Sheffield to Shenfield Cheaper to Fly

[richw]

This chap got me thinking of my planned rail journeys this year. Every one of them that is greater than 300 miles is considerably cheaper to fly via various European destinations.

Around half are cheaper by so much it would cover a minimum of a nights accommodation in the "via" city!

 

[jon0844]

£10 Manchester - London return 1981.

Yes easily.

Adjusted for inflation...?

 

[Bodiddly]

Inverness to London Gatwick 10th Feb, £16.99, Easyjet.
Cheapest Inverness to London rail/bus tickets I could find for the same date;
Cally Sleeper £55 seated
Scotrail website, VTEC website £34.50 (1 change)
Trainline £35.25 (same price as above but with a booking fee of 75p)
Megabus £14

Train times are roughly the same as the plane apart from the sleeper which arrives in London roughly the same time as the plane and the bus is around 9am arriving around 22.00

Pros and cons;
Bus is the cheapest but the longest journey (over twelve hours)
The plane is cheap but takes you to Gatwick which is 28 miles from central London with Southern charging around £15.40 for a single to Victoria
Train is roughly 8 hours give or take,
The sleeper has hellish chairs to sleep on and takes around 11 hours.

So, not much difference between the plane and train and the bus is the cheapest option if you are off your head!
Really is down to personal preference and not necessarily budget in this instance.
And just to throw this into the mix, a minicab firm has just quoted me £649.50 from Inverness station to Euston!

 

[miami]

Adjusted for inflation...?

Would be about £30 now. You'd struggle to get a Manchester-London return for under £50 now, and a walk up fare is £82.40.

I seem to remember paying about £30 walk up in 2003 though with a railcard, so about £50 then for a walk up fare, which would be about £65 now and £22 back in 1981.

Service is clearly fare better now than it was in 1981, setting aside the price. A 2 hour trip, 3 times an hour on a clockface for the whole day? Last train from London at 2300.

The ridiculous peak time situation - especially with trains arriving into London at 11.24 being counted as "Peak", and the crush loading on the first off-peak trains, is an issue that may not have existed, but Virgin is a particularly bad example. Compare BR's Chiltern line with what we have today.
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Inverness to London Gatwick 10th Feb, £16.99, Easyjet.
...
Cally Sleeper £55 seated
...
The plane is cheap but takes you to Gatwick which is 28 miles from central London with Southern charging around £15.40 for a single to Victoria
Train is roughly 8 hours give or take,
The sleeper has hellish chairs to sleep on and takes around 11 hours.

So, not much difference between the plane and train

Not much difference in price, but it's night of sitting with "hellish chairs to sleep on", or a night in your own bed and a c. 6AM alarm call via the plane? That's a massive difference.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Really is down to personal preference and not necessarily budget in this instance.

And with the flight, the balance tips in favour of train if you want to take a couple of large bags.

 

[Bodiddly]

And with the flight, the balance tips in favour of train if you want to take a couple of large bags.

Yes, all these things have to get thrown in the mix so each individual journey will have its own pros and cons.

 

[miami]

And with the flight, the balance tips in favour of train if you want to take a couple of large bags.

On the flip side taking 2 bags is just about doable on a train. Take 3 or 4 bags, especially large ones, and you won't be allowed on, even ignoring the logistics. Take two kids and 19 bags as we did in June and plane is the only way to go.

 

[me123]

Tom Utley of the Daily Mail has taken on this story. It's pathetic journalism.

Take the train from Newcastle down to London? My savvy son proved it was cheaper to fly... via Barcelona!

Let's have a look at his arguments.

When our second son was at Newcastle University, he would spare himself the expense of the 250-mile train trip home to London by flying via Barcelona.
If I remember rightly (though this is getting on for ten years ago), the 1,700-mile round trip by air worked out at about half the rail fare on the East Coast line.

So, straight off the bat, the headline is misleading. This was ten years ago.

But if you take the cheapest available flights, and don’t mind delaying the onward journey for a few days’ sightseeing, you can get from Newcastle International Airport to London Gatwick, via Aeroport de Barcelona-El Prat, for as little as £66.
By contrast, the cheapest standard single Virgin rail fare from Newcastle to London King’s Cross, bought on the day of travel, is a cool £120.90. Now compare that with the cheapest coach fare of £12 (yes, our son often went by National Express, but he preferred to break his journey with a dip in the Mediterranean).

