he is paying £30 by train.

[anotheoldgit]

Seems like you have a very short memory Gromit, it is you that took me to task several months ago, when you were defending the cheapness of train travel.

Regardless of whether or not one could travel from Lands End to John o' Groats for very little cost.

Providing you travel at 3.00am, but be there before midnight in case it is early, be prepared to hang around until 5am in case it is late, stand all the way, and then be prepared to go home if it don't turn up, taking into account that you must buy a single ticket regardless of whether or not there is a return train.

Yes I suppose under these conditions, one could get a cheap ticket.

Regarding your dig at the Tories privatising rail. Would you as a taxpayer still be prepared to sink millions in propping up British Rail, even though you did not use the railways

[Gromit]

AOG,

In case it has escaped your attention, we the taxpayer are spending £billions updating the track and infrastructure after years of under investment. So we are getting the worst of both worlds.

Your desription of modern train travel is obviously based on reading about it in the Mail rather than actually using it yourself. You can always buy a return ticket.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// You can always buy a return ticket.///

I am quite aware of that fact, but if you tried to keep up, we were talking of how to get cheap train travel.

Well unless it has escaped your notice it is sometimes very much cheaper to buy 2 single way tickets.

[New Judge]

Why anybody would want to make such a journey by train (which involves either five or six changes, depending on whether the passenger travels via London or not, and takes more than twenty hours) or indeed any other method is questionable.

[shaneystar2]

It's not a very good example admittedly but nevertheless train travel these days is a joke .To get advantage of cheap fares you have to book well in advance and you need a degree to be able to fathom out the rigmarole of booking a ticket Especially on line ..
My sons girlfriend managed to get a sixteen quid fare from London to Gt Yarmouth recently but she had to book it about eight weeks in advance.
I want to go to London in the spring so will have to book in advance to get a cheaper fare .Hopefully come the day of travel I'll feel well enough to undertake the journey.If I don't I doubt I'll a get refund . If I walk into the station on the day I can expect to pay mega money .
This government have let the punters down .They should have renationalised public services at the off .
They want you to get out of the car and use public transport but they don't exactly make it very easy to do so.
You can't blame people ,when they are squashed into tubes and trains like sardines and paying an extortionate price for doing so , that they take the other option and drive from A to B.
But it keeps the shareholders happy .As long as they are raking it in the public will have to squash up,pay up and lump it .