Same with crewe-Manchester, Birmingham-london, Edinburgh-london etc.
Quite happy with the competition and no government interference.
Those £50 tickets are about market segmentation - separating the customers who have time flexibility or are willing to suffer from those who don't or aren't.
P.S. I just looked up an equivalent London-New York economy flight (flexible flight leaving this evening and returning tomorrow), and it's £2,481.02
I looked at London-NY - if I put it off one week I can easily cross 1/3 of the world for less than the price of a day trip to Manchester tomorrow.
If I look at Manchester-London in a weeks time with a non-flexible ticket it costs £45 return (actually for £45 it's pretty flexible - you are just limited to one firms trains, a bit like that BA fare, and can't travel in the morning rush hour)
https://i.imgur.com/CNCzmKu.png
That's less than 9p per mile. What do you think a fair price would be?
This would bring the UK rail prices more in line with most other European countries.
£300 is gouging.
You can take the 08:46, arriving in Manchester at 12:13 - an average speed of about 60mph.
The £300 is an option that few choose, because that journey gives them major benefits. The money raised from that is plowed back into the railway and used to subsidise services to Harrogate, Holyhead and Hungerford
You do realise that a country needs 21st century rail service to be competitive interbationally?
Otherwise we would bring back bloodletting, leeches and snakeoil salesmen to get more choice in cancer treatment.
This parody for 'competition' has given us most expensive fares in Europe and soviet-block quality of rail service.
It's a new disease, 'neoliberalism of the brain' that maintains 'free market' even at the cost of organ failure
> the next time someone says (or you read) "Britain has the highest rail fares in Europe", you'll know this is only 15% of the story. The other 85% is that we have similar or even cheaper fares, too. The big picture is that Britain has the most commercially aggressive fares in Europe, with the highest fares designed to get maximum revenue from business travel, and some of the lowest fares designed to get more revenue by filling more seats.
For walk up fares, Edinburgh to Montrose is 100 miles each way, an "off peak" return (so any time after 0930) is £34 if you limit yourself to LNER trains or 17p/mile, or £41 return for a choice of LNER or Scotrail trains. If you want to travel before 0930 on whatever train turns up next, it's £48.60 or 24p/mile.
What price do you think you should be paying? In 2019 Scotrail carried 1.8 billion passenger miles got £482.8m subsidy - a 27p per mile subsidy. The company made a £11m loss too.
How much should the tax payer subsidise your Edinburgh-Montrose journey? 35p/mile/ 45p/mile?
> For travel today, bought at the station, immediate departure, outside the peaks...
And
> If travelling today in the business peak hours...
It acknowledges that finance bros travelling from Manchester to London for a 9AM meeting and traveling back on the 1630 will pay more. That doesn't affect most people
The summary makes it quite clear.
The big picture is that Britain has the most commercially aggressive fares in Europe, with the highest fares designed to get maximum revenue from business travel, and some of the lowest fares designed to get more revenue by filling more seats.
Basically a tax on last minute business travelers to subsidise leisure travelers and commuters.
I know British rail travel is more expensive, it’s the (to me) unpredictable ticket pricing that I would like to decrypt
Advanced fares exist to encourage people to travel by train who wouldn't normally. They are released on trains that are generally more lightly to get more revenue from perishable stock. Same as supermarkets selling lunch food near expiry date cheaply in the evening - they don't want to do it earlier in the day (and canibalise their lunch trade), but doing it at 4pm means they get extra money without revenue abstraction.
I'm not a fan of advanced fares though, I don't tend to plan, and I hate the stress of missing the train, so I look for hacks to get better flexible fares.
A Manchester-London "standard fare" has increase from £50 in 1995 (£100 today) to £160, however competition and sties like trainsplit mean you can buy a walk up return fare for £45 -- less than a quarter of the old cost after inflation, and only about 20 minutes longer than the old time.
There's more "hacks" to be had too. I used to travel from Wilmslow to London on a semi-regular basis (every few months, getting the 0811 fast train, and returning about 6pm. It cost about £120 return, because I bought a super off peak ticket from Edinburgh, which was valid on any train arriving into Euston that was on the route. Break of journey is well worthwhile - I travelled from Crewe to London a fair bit on a Chirk-Tunbridge Wells return, which allowed break of journey in both directions and was valid on so called "peak" trains from Crewe to London. Splitting tickets can work, especially on very overcrowded trains like the cross country services. Don't buy a pricey ticket from Exeter to Leeds, instead buy a combination of tickets for your journey and save a fortune.