He compares the walk-up rail fares to the advance fares on the bus and plane. Brilliant.

Isn’t it a wonder why anyone, apart from the seriously rich, chooses to travel by rail these days?

Are we all "seriously rich" on this forum? I'm certainly not.

Indeed, I haven’t been on an inter-city train since last April, when my bosses sent me the 163 miles to Manchester during the election campaign, with orders to track down the elusive Ed Miliband. I almost fainted at the price of the standard return ticket: £245.10! For the same fare, I discovered yesterday, I could get a cheap return flight to Bahrain, 3,165 miles away — that’s 6,330 miles there and back.

I could continue to quote where he deliberately compares walk up rail fares to advance fares. This example is just ludicrous. Does he think for a minute that he could walk up to an airline desk and fly to Bahrain on the day for £245.10?!?

 

[jopsuk]

Bahrain leaving today for as little as, um, £815 through lastminute. Plus fees. The next ticket tier is more than double that. £800 tommorow. £452 on Monday, via Riyadh. (all return fares).

On Monday, there's £36 Advance tickets from London to Manchester. And the same to return.

 

[ExRes]

£10 Manchester - London return 1981.

Yes easily.

Did you always use BR when travelling to another planet ?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

On the flip side taking 2 bags is just about doable on a train. Take 3 or 4 bags, especially large ones, and you won't be allowed on, even ignoring the logistics. Take two kids and 19 bags as we did in June and plane is the only way to go.

Sorry if I'm not getting your point here, are you saying you won't be allowed on a train with 3 or 4 bags ?, if so I'd recommend a visit to Gatwick Airport where you'll see many people with more bags than that, plus skis or golf clubs, all happily piling on to trains, including during the rush hour periods

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sorry if I'm not getting your point here, are you saying you won't be allowed on a train with 3 or 4 bags ?, if so I'd recommend a visit to Gatwick Airport where you'll see many people with more bags than that, plus skis or golf clubs, all happily piling on to trains, including during the rush hour periods

Quite. You might be charged an AAA fare, but usually not.

 

[fandroid]

Mr Utley is apparently old enough to qualify for a senior Railcard. Perhaps the DM accountants should ask him why he didn't buy one for that Manchester trip. It would easily have paid for itself. Perhaps he should log into this forum occasionally to get some good advice on money saving on the railways. No-one mentions of course all the formalities that airline travel requires- check in, security, passport control (3 times during the total journey) and hassle about bags. The other thing that just never gets a mention is the delays. Planes often take off and land up to an hour late. It's so normal that it's not news except when airports close entirely!

 

[me123]

^ Not to mention that most (if not all?) of the suggestions on here so far have been Ryanair flights. Ryanair, obviously, don't do connections. If you're late for your flight, even if it's because a previous FR flight is delayed, that's considered to be your problem. So if your flight is delayed and you miss your connection... tough titties. You're stranded in Berlin/Dublin/Barcelona/Krakow/Wherever.

Your choices in this situation are
1) You don't fly at all (if it's obvious before your original flight departs). You won't get a refund and you'll have to pay walk up rail fares if you wish to travel home that day.
2) You pay to fly back on a later flight (if one exists - a lot of these routes are very infrequent) at substantial last-minute cost. Plus the cost of the flight you've missed.
3) You find another way home from Europe, at your own cost. And your missed flight won't be refunded.

 

[Mojo]

It even got a mention on this week's Question Time, and sadly Patrick McLoughlin nor any of the other panellists could actually give a decent answer. No wonder much of the general populace hold our railways in such disdain.

 

[anme]

I recently paid £12.90 for a Ryanair flight, cossidering that Air Passenger Duty alone is £13 I consider that the yield management model has worked in my favour.

On the other hand, as a business traveller it completely scr**s me. Please thank me for subsidising your holiday.

 

[The Ham]

Cost us only one factor, time is the other. If I am teaching travelling for work my bosses wouldn't be very impressed if it took me all day to fly somewhere when I could have gone on the train and taken a few hours.

Even if I was doing it for personal reasons time is quite important, as I want to spend time with my family.

