High fares - The issue that won't go away

[Bletchleyite]

Everywhere but the smallest hamlets should be covered with something

And most importantly that something must be fully and properly integrated so onward connections from it work properly, even more so where it's infrequent.

I find it a bit of a joke that I can get from London to Penzance in 5 hours (and that isn't even a particularly fast train once you've turned left just after Reading) but then going another 20 miles or so across Cornwall takes a further 5 hours because nothing connects properly and connections are not maintained.

I also find it poor that if you need to use three buses to get to your destination you're further penalised by being charged £9 instead of £3. At least London and the Bee Network have sorted that out, but it needs sorting everywhere.

 

[Krokodil]

The local rural bus takes 45 minutes to travel the 15 miles from the local town to the slightly larger town.

No traffic jams on that route.

Pretty good compared with my journey across Malta. 13km (8 miles). Timetabled for 52 minutes. Actually took nearly two hours.

When I lived (car-free) in Llanberis the 88 to Caernarfon took about 30 minutes to cover a journey that by the most direct route would be 7 miles. The 85 to Bangor took 50 minutes to cover an 11 mile journey. In both cases, what dragged out the time was the indirect route taken, in order to serve various villages en route, often involving some hairpin bends around tight village streets and in one case the 85 had to turn around and double back completely. So my bicycle is nipping at the heels of the bus routes for time, and then once you consider the lack of unsocial hour services the bike was the only option. All of the villages the 88 served were formerly served by trains. On the plus side, at least Express Motors used to put an open-topper out on a hot day.

By contrast I've had some good experiences in the Scottish Highlands. Mostly because the buses I used took reasonably direct routes rather than trying to serve everyone's front door.

And most importantly that something must be fully and properly integrated so onward connections from it work properly, even more so where it's infrequent.

This is a key issue. We often hear "my 15 minute drive would take three hours by public transport". Service frequencies and lack of integration are the cause for this.

I think that there is merit in an aspiration that "x% of the population should have an hourly-served public transport stop within a mile radius". You can add other amenities that should be available within a 15 minute walk (shops, GP surgeries etc.) but we'll stick with transport. Remote farms mean that we will never reach 100% but at least if we have a target to give most of the population access to public transport then we've got something to aim for. It would be interesting to know how many people currently have access to a usable service.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think that there is merit in an aspiration that "x% of the population should have an hourly-served public transport stop within a mile radius". You can add other amenities that should be available within a 15 minute walk (shops, GP surgeries etc.) but we'll stick with transport. Remote farms mean that we will never reach 100% but at least if we have a target to give most of the population access to public transport then we've got something to aim for. It would be interesting to know how many people currently have access to a usable service.

While it doesn't 100% achieve it, Switzerland defines principles for this based on statistics like population of given settlements or areas.

 

[Starmill]

Canterbury to Ashford is £10.70 return. A Bus is £6 return. Somewhat different to the artificial £3 vs £20 first shown.



The local rural bus takes 45 minutes to travel the 15 miles from the local town to the slightly larger town.

No traffic jams on that route.



When I first moved here it was 5 buses a day to near to the station. Useless on the return, but a taxi home was cheaper than a few days in the car park.

Its unusual compared to most villages - we have a bus. It doesn't go anywhere useful. They changed the bus service a couple of years ago, so now it doesn't go to the station. It doesn't go to the drama club on a wednesday evening (well it would get me there if I leave 3 hours early, but wouldn't get me back), it doesn't go to school, it doesn't go to the station, it doesn't go to scouts. This is in a village with 5,000 people, a few miles from a town with 12,000 people. These aren't tiny hamlets.

But it is "covered with something". That something is useless. You need either a good service to where people need otherwise people will simply drive. Paying for the staffing of a bus, let alone the capital cost, just doesn't work untill you reach a certain capacity. Trains are even worse, the drivers are on twice the salary at least, they require other staff to make the service work, and the vehicles are far more expensive.

Maybe automated minibuses or just simply taxis in the future will work for public transport, but until then private transport is the default and public is for those who are forced.

