Do Northern passengers pay a two TOC premium

[yorksrob]

I was thinking recently that the North of England's railway network, in spite of being pierced by the big Inter City operators, could and should form the basis of a good, solid regional railway system. Yet because we have in the space, two regional operators, with wildly differing fares structures, the outcomes for passengers seeking decent value fares are often sub-optimal.

First we have Northern - which operates fares more in the way of what you might expect from a regional operator - lots of rangers and rovers, cheap day returns etc, designed to get the most out of day-trippers.

You also have Trans-Pennine Express. This companies fares structure which I would describe as "Inter City lite" based on high walk-on fares with cheaper advanced purchase.

I think this disadvantages passengers in various ways if you compare with similar "regional" networks in the South of England. For example, South Eastern and South Central both have fairly comprehensive groupsave offers and whilst Northern did attempt to emulate this with its duo offer, it more or less had to tip-toe around the other TOC areas with very limited choice of routes.

Then you have the very big gaps in what should be the Northern regional area. For someone in West Yorkshire, there are various reasonably priced day trips if you want to go West towards Lancaster, Manchester, the Peaks etc (if you stick to Northern's trains of course) but if you want to go East to the Dales or the Yorkshire coast, for example, the price is often extortionate and to the detriment of day trips. Northerns new rover is to be welcomed, but of course it will be useless for large swathes of Yorkshire and towns such as Penrith that Northern doesn't cover.

Then there's the overall cost of fares. Take two flows between large towns/cities of similar distance. Leeds to Manchester and London to Brighton. Both major flows of around fifty miles or so.

For the Leeds to Manchester return, I can find an off-peak day return fare for a whopping £28.40, although to be fare, if I'm prepared to go the long way round on Northern, this drops to £21.80.

Yet if I look at London to Brighton, I can find a super off-peak return fare for £12.10 ! (This is with a Network card as I'm looking at the cheapest flexible fares available to a working age person - Leeds-Manchester, of course, don't have access to a Network card discount). This is on the direct route.

Wouldn't it make more sense for the whole Northern regional railway to have a fares structure befitting local regional travel, with region wide offers, rovers and off-peak fares, rather than forcing Northern passengers to pay a premium for the privilege of having two train operators with incompatible fares structures.

 

[Coleridge]

For the Leeds to Manchester return, I can find an off-peak day return fare for a whopping £28.40, although to be fare, if I'm prepared to go the long way round on Northern, this drops to £21.80.

Yet if I look at London to Brighton, I can find a super off-peak return fare for £12.10 ! (This is with a Network card as I'm looking at the cheapest flexible fares available to a working age person - Leeds-Manchester, of course, don't have access to a Network card discount).

While accepting your general point, I'm not sure it's reasonable to compare a railcard-discounted fare in the south-east with a full fare in the north. Presumably, the cheapest Manchester-Leeds off-peak day return would be around £14 with a railcard?

It would be better to argue the case for a northern railcard, or even a national railcard available to everyone.

 

[cactustwirly]

I was thinking recently that the North of England's railway network, in spite of being pierced by the big Inter City operators, could and should form the basis of a good, solid regional railway system. Yet because we have in the space, two regional operators, with wildly differing fares structures, the outcomes for passengers seeking decent value fares are often sub-optimal.

First we have Northern - which operates fares more in the way of what you might expect from a regional operator - lots of rangers and rovers, cheap day returns etc, designed to get the most out of day-trippers.

You also have Trans-Pennine Express. This companies fares structure which I would describe as "Inter City lite" based on high walk-on fares with cheaper advanced purchase.

I think this disadvantages passengers in various ways if you compare with similar "regional" networks in the South of England. For example, South Eastern and South Central both have fairly comprehensive groupsave offers and whilst Northern did attempt to emulate this with its duo offer, it more or less had to tip-toe around the other TOC areas with very limited choice of routes.

Then you have the very big gaps in what should be the Northern regional area. For someone in West Yorkshire, there are various reasonably priced day trips if you want to go West towards Lancaster, Manchester, the Peaks etc (if you stick to Northern's trains of course) but if you want to go East to the Dales or the Yorkshire coast, for example, the price is often extortionate and to the detriment of day trips. Northerns new rover is to be welcomed, but of course it will be useless for large swathes of Yorkshire and towns such as Penrith that Northern doesn't cover.

Then there's the overall cost of fares. Take two flows between large towns/cities of similar distance. Leeds to Manchester and London to Brighton. Both major flows of around fifty miles or so.

For the Leeds to Manchester return, I can find an off-peak day return fare for a whopping £28.40, although to be fare, if I'm prepared to go the long way round on Northern, this drops to £21.80.

Yet if I look at London to Brighton, I can find a super off-peak return fare for £12.10 ! (This is with a Network card as I'm looking at the cheapest flexible fares available to a working age person - Leeds-Manchester, of course, don't have access to a Network card discount). This is on the direct route.