 

[CheekyBandit]

I don't ever recall the article mentioning the actual cost of the journey to Sheffield and wonder if could got a return for less. Firstly he could have walked from Hutton to Shenfield (distance is about a mile) rather than taking the bus - I used to walk a similar distance from home to Worksop station. Secondly he could have used Oyster into London - it seems there is a split opportunity at Tottenham Hale though he would have to know that the station can be used as a legit cross London transfer to even think of this. I actually didn't know this when I was 18 and quite possibly many don't. A few years someone in wheelchair travelling from Sweden wanted to know how to cross London to get a Eurostar (then going from Waterloo). Everyone said get off at Liverpool Street while I suggested getting the direct Jubilee Line service (with step free access at both ends) from Stratford.

Thirdly he could have used London Midland's fares but he might have not have known about them (going via Tamworth is most likely not on anyone's mind when looking for tickets).

Finally it might have been worth investigating rail fares from Stansted Airport to Sheffield.

Mind you when I was 18 I would never have dreamed of going via Berlin. My 18th birthday was a few months after Lockerbie (which put me off flying when I wasn't completely over August 1985 crashes) and the city was a different place then.

As for using a railcard - he might have actually used one but wrote the article aimed at a non-disabled person aged between 26 and 59 who isn't a student and doesn't play soldiers, who would find it hard to get one. He also had the time and desire to go to Berlin as well as quite a bit of luck.

I did go to Berlin eight years ago and went by coach as I didn't particularly want to fly.

 

[Gemz91]

Its costing me £270 to fly to Berlin and back, leaving from Sheffield at the end of March. Not checked prices but I'm fairly certain it'd be cheaper for me to travel to Shenfield by train then.

 

[NLC1072]

Was it a risk to life before this was possible?

And the answer to your question could be by rail. Unfortunately we are dragging out heels somewhat.

Or are you telling me you're fine causing vast environmental damage, billions of dollars of property damage and countless lost lives so you can go to Berlin for £10?

- Yes.

 

[HowardGWR]

The problem with 'stunts' in the press, is that they obscure any underlying possible sane discussion.

I think the better comparison is that of rail fares on NR compared with those on SNCF or NS or DB. Notice I use the nationalised infrastructure name. The passenger gives not a fig for the name of the firm, just what the fare possibilities are. I get the impression that the fares on the SNCF, NS, and DB, are more favourable than walk up fares on NR, regardless of when you book, whereas those on NR are wildly fluctuating but with some very good deals when booking in advance. Air fares are typically the same scenario as the latter but also offer some last minute deals, but these are not typically available on NR providers.

Starmill has had a hard time on here but if we had World government, perhaps his principles would be effected.

 

[miami]

I get the impression that the fares on the SNCF, NS, and DB, are more favourable than walk up fares on NR, regardless of when you book, whereas those on NR are wildly fluctuating but with some very good deals when booking in advance.

Paris to Brussels is the same distance as Manchester to London. Frequency is far lower (about half), The most flexible ticket they do is £215 return, which is lower than Manchester-London (about £320), however it's not quite as flexible. Crucially though it's in first class, not second class.

Cardiff to Birmingham vs Frankfurt to Cologne.

Cardiff will set you back £90.10 and take 2 hours each way

The German ticket is fully flexible for £108 on the high speed trains, and comes with a 50% discount if you travel frequently enough to offset the £193 cost of the railcard (i.e. do the trip or a similar trip once a month for £75 return, fully flexible. If you use the slower trains (2h20) it's £71 return.

The cheapest advance tickets I can see for Cardiff to Brum to Cardiff work out at £54 return (this is for April 1st). In Germany I see a high-speed return ticket on the same date for £51 return.

Looks like German trains are
* faster
* cheaper on walkups
* cheaper on advances

 

[Oscar]

The problem with 'stunts' in the press, is that they obscure any underlying possible sane discussion.

I think the better comparison is that of rail fares on NR compared with those on SNCF or NS or DB. Notice I use the nationalised infrastructure name. The passenger gives not a fig for the name of the firm, just what the fare possibilities are. I get the impression that the fares on the SNCF, NS, and DB, are more favourable than walk up fares on NR, regardless of when you book, whereas those on NR are wildly fluctuating but with some very good deals when booking in advance. Air fares are typically the same scenario as the latter but also offer some last minute deals, but these are not typically available on NR providers.