Bus speeds are useless too, even without traffic, as they don't go direct. It used to take 55 minutes to get to the station (rather than 30 to drive), because of the diversions through villages and towns. Instead I now drive to another (better connected) station in 35 minutes. Doesn't matter if its 0300 or 0830 the journey takes about the same amount of time - traffic doesn't matter, it's the non-direct routing.

Now to be fair compared to the last bus I got which took 30 minutes to travel less than 2 miles (in London) this is lightning fast, but the reality of buses are not for sensible travel, they are a distress purchase when you have no other option.

All this provides is what we've already established. Current bus services are worse than useless because they're not adequately subsidised. The rest is way, way off topic and not relevant to the point being made.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jun 2025 ==

Just my area?

Other than the Metrobus in Bristol (which only opened after I left, indeed the additional congestion caused by the prolonged construction work influenced my decision to move), pretty much every bus service I've experienced in the UK and abroad has been tediously slow. The only place I've found them to work has been in remote areas where they get a reasonably clear run between villages. As soon as there's a town involved everything grinds to a halt.

So your argument is that no bus services are viable as public transport? It's not particularly difficult to see how that's wrong. You just mean you don't like buses.

 

[redreni]

It would be interesting to know how many people currently have access to a usable service.

My sister doesn't drive. She moved into a Cambridgeshire village in 2008. It had a very usable bus service then (every 10 minutes Monday to Saturday with a decent evening service, hourly on Sunday, serving the next village, then Cambridge City Centre, then Cambridge train station).

Part of the problem with buses in this country is their impermanence, though. They can fiddle with the routes and frequencies little by little, chipping away at it until you're left with a bus every 30 minutes that doesn't serve any train station. Would it be a massive hardship to change buses in Cambridge to reach the station? Well, maybe not (though even in the city centre the frequencies are hardly London-esque), but the transfers aren't free and the fare for that short hop appears to be a secret. One could buy a Cambridge PlusBus as an e-ticket and then just pay the bus fare to the zone boundary (my sister's village is outside the zone), but I don't know if that's any cheaper. It's walkable but that makes the overall journey materially longer.

It's not the back of beyond by any means. It could have a usable bus service, but it's been cut. So my sister and her two teenage daughters are reliant on lifts or bikes if they want to go anywhere.

 

[Starmill]

And most importantly that something must be fully and properly integrated so onward connections from it work properly, even more so where it's infrequent.

I find it a bit of a joke that I can get from London to Penzance in 5 hours (and that isn't even a particularly fast train once you've turned left just after Reading) but then going another 20 miles or so across Cornwall takes a further 5 hours because nothing connects properly and connections are not maintained.

I also find it poor that if you need to use three buses to get to your destination you're further penalised by being charged £9 instead of £3. At least London and the Bee Network have sorted that out, but it needs sorting everywhere.

The costs of this kind of thing are trivial compared to the cost of a rail-based solution for every town in Britain.

 

[Brubulus]

Pretty good compared with my journey across Malta. 13km (8 miles). Timetabled for 52 minutes. Actually took nearly two hours.

When I lived (car-free) in Llanberis the 88 to Caernarfon took about 30 minutes to cover a journey that by the most direct route would be 7 miles. The 85 to Bangor took 50 minutes to cover an 11 mile journey. In both cases, what dragged out the time was the indirect route taken, in order to serve various villages en route, often involving some hairpin bends around tight village streets and in one case the 85 had to turn around and double back completely. So my bicycle is nipping at the heels of the bus routes for time, and then once you consider the lack of unsocial hour services the bike was the only option. All of the villages the 88 served were formerly served by trains. On the plus side, at least Express Motors used to put an open-topper out on a hot day.

By contrast I've had some good experiences in the Scottish Highlands. Mostly because the buses I used took reasonably direct routes rather than trying to serve everyone's front door.


This is a key issue. We often hear "my 15 minute drive would take three hours by public transport". Service frequencies and lack of integration are the cause for this.