Wouldn't it make more sense for the whole Northern regional railway to have a fares structure befitting local regional travel, with region wide offers, rovers and off-peak fares, rather than forcing Northern passengers to pay a premium for the privilege of having two train operators with incompatible fares structures.

Try looking at London to Reading and suddenly Leeds to Manchester becomes very good value!

 

[yorksrob]

While accepting your general point, I'm not sure it's reasonable to compare a railcard-discounted fare in the south-east with a full fare in the north. Presumably, the cheapest Manchester-Leeds off-peak day return would be around £14 with a railcard?

It would be better to argue the case for a northern railcard, or even a national railcard available to everyone.

I don't really accept that point, because as a working age person in the South looking for the cheapest walk on fare, the network railcard option is the option that's available to me, whereas the non-railcard option is the cheapest option available to me between Manchester and Leeds.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jun 2026 ==

Try looking at London to Reading and suddenly Leeds to Manchester becomes very good value!

Well, London to Reading is a bit of a shorter distance at 42 miles, so its off peak return at £29.40 a bit more expensive in real terms than the TPE fare.

However looking at my metric of the cheapest walk-on available to a working age person, the Network Railcard gives a return of £19.55, which is far better value than the TPE fare (even accounting for the shorter distance) and at least equivalent to the Hebden Bridge fare. And I can use it on the fastest trains.

London to Reading isn't looking so shabby afterall !

 

[Iskra]

GBR will fix it...

…We all know that if there were to be pricing equalisation, it would be the lower prices rising to match the higher ones rather than vice versa.

There are a lot of inconsistencies in pricing, but I don’t think that there is a simple system that would deliver reasonable, but consistent pricing for all.

 

[yorksrob]

GBR will fix it...

…We all know that if there were to be pricing equalisation, it would be the lower prices rising to match the higher ones rather than vice versa.

There are a lot of inconsistencies in pricing, but I don’t think that there is a simple system that would deliver reasonable, but consistent pricing for all.

Good point - and I don't think GBR will fix anything in terms of pricing (infact I think it's likely to be a disaster in that respect).

That said, I think that there is a logic to having a regional network for the North of England with fares conducive to discretionary off peak travel as there is elsewhere in the country.

The natural geographic area for that would seem to encompass Northern and TPE.

 

[Tetchytyke]

For the Leeds to Manchester return, I can find an off-peak day return fare for a whopping £28.40, although to be fare, if I'm prepared to go the long way round on Northern, this drops to £21.80.

Yet if I look at London to Brighton, I can find a super off-peak return fare for £12.10 ! (This is with a Network card as I'm looking at the cheapest flexible fares available to a working age person - Leeds-Manchester, of course, don't have access to a Network card discount). This is on the direct route.

Comparing apples and oranges there, really. Not just the railcard but the ticket restrictions too.

A full price any permitted off peak
day return from Brighton to London Terminals is £40.70. The Thameslink Only one is £23.80. Both are more expensive than the equivalent from Leeds to Manchester.

 

[Watershed]

Comparing apples and oranges there, really. Not just the railcard but the ticket restrictions too.

A full price any permitted off peak
day return from Brighton to London Terminals is £40.70. The Thameslink Only one is £23.80. Both are more expensive than the equivalent from Leeds to Manchester.

Comparing the cheapest walk-up return, available to a working age person, seems entirely reasonable to me. The fact that this is a different fare for the two journeys is neither here nor there. The Hebden Bridge fare @yorksrob fare refers to seems entirely comparable in terms of the restriction on choice of trains to the intended effect of a "Thameslink only" restriction.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The Hebden Bridge fare @yorksrob fare refers to seems entirely comparable in terms of the restriction on choice of trains to the intended effect of a "Thameslink only" restriction.

The Thameslink Only super off-peak day return he referred to is only valid on weekends. It isn't really fairly comparable.

 

[yorksrob]

Comparing apples and oranges there, really. Not just the railcard but the ticket restrictions too.

A full price any permitted off peak
day return from Brighton to London Terminals is £40.70. The Thameslink Only one is £23.80. Both are more expensive than the equivalent from Leeds to Manchester.

Well no.

I have to deal with the world as I find it, not how I wish it to be, and the reality is that I have a railcard discount available for London to Brighton that simply isn't available for Leeds to Manchester. That is not comparing apples with oranges - that is reality.

And I'm not sure of the exact conditional differences between the £12.10 return I quoted and your £23.80, however my £12.10 return still allows for a flexible day trip, which is what I'm looking at.

 

[Watershed]

The Thameslink Only super off-peak day return he referred to is only valid on weekends. It isn't really fairly comparable.

A large proportion of leisure journeys are done at a weekend, since that's when people have time off. So it seems an entirely reasonable proposition.