I tend to agree. The level of rail fares across Western Europe is broadly similar, some countries cheaper (Belgium, Italy), some more expensive (Switzerland). Smaller countries tend to have fewer point-to-point cheap advance offers, more likely cheap singles for unlimited distance, day tickets or network passes (Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria). Advance fares are normally only available on Intercity or high-speed services (and connections). SNCF's yield management techniques have become much more extreme recently (it's often cheaper to go further, prices can change greatly with the seasons; there are also certain categories of TGV with lower prices offering a different kind of service). French walk-up fares for any category of train are very high, though there are some discount cards available (less comprehensive than in Germany). DB doesn't have any Advance tickets cheaper than 19 € (or 14.25 € with BahnCard 25) and the cheapest tiers tend to only be released for short journeys, journeys at very unpopular times of day or for slow services. Regular travellers often have a BahnCard 50 with lets the user buy walk-up tickets at half price, there's also a network pass (BahnCard 100) which only costs a little over 4000 €. There are a lot of cheap day tickets valid on local trains only.
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The cheapest advance tickets I can see for Cardiff to Brum to Cardiff work out at £54 return (this is for April 1st). In Germany I see a high-speed return ticket on the same date for £51 return.

Looks like German trains are
* faster
* cheaper on walkups
* cheaper on advances

CrossCountry aren't known for releasing lots of cheap advances, but Frankfurt-Köln is also an expensive line. I don't think that it's fair to compare one of Germany's premier lines with Cardiff-Birmingham (Germany is a relatively decentralised country, you should compare the speed of Frankfurt-Köln with something out of London).

 

[ffm]

Has this story got that much respect that it deserves 10 pages on her, seriously? By the way has no one noticed that he 'flew' from Sheffield to Essex, but used East Midlands Airport. Sheffield doesn't have an airport, though Robin Hood is titled Doncaster Sheffield. Sheffield is also in Yorkshire, not the East Midlands! How much did it cost him to get from Sheffield to the airport, which is many many miles away?

 

[talldave]

Has this story got that much respect that it deserves 10 pages on her, seriously? By the way has no one noticed that he 'flew' from Sheffield to Essex, but used East Midlands Airport. Sheffield doesn't have an airport, though Robin Hood is titled Doncaster Sheffield. Sheffield is also in Yorkshire, not the East Midlands! How much did it cost him to get from Sheffield to the airport, which is many many miles away?

£8.20 for train and bus.

 

[northwichcat]

Has this story got that much respect that it deserves 10 pages on her, seriously? By the way has no one noticed that he 'flew' from Sheffield to Essex, but used East Midlands Airport. Sheffield doesn't have an airport, though Robin Hood is titled Doncaster Sheffield. Sheffield is also in Yorkshire, not the East Midlands! How much did it cost him to get from Sheffield to the airport, which is many many miles away?

Price breakdown is on the MSE site (I'm ignoring his lunch options.)

Rail:
Sheffield to Shenfield: £47
Bus from Shenfield station: £1.80

'Plane':
Train Sheffield to Derby: £4
Bus from Derby to East Midlands Airport: £4.20
Ryanair flight to Berlin: £11.83
Berlin Airport to city centre return trip: £5
Ryanair flight to Stansted: £9.54
Bus from Stansted Airport: £8

Hardly any difference but slightly cheaper by plane and like I've suggested already one of the selling points of that option was he had a few hours to spend in Berlin.

 

[Class 170101]

My point was that XC sell ridiculously cheap tickets for trains which are already overcrowded at the time of sale rather than "not full".

I think they do both based on below

Concerning the comment about XC selling cheap tickets for already busy trains. Alan Williams in his Modern Railways column explained the commercial logic. XC run no booking offices, and just about all their routes are shared with other operators. That means that ORCATS hands over serious chunks of ticket prices to those other operators, on just about all walk-on fares. They only get 100% of a fare for Advance tickets sold for one of their trains. That means that even discounted Advance tickets will bring in more income to XC than most walk-on tickets. The logical extension of that is 'Same Day Advance'. That maximises the income that XC gets. Yield management is probably a long way down their priorities! Just another benefit of the super-efficient franchised railway!

It should be noted that XC would still have to pay an amount of the ticket if it was bought on a different website to their own - eg NRES or Trainline.

 

[QueensCurve]

Thought you guys might be interested in this little trick to get a cheap fare.

Teenager saves £7.72 on his train journey from Sheffield to Essex… by taking a PLANE via Berlin
From the good old Daily Mail. If you don't want to subsidise Paul Dacre, you can look at the original article here on MoneySavingExpert.