I think that there is merit in an aspiration that "x% of the population should have an hourly-served public transport stop within a mile radius". You can add other amenities that should be available within a 15 minute walk (shops, GP surgeries etc.) but we'll stick with transport. Remote farms mean that we will never reach 100% but at least if we have a target to give most of the population access to public transport then we've got something to aim for. It would be interesting to know how many people currently have access to a usable service.

An issue is that the primary users of rural buses are pensioners, who are likely to have limited mobility and are not particularly time sensitive. However there is a balance to be had and bus routes should generally serve local stations at the correct times for rail connections. A direct rail-bus link with a wait of a few minutes compared to trudging across town to a bus station and waiting 40 minutes is a massive difference.

Going back to fares, I like the idea of a Deutschlandticket style scheme, even though it has had a relatively limited effect on ridership.
This seems to be due to a relatively limited portion of the country purchasing the ticket.
Would be interested to know what portion of the population uses public transport at least weekly, and if something could be rolled out. It would have to be along the lines of "free travel within x number of miles from home" instead of unlimited use on local trains, since a "local trains only" rule would make this offer incredibly generous to London commuters, who would absolutely overrun trains.

I would introduce a system of "forcing" people to purchase public transport passes - replacing ENCTS and Freedom pass schemes. I would like the cost to be flexible, based on location so someone who has 1 bus every day doesn't pay the same as someone who lives next to Kings cross, but with a cap of £100 a month and a floor of £20 a month, with an average of £40 a month.

The pass would also provide a discount on long distance rail travel of 33%, replacing age based railcards. It would also proportionally reduce the cost of travel outside of the zone, so a journey to a station 30 miles from home(assuming a 20 mile radius), would only cost 2/3 of 1/3 of the ticket price. The other thing I would do to is require all public sector employers to provide a pass, either as a perk or deducted from salaries.

If 60% of the population end up with a pass - which is a reasonable proposition given a massive coercion campaign, it would likely not lead to a substantial increase in subsidy to the public transport sector in and of itself.

Much of the issues with local buses can be solved with franchising hopefully bringing better connected, more stable and efficient timetables but some more funding would be required to bring a true improvement in rural bus services, however it will be difficult to bring working age people back to buses in rural areas, regardless of how good service is.

 

[Krokodil]

So your argument is that no bus services are viable as public transport? It's not particularly difficult to see how that's wrong. You just mean you don't like buses.

That's not what I said at all. There are routes where buses are the best way to provide public transport. There are also plenty of places in the UK (particularly cities and large towns) where buses are a cheap fudge and can never achieve the modal shift rail transport can

. There is a long list of examples of UK urban areas where our European peers have built light rail in equivalent cities.

Part of the problem with buses in this country is their impermanence, though.

As I have said many times. We need regulation.

The costs of this kind of thing are trivial compared to the cost of a rail-based solution for every town in Britain.

Good job that no one was suggesting reopening the Neath & Brecon then.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jun 2025 ==

While it doesn't 100% achieve it, Switzerland defines principles for this based on statistics like population of given settlements or areas.

When I have some spare time (ha!) I might compare Ward profiles from the last Census with published timetables

 

[Starmill]

That's not what I said at all. There are routes where buses are the best way to provide public transport. There are also plenty of places in the UK (particularly cities and large towns) where buses are a cheap fudge and can never achieve the modal shift rail transport can

. There is a long list of examples of UK urban areas where our European peers have built light rail in equivalent cities.

I don't disagree with that conclusion at all but that is quite a long way off topic for this thread.

 

[Magdalia]

My sister doesn't drive. She moved into a Cambridgeshire village in 2008. It had a very usable bus service then (every 10 minutes Monday to Saturday with a decent evening service, hourly on Sunday, serving the next village, then Cambridge City Centre, then Cambridge train station).