 

[yorksrob]

The Thameslink Only super off-peak day return he referred to is only valid on weekends. It isn't really fairly comparable.

Ok, I will accept that point to an extent - although it's telling that there is no equivalent cheaper fare for the weekend in the North.

However, whereas your Thameslink fare enables travel on a comparatively fast train down the main line, to access the "equivalent" Northern only fare between Leeds and Manchester, one has to use a substantially longer, slower route.

I also agree with @Watershed 's point that a large proportion of leisure journeys will happen at the weekend anyway, so this is a valid comparison.

Perhaps with a unified, more geographically based Northern operator, some sort of similar weekend offer might be possible.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Ok, I will accept that point to an extent - although it's telling that there is no equivalent cheaper fare for the weekend in the North.

However, whereas your Thameslink fare enables travel on a comparatively fast train down the main line, to access the "equivalent" Northern only fare between Leeds and Manchester, one has to use a substantially longer, slower route.

Thameslink is the slow train, EMR is the fast one.

 

[Coleridge]

So... does it cost more to travel from Leeds to Manchester than it does from London to Brighton, or not? There seems to be a lot of selective quoting of prices going on here.

 

[yorksrob]

Thameslink is the slow train, EMR is the fast one.

Apologies - I'm not sure of the significance of EMR ?

 

[Bletchleyite]

With regard to the original point I don't think the Northern-TPE split has been a good thing overall. It was done on the background of the "no growth" SercoNed Northern franchise which was allegedly to have originally planned massive cuts including possible line closures which didn't happen. Given that the railway then moved into growth mode they would have been better together and so these issues wouldn't have arisen.

It will be interesting to see what is done to them structurally under GBR.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jun 2026 ==

Apologies - I'm not sure of the significance of EMR ?

My point is that like up north the cheaper fare is available only on the slower TOC. These "Thameslink only" fares exist primarily where there is a choice. See also the West Midlands Trains one on routes shared with Avanti.

 

[yorksrob]

So... does it cost more to travel from Leeds to Manchester than it does from London to Brighton, or not? There seems to be a lot of selective quoting of prices going on here.

For me (and potentially most people) it is substantially cheaper to travel from London to Brighton at the weekend. On weekdays not so much, but the equivalent cheap fare is a lot quicker and more direct from London to Brighton.

 

[Tetchytyke]

And I'm not the exact conditional differences between the £12.10 return I quoted and your £23.80, however my £12.10 return still allows for a flexible day trip, which is what I'm looking at.

If you wish to go out of your way to compare a heavily restricted and railcard discounted ticket on one route with a less restricted and undiscounted ticket on another route, so be it.

But it doesn't really prove your point that northern passengers are "paying a two TOC premium."

Ok, I will accept that point to an extent - although it's telling that there is no equivalent cheaper fare for the weekend in the North.

Thameslink has lots of unused capacity on a weekend, Northern (and TPE) do not.

However, whereas your Thameslink fare enables travel on a comparatively fast train down the main line, to access the "equivalent" Northern only fare between Leeds and Manchester, one has to use a substantially longer, slower route.

Thameslink are the slower trains from Brighton, the fast trains are the Gatwick Express services. It's harder to compare times as they don't go to the same place in London, but Thameslink to London Bridge is about 10-15 minutes slower than GatEx to Victoria.

 

[yorksrob]

With regard to the original point I don't think the Northern-TPE split has been a good thing overall. It was done on the background of the "no growth" SercoNed Northern franchise which was allegedly to have originally planned massive cuts including possible line closures which didn't happen. Given that the railway then moved into growth mode they would have been better together and so these issues wouldn't have arisen.

It will be interesting to see what is done to them structurally under GBR.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jun 2026 ==



My point is that like up north the cheaper fare is available only on the slower TOC. These "Thameslink only" fares exist primarily where there is a choice. See also the West Midlands Trains one on routes shared with Avanti.

Ah, thanks for clarifying.

I guess to your point about cheaper fares being available where there is a choice, I would note that the geographically based nature of the Southern TOC's seem to make offers such as groupsave more geographically consistent and logical (and possibly some rovers).

The differing fares structures between TPE and Northern do seem to throw up some large disparities between journeys such as Leeds to Newcastle, where the off-peak return (whilst we still have it) is £79.20, whilst for a similar distance Leeds - Carlisle via Northern Rail is £38.90. The £38.90 is appropriate for that sort of Northern regional service, however because of the split between TPE and Northern such a service isn't available for those travelling on the Eastern section of the Northern network

 

[Wallsendmag]

TOCs in the north (Manchester is the midlands!!) are much better at using Advance fares

 

[marshlinker]

For me (and potentially most people) it is substantially cheaper to travel from London to Brighton at the weekend. On weekdays not so much, but the equivalent cheap fare is a lot quicker and more direct from London to Brighton.