All this means if you are willing to put in time or effort you can travel far more cheaply. The goal of the "rail delivery group" over the last few years has been to remove these "hacks", so everyone has to pay the full price.
Other options to reduce fares would be
1) Getting rid of the unions (rail staff have a strong contract meaning driver salaries have increased about 5.5% a year since privitisation -- same as the "standard" fare on the Manchester-London ticket)
2) Reducing staff (DOO where the driver has to press the "door open" button instead of the guard. This led to massive industrial action on both Northern and Southern)
3) Increasing train speeds (A London-Manchester return takes about 5 hours for staff, costing 5x3 salaries for the driver, guard, and buffet. Replace with HS2 and it drops to 2.5 hour round trip, halving staffing costs - and train leasing costs - and the HS2 trains are twice the size so there's twice as many seats so no need to price people off "overcrowded peak trains")
4) Increasing taxpayer subsidy. Given that the majority of rail travellers are of an above average income, and especially on the really expensive lines
The left have painted a picture of Richard Branson having stolen trillions of pounds over the years, but the profit margins are really very small. It might account for £5 on that £160 ticket, but that's not going to make people happy. I'd rather have the option to learn how to get cheaper tickets (typically typing in "trainsplit.com"). Sadly the narrative (see many posts on this thread) is that "privitisation means high fares and poor service". The evidence is that is nowhere near the whole story. Well respected rail journalist Mark Smith does a good balanced report comparing fares in europe and UK, and the reply comes "load of rubbish guvnor, check the prices now". I check the prices now, post screenshots which back up Mark Smith's points, and it's just a downvote with no reply.
I thought HN was a rational place, but it seems not when it comes to the UK railway.
£17.60 on the 12:05 departure on Jun 16th on trainsplit with one change - 10p/mile.
And on the well-advertised and more expensive trainline on Jun 17th
£31.50 on the 12:37 direct. £43.50 first class .
The 11:22 SNCF Paris-Dijon on the same date is €31, or £27. The 12:22 is €40 (£35). One way.
Compare somewhere like Lesparre (population about 5,000 and 40 miles from Beudeux), which has about 10 trains a day taking 90 minutes.
With Cononley (25 miles out of Leeds) with 4 trains in each direction the next hour.
https://highpaycentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/High_Pa...
The British, in no exaggeration, get taxed to death. You get horrible value for your tax dollar. I am saying this as an American who lives in Croatia, who pays quite a bit in taxes. However, I prefer to pay Croatian taxes (in addition to my US taxes) as a dual US|EU (Croatian) citizen, just for a stable, relaxed society.
There is a very high baseline level of stress and anxiety living in America. It’s not worth living there again. Seriously, Croatians have a great lifestyle, with perhaps the best lifestyle in all of Europe. Also, if you die of coronavirus in America, it is nothing more than a statistic to both the government and the American population, which is not only unbelievably disgusting, but downright sadistic.
You are the first person I heard who likes paying Croatian taxes. Do you follow the national news? There's always a steady stream of corruption news, especially recently.
It's ironic you post this in a thread about rail. Croatia has a truly horrible rail system. It's universally mocked as useless.
Regarding COVID, I would have agreed with you that Croatia did great last year in March, but from late summer 2020, it's been catastrophic. And Croatia depends on tourism, so there's a big incentive to get things to normal levels so tourists come. We could have been better than Portugal now.
Also re COVID, have you witnessed the vaccination campaign? Have you seen how many politicians and their friends got vaccinated ahead of the elderly, despite guidelines saying vaccines should be given according to age? The rector of Zagreb university got a vaccine before my grandma. How is that not sadistic?
Croatia has some great pros, such as a relaxed lifestyle, but you're really stretching it with calling it a rolemodel society and good value for taxes
Of course Croatia is no role model society. Corruption is always widespread.
However, we still do have it very good. That is a point that is very frequently understated in Croatia.