Part of the problem with buses in this country is their impermanence, though. They can fiddle with the routes and frequencies little by little, chipping away at it until you're left with a bus every 30 minutes that doesn't serve any train station. Would it be a massive hardship to change buses in Cambridge to reach the station? Well, maybe not (though even in the city centre the frequencies are hardly London-esque), but the transfers aren't free and the fare for that short hop appears to be a secret. One could buy a Cambridge PlusBus as an e-ticket and then just pay the bus fare to the zone boundary (my sister's village is outside the zone), but I don't know if that's any cheaper. It's walkable but that makes the overall journey materially longer.

It's not the back of beyond by any means. It could have a usable bus service, but it's been cut. So my sister and her two teenage daughters are reliant on lifts or bikes if they want to go anywhere.

Cambridge now is a very different place to 2008.

The reduction in bus services since then is a consequence of 2 key factors, neither much to do with fares.

The first is driver recruitment and retention. A tight labour market and very high housing costs make it vey difficult to recruit and retain drivers, and this limits what services can be provided.

The second is traffic congestion. Schedules are now longer which means less frequent services with the same number of buses and drivers.

Cambridge buses have done relatively well for cheap fares. For many years before the pandemic City Centre-Station-Addenbrookes fares were all £1.

Now, through the mayor, seniors can use their passes at any time, not just after 0930, and there is the Tiger Card that gives young adults £1 fares.

The services will hopefully become more permanent in the near future through franchising. Some new services funded by the mayor under the Tiger brand were introduced only a few weeks ago.

To get back to fares, one of the things Cambridge needs badly is through bus-rail ticketing, especially once Cambridge South station opens. In particular it needs through fares for interchange between railway and busway services.

 

[miami]

So your argument is that no bus services are viable as public transport?

Not as a replacement for a car, at least not in "rural" areas. Your attempt to shut down the reality by saying "throw money at it" doesn't change reality. To provide the destinations and timetable to provide for the journeys someone wants to make with even a massive 30 minute penalty over the car (so increasing a 10 minute journey to 40 minutes) would require massive numbers of buses and staff, which would cost a fortune, and run constantly empty, because even with a free bus every 30 minutes taking 15 minutes, I'd far rather jump in the car and drive 10 minutes.

However it would be very useful for those unable to drive.

Its cheaper to just pay for taxis for everyone (not that there are anywhere near enough taxis, especially for a spontaneous trip to the shop at 7pm).

Buses only become useful when they have enough demand, which means a high enough density.

I think that there is merit in an aspiration that "x% of the population should have an hourly-served public transport stop within a mile radius".

A public transport stop is no use if it doesn't go where you want it to go. Put on 4 buses an hour on the existing route that runs through my village and run it 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, and it would still be completely useless to go to 90% of the places people want to go.

An hourly bus to "somewhere" is useless to anyone with better options (i.e. a car, motorbike, etc) no matter how cheap you make it and how often it runs, or how near it is.

The problem with buses and trains isn't the cost, its the ability for public transport to actually provide a useful service. In many ways very rural areas - like the highlands - are easier to serve, because there's only one road in and out, and only one "draw" for local journeys. If you're in a village in Skye you are almost always going to be going to Portree for any journey over a mile. If you're in Chipperfield you might want to go to London via Watford, or maybe Hemel Hempsted, or perhaps Berkhamsted, or Chesham, or St Albans.

 

[Starmill]

Not as a replacement for a car, at least not in "rural" areas. Your attempt to shut down the reality by saying "throw money at it" doesn't change reality.

But nobody said it would be a replacement for a car did they. I simply said everywhere would have options that enable connection into and out of a national network, except for the smallest of places.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jun 2025 ==

To provide the destinations and timetable to provide for the journeys someone wants to make with even a massive 30 minute penalty over the car (so increasing a 10 minute journey to 40 minutes) would require massive numbers of buses and staff, which would cost a fortune, and run constantly empty, because even with a free bus every 30 minutes taking 15 minutes, I'd far rather jump in the car and drive 10 minutes.