Even the speed rather depends on how you measure it. The closest thameslink station to London Zero (Charing Cross) is Blackfriars. Fastest train from Blackfriars is 1hr 9 mins with 7 stops. Fastest Northern Leeds to Man Vic is 1 hr 19 mins with 10 stops so it is faster but not hugely so. Im not really sure how London to Brighton is more direct than Leeds Manchester other than the fact Brighton is a terminus.

 

[mmh]

Thameslink is the slow train, EMR is the fast one.

Not to Brighton...

 

[Coleridge]

It's quite an indictment of the UK's fares structure (as if another one were needed) that we can't even really agree on what the train fares between Leeds and Manchester, and London and Brighton, are.

 

[Bletchleyite]

TOCs in the north (Manchester is the midlands!!) are much better at using Advance fares

Debatable. Advances are used by Northern on routes that really aren't suitable for them. Some are broadly equivalent to the idea of Advances on London Underground.

I generally stick with my view that these are suitable for trains on which a specific seat can be reserved (or should be able to be) but not really otherwise.

 

[A S Leib]

The main issue to me is northeastern passengers getting less value out of Northern-only tickets; if they were valid on some TPE services, even if it were just between Thornaby and York (which likely don't have sufficient capacity), it would help.

Some working-age people outside the southeast do have railcards, but I know it's for brevity's sake rather than saying "fit non-veteran working-age people travelling alone outside the boundaries of the Network and other regional railcards".

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not to Brighton...

Yes to Brighton. The fast London to Brighton train is the GatEx.

Not from Bedford to Brighton, but that pairing is for operational convenience and has nothing to do with providing for demand between those places. Thameslink is primarily for getting people to/from London, just as what train you pair with Hunts Cross on Merseyrail is really down to operational convenience, and the complaints about the present pairing are primarily about capacity and frequency, not about a specific desire for Sandgrounders to visit Toxteth and Speke or vice versa.

 

[yorksrob]

If you wish to go out of your way to compare a heavily restricted and railcard discounted ticket on one route with a less restricted and undiscounted ticket on another route, so be it.

I'm not "going out of my way. The railcard discount is available to me on one route. On the other it is not. The rail industry and Government might like to gloss over this reality, but I will not as it directly affects me.

As for the " highly restrictive" nature of the ticket, it seems to be available throughout the day. That seems fairly flexible to me.

But it doesn't really prove your point that northern passengers are "paying a two TOC premium."

My above post comparing Carlisle and Newcastle services perhaps explains the situation better.

Thameslink has lots of unused capacity on a weekend, Northern (and TPE) do not.

I'm not sure that failure to provide adequate capacity in the North constitutes an adequate justification for higher fares, however I note that Northern Rail has suffered from an under-supply of rolling stock for years, yet its fares structure seems far more suited to regional services in the North. These should be available across the North.

Thameslink are the slower trains from Brighton, the fast trains are the Gatwick Express services. It's harder to compare times as they don't go to the same place in London, but Thameslink to London Bridge is about 10-15 minutes slower than GatEx to Victoria.

It's still a very good deal really.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jun 2026 ==

TOCs in the north (Manchester is the midlands!!) are much better at using Advance fares

That's part of the problem really. People in the North shouldn't have to rely on advanced purchase to get decent value fares for day-trip type services to the Coast or the regional City.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jun 2026 ==

Even the speed rather depends on how you measure it. The closest thameslink station to London Zero (Charing Cross) is Blackfriars. Fastest train from Blackfriars is 1hr 9 mins with 7 stops. Fastest Northern Leeds to Man Vic is 1 hr 19 mins with 10 stops so it is faster but not hugely so. Im not really sure how London to Brighton is more direct than Leeds Manchester other than the fact Brighton is a terminus.

As a fellow devotee of the Marshlink, I find it impressive that the Southern operators have managed to provide good value fares along the coast with geographically defined operators with no competition at all, yet we probably have more operators between Leeds and Newcastle than anywhere else, yet flexible fares are stubbornly high !

 

[A S Leib]

yet we probably have more operators between Leeds and Newcastle than anywhere else

The options are TransPennine Express (nationalised), CrossCountry (see what the Treasury will pay for), or Northern and changing to LNER (also nationalised); not much room for price competition.

 

[yorksrob]

The options are TransPennine Express (nationalised), CrossCountry (see what the Treasury will pay for), or Northern and changing to LNER (also nationalised); not much room for price competition.

Well quite. That's why I'm not holding out any hope for GBR to improve matters.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The options are TransPennine Express (nationalised), CrossCountry (see what the Treasury will pay for), or Northern and changing to LNER (also nationalised); not much room for price competition.

The competition is the car. There is scope for market broadening price differentiation though and I can see that remaining, albeit probably only via stuff like that Rover and Advance fares.