Fares anomaly - London to Huddersfield

[A60K]

A letter in Modern Railways May 1987 issue:

"Sir, Yesterday I took a day trip from London to Huddersfield. Armed with my Annual Season Ticket Holder's Railcard and an appreciation of BR's fare structure I purchased a Saver Return from St Pancras to Sheffield for £12.85 and a Day Return from there to Huddersfield for £1.50; a total of £14.35. Had I innocently asked at my local station for a Saver to Huddersfield I would have been routed via the ECML and paid £20.00 - a staggering 28.25% more. My journey would have been an hour shorter, but I was in no hurry.
When I arrived in Huddersfield, there was a poster offering the locals special Saturday Savers to London for £11.00!
Such 'anomalies' caused by zealous market weighting are widespread. It seems to me that the line between 'market weighting' and actively attempting to defraud the passenger is becoming an increasingly thin one. Where the fares between A and B vary according to the route taken, surely it is only natural justice that the intending passenger be made aware of this.
Dr E W Fellowes"

Not much changes!

 

[flymo]

Not much changes!

Very true.

Just out of curiosity, doing the same thing today, how much would it cost?

 

[mikeg]

84.90 for a saver via Manchester, 84.70 for a supersaver via any permitted.
St Pancras to Sheffield via Chesterfield, 60.00 for a super off peak return + 14.60 for an anytime day return via any permitted or 7.60 for an off peak day return via not leeds.

Rail fares sure have gone up, but then the railcard the letter rwriter used no longer exists...

 

[Lampshade]

Well for fairness I'll consider the 'Saver' to be the Off Peak Return (SVR) as opposed to the Super Off Peak Return as that is the 'SuperSaver'.

St Pancras to Sheffield SVR via Chesterfield is £55.45 with the CDR to Huddersfield being £5, so for the same journey it would be £60.45 hock:

 

[bb21]

Very true.

Just out of curiosity, doing the same thing today, how much would it cost?

Off the top of my head, a Sheffield - Huddersfield Off Peak Day Return (CDR) Route Not Leeds is £7.60. A London Terminals - Sheffield Off Peak Return (SVR) Route Chesterfield is £84 but with more restrictions than there were in 1987. Total £91.60.

London Terminals - Huddersfield Off Peak Return Route Manchester is £84.90. Any Permitted is £147. Super Off Peak Route Any Permitted is £84.70.
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Forgot about the railcard. My bad
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Prices with discount applied is SHF-HUD £5, London - SHF £55.45, London - HUD £56.05, £97 and £55.90 respectively

 

[LexyBoy]

£12.85 is about £25.83 in today's money (source). Which means the fare is 2.2 times the price (excluding the railcard discount, which most people wouldn't have). (Including the fact that there's no longer such a railcard, the increase is 3.4 times!)

 

[mikeg]

Yet none of us noticed such a hike... we just grumbled every time fares went up slightly above inflation. Frogs and boiling water... Bring back good old BR!

 

[Lampshade]

Even 3/4 years ago the same journey would have been considerably cheaper, EMT ramped up the prices considerably after taking over from MML.

 

[MCR247]

Bring back good old BR!

The difference that would make is...? :?

 

[Deerfold]

The difference that would make is...? :?

If we'd had BR and the amount of money that has actually been spent on the railways over the years since privatisation (As opposed to what they thought they'd get away with) I think we'd be in a lot better position.

BR were far from perfect but their main problem was always a lack of funding. Although people complained about high fares we've seen they were peanuts compared with what's happened since!

 

[MCR247]

But if it was BR, tickets would probably be more expensive as there is no competition and less splitting. Also, surely it would just be like the DfT have one giant franchise.

 

[yorkie]

I no longer think of combining shorter distance tickets ("splitting") to be an "anomaly". I now think of an "anomaly" to be a ticket that is valid further being cheaper. But is that just because we now expect a combination of shorter distance tickets to be cheaper?

But if it was BR, tickets would probably be more expensive

The railway costs around 3 times as much to run as under BR. Most of the increased costs have been covered by taxpayers, despite huge fare rises. There is no sign of these costs reducing yet the Government want fare payers to pay an increased proportion of these costs. It is going to get worse, but privatisation was the catalyst for the massive fare rises we have experienced.

There are many jobs, some highly-paid, that need to be done now that did not need to exist under BR. One example we have recently discussed is delay attribution officers, whose job is to extract money from rival TOCs or from NR to their own TOC. This is an internal process and adds no value to the railway from our point of view, although from a TOC point of view their job is valuable.

as there is no competition

There are not many routes with true competition though is there?

And there was competition under BR on some routes, with InterCity vs NSE. Examples include Victoria - Gatwick and London-Ipswich. (Privatisation rather than sectorisation has resulted in Ipswich losing it's cheaper fares due to lack of competition - the irony!)

and less splitting.

You could of course split under BR. It is now more necessary to split due to draconian price increases and/or restrictions imposed by TOCs. There are many previously unrestricted journeys priced by EMT where the SVR is not valid until 0900, or on XC 0930. You now have to "split" or buy further to avoid paying the ridiculous Anytime fares. This was unnecessary under BR.

I do not believe splitting is an advantage of privatisation at all. Splitting is more necessary due to the actions of private TOCs in setting through fares at astronomical levels. So, I see the need to split to afford the fare to be a disadvantage of privatisation.

My previous replies to you are here and I still think this is a perfect example of why splitting is now necessary but often wasn't needed before. And, as I said at the time, "These types of 'anomaly' are NOT because the individual fares are too low - far from it - they are because the through fare is artificially too high due to TOCs implementing ludicrous restrictions on long distance tickets."

 

[A60K]

And there was competition under BR on some routes, with InterCity vs NSE. Examples include Victoria - Gatwick and London-Ipswich. (Privatisation rather than sectorisation has resulted in Ipswich losing it's cheaper fares due to lack of competition - the irony!)

The Ipswich situation is a bit strange - I may be wrong, but I don't think there were any differential fares in Intercity/NSE days, and these were introduced sometime after the privatisation process started. In NSE days although their trains reached Ipswich they weren't promoted as an alternative to Intercity.

The two franchises set up to run the services were Anglia Railways for the mainline services and Great Eastern for the outer suburban services. What I can't remember precisely is if the differential fares were introduced in shadow running under BR control or if it was after the GE franchise had been let to First.

It was of course the Greater Anglia (one) franchise that led to everything being the same operator and removing the distinction between services.
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But if it was BR, tickets would probably be more expensive as there is no competition and less splitting. Also, surely it would just be like the DfT have one giant franchise.

BR's fares were not excessive - London to Glasgow Saver return in 1987 was £38 for example. If BR was still running the entire network then some sort of fares regulation would be in place, formally or informally.

One of the principal reasons for the increase in cost of walk on tickets is the yield management of Advance tickets - before 1989 there simply wasn't the computing power available to BR to allow for any sensible use of yield management. Once BR had these tools at their disposal they were able to introduce Apex tickets, followed by SuperApex, and this led to the Saver fares creeping up in real terms because there were cheaper 'headline' fares available.

With privatisation the franchisees introduced more complex demand management and that caused the differentials to increase to the levels you see today.

On one hand it really is cheaper to make many Intercity journeys today than in BR days, but only if you travel when the railway company wants you to and accept that if you miss the train it will cost you a lot more. I'm not sure what the cheapest pair of Advance tickets for London to Glasgow return is now, but I guess it's still less than the £38 Saver in 1987 which was the cheapest possible ticket at that time.

On the other hand, if you turned up at Euston 10 minutes before departure in 1987 you would still only have paid £38 - now it would be around £115 I think.