This is completely irrelevant to anything as nobody suggested it. Neither did anyone suggest that rural areas wouldn't have cars.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jun 2025 ==

An hourly bus to "somewhere" is useless to anyone with better options (i.e. a car, motorbike, etc) no matter how cheap you make it and how often it runs, or how near it is.

So what? Doesn't need to suit everyone and nobody ever said it had to. But currently the service is simply not there at all for a huge number of people. There is no future in which anyone is going to be banned from owning their own car or forced to make a journey on a bus.

 

[Krokodil]

A public transport stop is no use if it doesn't go where you want it to go.

Counting how many households have a basic level of provision (even if it does go the wrong way) is simply a usable metric to guide policymakers. You're never going to get the granular data you are talking about.

There is no future in which anyone is going to be banned from owning their own car or forced to make a journey on a bus.

I'm going to interject there and point out that a significant proportion of the population are indeed effectively banned from driving and forced to use only active travel or public transport. This could be down to age, disability, or even just their financial means. This is why affordable alternatives to driving are important. And (in keeping with the topic) "affordable" should include rail. The shorter journey times rail provides (unlike buses) allow disadvantaged people to seek opportunities in a wider area.

 

[yorksrob]

I'm going to interject there and point out that a significant proportion of the population are indeed effectively banned from driving and forced to use only active travel or public transport. This could be down to age, disability, or even just their financial means. This is why affordable alternatives to driving are important. And (in keeping with the topic) "affordable" should include rail. The shorter journey times rail provides (unlike buses) allow disadvantaged people to seek opportunities in a wider area.

This is so true. Many people aren't able to drive, so affordable rail is an important part of public transport.

 

[miami]

This is so true. Many people aren't able to drive, so affordable rail is an important part of public transport.

Trains are already full making them cheaper just changes the way we ration it and uses up subsidies that could be spent on better returns.

Far more people can drive than live close to a rail station. Of those that physically can't drive, the vast majority get at least 30% off their fares with senior rail cards, young rail cards, disabled rail cards, and child fares.

Rail is rarely used for local regular journeys excluding commuting to high paid city jobs, it is not an appropriate means for the vast majority of journeys no matter what the price.

Long distance I agree, and that's where I think a national scheme where everyone should get one or two non-transferable vouchers per year to give say 50%, or even higher (maybe even a free off peak ticket) off a rail journey. Most rail users only travel once or twice a year, mainly on long distance journeys. This would be a big PR win and not impact the revenue an enormous amount. Regular users who do dozens of long distance journeys a year wouldn't really benefit, people aren't going to use their voucher for travel for work, but for the student who travels long distance 3 times a year, or the family on a city break in the half term, it's a massive cut.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Rail is rarely used for local regular journeys excluding commuting to high paid city jobs, it is not an appropriate means for the vast majority of journeys no matter what the price.

This depends where you live. It's true in the South East where trains are seen to be for going to London, but it's not true around Liverpool, Manchester and the likes nor on many rural lines. Almost nobody for instance is connecting from the Marston Vale onto London services at either end, they are almost all local journeys - you can see that if you look where people go when they alight at Bletchley or Bedford. Some do connect but the vast majority don't. The commuters are much more likely to drive to Bedford, Flitwick, MKC or Bletchley depending exactly where they are.

 

[Starmill]

This depends where you live. It's true in the South East where trains are seen to be for going to London, but it's not true around Liverpool, Manchester and the likes nor on many rural lines. Almost nobody for instance is connecting from the Marston Vale onto London services at either end, they are almost all local journeys - you can see that if you look where people go when they alight at Bletchley or Bedford. Some do connect but the vast majority don't.

Indeed. Tyne & Wear Metro, Metrolink and the Nottingham tramway would all beg to differ, for example.

 

[Haywain]

Rail is rarely used for local regular journeys excluding commuting to high paid city jobs,

I don’t think this true even in the south-east. Even lines into London have a lot of more local flows that are used for commuting to the local bigger town for employment and education opportunities.