The exact figures are slightly misleading because the £7.72 saving includes lunch, which was cheaper in Berlin, and there was no need for him to travel to Berlin for the day (although, let's face it, who wouldn't if they had seven hours to spare?). But in terms of the necessary travel expenses, he's still cheaper flying through Berlin (if you look at the necessary travel costs alone, he actually saved £11.23).

Of course, the DM's comments section has gone into overdrive about rail fares being extortionate, whereas the reality is that it's Ryanair's fares that were exceptionally good value in this instance. The £47 rail fare was a good price IMO (it appears to be an Advance ticket without railcard, although interestingly Mr Cox does qualify for a 16-25 railcard).

If you look into the details, they guy has saved £7.72, but had a seven hour layover in Berlin. It worked out well for him - he got to visit a city he's wanted to go to. It was a genuinely good deal for this young man, and I certainly wouldn't say it was in any way miserly. He had the time to do it, and actually wanted to do it. If I had the time, I would certainly consider it. Although I'd need to have the free time to do such a journey, and would be doing it more for the pleasure than for the meagre savings.

Of course, there's caveats here. Your luggage allowances are tighter on any airline than on the trains - if you can't get away with a carry-on bag, you have to pay for checked luggage which may eliminate the savings. The trip was made in January which is usually the cheapest time of the year for air fares, whereas rail fares are not quite as seasonal in their nature. This may simply not be possible in Summer. Budget airlines don't offer connections, so you need to have plenty of time to make your unofficial transfer. The environmental impact of this is also pretty shocking.

Any thoughts about this from you guys? Could you find a fare anomaly that would beat Ryanair? Would you do something like this to save a few pounds?

I wouldn't personally use Ryanair at any price. Their bullying of pilots for raising safety concerns raises serious doubt about their safety and flies in the face of the safety culture of the aviation industry.

(and some of the comments about Mr Cox are truly vile)

What do you expect from the Daily Hate's readership?

 

[coppercapped]

I wouldn't personally use Ryanair at any price. Their bullying of pilots for raising safety concerns raises serious doubt about their safety and flies in the face of the safety culture of the aviation industry.

Remind me. How many fatal accidents has Ryanair had in, say, the last ten years?

 

[Western Lord]

Remind me. How many fatal accidents has Ryanair had in, say, the last ten years?

Ryanair has not had a fatal accident in the last ten years, or indeed, ever. They operate one of the youngest fleets in Europe, all bought brand new, unlike British Airways which has bought second hand Airbuses for its Gatwick operations and operates some very old aircraft.It is not Ryanair that fails to latch engine cowlings or taxis aircraft into buildings.

 

[island]

I imagine anyone who wants a story can contrive a set of circumstances by which the aerial route is cheaper. Too bad it's slower, less convenient, less environmentally friendly, and so on. I was pleasantly surprised to see it wasn't the usual canard of comparing walk-up train fares to rail fares booked far in advance. I also think the prices are curious as mentioned above, as most Ruinair prices end in .99.

On the environment, I was disappointed with the following:

The arrogance of some forum members never fails to surprise. Why would you think you have the right to fly to a holiday in another country? You don't. Get over it. The fact that you can is something you should be grateful for, not something to take for granted. And DarloRich I know your post reflects your own selfish attitude but that doesn't justify it. It's far from true that everyone thinks like that regardless of your views.

I'm the one thinking about other people. I will put this plainly. Everyone who understands this argument recognises that they personally are being selfish and benefitting from underpriced air travel, damaging the environment in the process. Nothing I can say to you will make you less selfish. If you don't understand that, we do have a bit of a problem because I would have hoped by now it's been made clear to everyone. I can't differentiate between people who will try to wind me up (like the above and RichmondCommune), people who haven't heard the arguments and people who are too stupid for them. So I'm afraid there's precisely zero point in me setting out any of the arguments eloquently. You should just try to think about everyone else more in the future and that will help.

There's no point in me explaining the argument. I'm right and you're not trying to argue otherwise.

Whilst your arguments have some merit, your astonishing arrogance and dismissiveness (not to mention the way you accuse others of arrogance, get the plank out of your own eye first please) cost you most of the sympathy/understanding/support you could otherwise have got. There is a chap on another forum I frequent who trolls threads discussing business class travel by saying that anyone who can afford to fly business should fly economy and give the difference to charity, and this reminds me of him. Assuming you're right and arguing from there is either going to lose you the argument from the start, get everyone's backs up, or trigger that saying about arguing with idiots who will drag you to their level and will succeed because they are better than you at stupidity.