 

[miami]

but it's not true around Liverpool, Manchester and the likes nor on many rural lines

Do you think people commuting to those cities and paying (massively discounted) fares are doing it for low wages?

Remember only 5% of the country commutes by rail.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do you think people commuting to those cities and paying (massively discounted) fares are doing it for low wages?

Remember only 5% of the country commutes by rail.

That's South East brain. I assume you've never been on Merseyrail or the Northern Manchester or Leeds locals? A very large proportion of the usage is for leisure, not commuting. And yes, people are doing it for minimum wage jobs in retail in city centres because the fares are quite low, particularly within the former Passenger Transport Executive areas. The high fares issue highlighted in this thread is primarily about longer distance fares and regional ones outside of PTE areas, but I'd also be confident there will be people using the Morecambe-Lancaster line to commute to retail and hospitality jobs, and similarly other lines of that nature.

The usage pattern of local services in the north is basically the same as the usage pattern of local buses. In the South East it's totally different.

On Merseyrail not even everybody is going to Liverpool. A lot, particularly children travelling alone (something you barely ever see in the South East*), are making intermediate journeys.

* I once put a group of Scouts on a London Midland stopper at Berkhamsted and then drove to Bletchley to meet them (we didn't have enough car seats to drive them back). Apparently the guard had questioned why they didn't have an adult with them despite this not being a requirement of either the railway or the Scout Association. Yet if you spend five minutes on Merseyrail you'll see unaccompanied kids, many quite young. It's just used like local buses are elsewhere.

 

[fandroid]

I don’t think this true even in the south-east. Even lines into London have a lot of more local flows that are used for commuting to the local bigger town for employment and education opportunities.

In my experience there are some (by national standards) large local flows by rail in the south-east. Dwarfed by the London flows, but still a lot of people. One problem is that the London-centric emphasis of the routes and the timetables means that the usefulness of rail as a routine way of quickly getting between neighbouring southeast towns can sometimes be less than optimal.

 

[yorksrob]

In my experience there are some (by national standards) large local flows by rail in the south-east. Dwarfed by the London flows, but still a lot of people. One problem is that the London-centric emphasis of the routes and the timetables means that the usefulness of rail as a routine way of quickly getting between neighbouring southeast towns can sometimes be less than optimal.

The Coastway services and Kent Coast lines are examples of routes that do a pretty good job of catering for local flows. Coastway in particular as the fares are reasonable.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jun 2025 ==

Trains are already full making them cheaper just changes the way we ration it and uses up subsidies that could be spent on better returns.

Far more people can drive than live close to a rail station. Of those that physically can't drive, the vast majority get at least 30% off their fares with senior rail cards, young rail cards, disabled rail cards, and child fares.

Rail is rarely used for local regular journeys excluding commuting to high paid city jobs, it is not an appropriate means for the vast majority of journeys no matter what the price.

Long distance I agree, and that's where I think a national scheme where everyone should get one or two non-transferable vouchers per year to give say 50%, or even higher (maybe even a free off peak ticket) off a rail journey. Most rail users only travel once or twice a year, mainly on long distance journeys. This would be a big PR win and not impact the revenue an enormous amount. Regular users who do dozens of long distance journeys a year wouldn't really benefit, people aren't going to use their voucher for travel for work, but for the student who travels long distance 3 times a year, or the family on a city break in the half term, it's a massive cut.

This depends where you live. It's true in the South East where trains are seen to be for going to London, but it's not true around Liverpool, Manchester and the likes nor on many rural lines. Almost nobody for instance is connecting from the Marston Vale onto London services at either end, they are almost all local journeys - you can see that if you look where people go when they alight at Bletchley or Bedford. Some do connect but the vast majority don't. The commuters are much more likely to drive to Bedford, Flitwick, MKC or Bletchley depending exactly where they are.

To say that the trains are already full is a big generalisation. Even on regional services, there's a fair bit of capacity in the day away from the pinch points (such as the TPE core, even though that's a lot better in recent years).

@Bletchleyite is right about the way regional rail services are used - by a broad range of people for many day to day uses.

There will be some high earning commuters into the big cities, but these are likely a minority.

 

[Bald Rick]

Coastway in particular as the fares are reasonable.

Chichester to Worthing appears to be around 60p a mile for a single.

 

[yorksrob]

Chichester to Worthing appears to be around 60p a mile for a single.

That's quite a lot TBH.

I have excellent value along the Coastway myself.

 

[Haywain]

Chichester to Worthing appears to be around 60p a mile for a single.

Is that all? Luton to Leagrave comes in at £1.64 a mile, off peak.

 

[modernrail]

For me the debate goes something like this:
1. What are loadings on trains now that post-Covid routines have largely settled down.

I have a sense that there are some big points to be sorted - most on my mind is quiet peak intercity and quiet outer-suburban in the south.

2. How can quiet trains be filled. Intercity - feels like we need a major change on anytime fares (unless I my anecdotal but regular recent experience of very light loadings is wrong). Outer suburban london - I don’t have enough experience of recent peak/off peak loadings to say if there is a big problem there.

3. Off peak intercity - feels very busy - can some of that load be shifted into the peak to create more capacity.

4. Fair fares - all taxpayers pay for the railway. Where rail is an option (it obviously isn’t where there is no railway - that is such a non-point), prices should be affordable.

5. Are high fares a talking point for people who don’t use the train and don’t live near a train line - of course not. Why would they be.

6. Where trains are full but also short, it is a real shame our answer seems to be price people off, not increase capacity.

I spent the first 30 years of my life seeing the ridiculous under-provision on transpennine. It was just silly to run 2 carriage trains on a route connecting most of the countries biggest cities outside London, competing with the M62 car park.

It is crazy that we have allowed cross country trains to be half the length they should be.

Funnily enough neither of these intercity routes calls at London.

The railway wastes vast amount of money every year at every level. There are plenty of open secrets on where. If GBR does its job properly, it will deal with the overspending/paying on infrastructure provision and contractual game playing and get that money into increasing capacity where there is clearly demand/suppressed demand.

It would be lovely if the sums add up to also allow fares to come down across the board. I would be partially happy if we just dealt with the current absolutely ridiculous examples, such as peak anytime.

Perhaps controversially, I would also reduce the availability of advance fares to no more than 1/2 of a service and with no railcard discounts so the rest is available at standard off-peak fares. They tend to be just about okay and with plenty of railcard reductions even better for lots of people.

 

[redreni]

Perhaps controversially, I would also reduce the availability of advance fares to no more than 1/2 of a service and with no railcard discounts so the rest is available at standard off-peak fares. They tend to be just about okay and with plenty of railcard reductions even better for lots of people.

Predictable fares that you can just walk up and pay? Wouldn't that be far too confusing for people?

 

[modernrail]

Predictable fares that you can just walk up and pay? Wouldn't that be far too confusing for people?

You could always further simplify them by changing the terms of conditions to make them more restrictive and make them more expensive. You could then pretend the train is full unless it isn’t because you can mysteriously still buy a fare that is 10x the fare the first advances purchase passengers paid, for same fairly average product (in terms of comparable international product) on a badly designed seat. You could call this ‘LNER’.

 

[Starmill]

Is that all? Luton to Leagrave comes in at £1.64 a mile, off peak.

And Malvern Link to Great Malvern is about double again. We can keep going like this all day but I don't think any of these comparisons are that useful for anyone.

 

[modernrail]

And Malvern Link to Great Malvern is about double again. We can keep going like this all day but I don't think any of these comparisons are that useful for anyone.

I don’t know. They do emphasise how some fares appear to have become or are particularly ‘expensive’. There is then the debate about whether price per mile should be even - which I think is a bit of a vexed one?

The classic where I grew up was Marsden to Greenfield. I have just checked it now and it is £3.90. That seems reasonable to me so I wonder if they have sorted it out. I think they must have because Huddersfield to Marsden (within the PTE boundary) is now more expensive at £4.20!