Randomly extortionate train fare - how are they decided?

Just wait until you get fined for being sold a Railcard ticket Dunblane - Glasgow before 9.30am...

Who knew that there was minimum pricing per ticket (no matter distance) and that being sold the wrong ticket is an irrelevance.

Its just random and weird.  Sometimes a ticket for a longer journey is cheaper.  going glenrothes to Edinburgh the ticket chap / guard on the train sold me a ticket to eskbank which would have involved a change of trains and going out of Edinburgh again as it was cheaper.   sometimes splitting the journey is cheaper

WTF?

It used to be the other way round - I think there was a subsidy for highland stations or something. Gleneagles -> Edinburgh was cheaper than Dunblane -> Edinburgh.. but that was, er..., 30 years ago...

I'm sure my brother told me about what Tj  is alluding to.

Something about if your onward journey is in off-peak times the whole journey is charged at that rate.

Very common for folks on the Borders line to buy tickets to Edinburgh Park but never actually alight there.

Quick google doesn't throw up anything obvious but may be worth asking the ticket operative.

Train companies can increase the average fare by RPI, so say 8% last year. If one route has 1000 people per day and another only has 100, they can increase the 1000 route by 16%, the other by nothing and hit their 8% target, but in a much more profitable way.

Can you buy a return just from gleneagles to dunblane?

Every 31stof September, Grant Schapps, Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Mick Lynch are locked in a room and told to think of a number. Once they've decided, or only one remains conscious, whichever comes later, the number chosen is used to seed a random number generator to produce fares for every journey in the UK. The train operating companies ignore this and set the fares to whatever the **** they like.

Some fares are regulated (the ones that go up by rpi inflation +1% each year) but many are allowed to be commercial fares determined by the operators. Clearly popular travel into cities like Edinburgh or London and particularly to arrive before 09:00 are popular routes and so the markets bear higher fares. These in turn subsidise the network routes / service times that don't make money. But there isn't a clear distance or station footfall metric. So yes it can be that the train guards know the tickets that randomly save you money and are a viable routing for what you need.

The introduction of Anytime Single tickets that you can break your journey overnight is interesting for long distances. For commuter journeys have you looked at the price of an open return starting in the evening going out of the city and going into the city on the return portion. Sometimes avoids the peak fare.

Train fares are weird... agreed!

Many times it's been cheaper for me to buy a LONGER train journey, and just get off..

Also, some oddity about travelling West via Devizes (Wilts) halves the train fair it seems! Thus there's something like a Brighton to Plymouth, via Devizes, is cheaper than Brighton to a station CLOSER than Devizes....

Meh..

DrP

The price setter used to work for PlanetX

Well the random/human element would make sense, I guess I would be tempted to hike up the fares to/from Gleneagles, just by the name/proximity to the hotel.

Sadly it's still the nearest station for us normals 🙄

Need to just get into a mindset that I'm paying £10 for a nice walk in the morning and evening, rather than 40 minutes on the A9 which on general principles is probably worth paying to avoid...

Train fares are just stupid full stop. I'm in central Cardiff this week, went to Bath yesterday and will be going to London tomorrow, was intending to use the train on both occaissions until I realised it was double the cost of driving using the park and ride so yesterday I sat in the queues in the M4 and will probably do the same again tomorrow.

I would have prefered to use the train.....

When living in Hampshire there was glitch where buying a peak time train ticket to London would melt your eyes (well £60ish rtn), but going to Kettering (it had to be Kettering, other stations either side of Kettering didn't work) was £17 return. So you got on the 0640 train with all the commuters and just didn't bother doing 2/3rd of the journey.

40 minutes on the A9 which on general principles is probably worth paying to avoid…

How much does that 40 mins cost?  additional cost perhaps so its petrol + tyre wear + servicing costs.

I don't imagine Gleneagles station is the busiest on the network. How many passengers are using it currently? Maybe they're trying to put folk off using it so there's one less stop?

I don’t imagine Gleneagles station is the busiest on the network. How many passengers are using it currently? Maybe they’re trying to put folk off using it so there’s one less stop?

Busiest at weekends certainly, you might average 4 or 5 people for the early morning commuter services.

How much does that 40 mins cost? additional cost perhaps so its petrol + tyre wear + servicing costs

That's the £6 I referred to above. Not sure if that's the appropriate £/mile, if you use the upper rate for mileage as per HMRC it's actually £13.50 which suddenly makes the £16.20 fare look not so bad... I've never worked out what the appropriate mileage rate for our car is though, last I tried I think I came up with 17p/mile for fuel alone...

I still don't know how rail companies get away with routinely pricing returns at only marginally more than a single fare. Now tickets are electronically generated, someone should set up a resale forum for unused return barcodes/quick-links.

Heres actual footage of the rail operators getting together at their annual meeting to set the fares for the following year...

My friend had to travel (a family emergency) from Stockport to Cornwall. Train fare was well over £200, a flight £52 from Mia. Absolutely ridiculous.

I expect the good burghers of Aldershot wait expectantly every day for the thousands of people to arrive who have booked train tickets to their town. I've bought hundreds of tickets to Aldershot and never been, maybe I should sack off work one day and actually visit?

How are the fares decided? Binners is correct, it's Numberwang, obviously.

I still don’t know how rail companies get away with routinely pricing returns at only marginally more than a single fare. Now tickets are electronically generated, someone should set up a resale forum for unused return barcodes/quick-links.

Don't quote me, but I thought I read recently that they're changing that. Presumably this will just make it more expensive to do a return journey, rather than making it cheaper one way.

I’ve bought hundreds of tickets to Aldershot and never been, maybe I should sack off work one day and actually visit?

Don't.

DrP

I can catch the 09:59 from the next station along the line direct to London, three miles away, and use my railcard to get 1/3 off. However, I cannot catch the same train from the station immediately behind my house at 09:56 despite being on the same train. Worse, I cannot cycle to the next station, use my railcard to buy a ticket from my own station and return back to my home in the evening. I asked a ticket inspector and they were rather evasive in the precise legality.

Certain trains have dispensation for early use of a railcard before the 10:00 threshold. Trains only run every 30 minutes. You can guess how many minutes that threshold is 😉

Don’t quote me, but I thought I read recently that they’re changing that. Presumably this will just make it more expensive to do a return journey, rather than making it cheaper one way.

I think what you're referring to is the old practice of making a single from A to B cost £17.40 while a return costs £18. That was very poor VfM for people only travelling in one direction or not knowing when they'd be returning so LNER did a trial a while back where they effectively removed return ticketing and just sold 2 singles which would never cost more than the old price of a return.

So it lead to cheaper tickets overall, you'd buy 2 singles and it'd still come to the old (£18) price of a return.

It worked well, it's standard on LNER now and many other operators do something similar.

Re the station pricing, it's worked out on a usage level plus some zoning which means it can be more expensive to travel a shorter distance on popular commuting routes.

Many times it’s been cheaper for me to buy a LONGER train journey, and just get off..

Didn't someone on here have an argument with a conductor fairly recently, the jobsworth tried to claim that the ticket was invalid because they'd got onboard at a later station?

I’ve never worked out what the appropriate mileage rate for our car is though, last I tried I think I came up with 17p/mile for fuel alone…

Back when I had a Mondeo, I calculated that it cost me 10p/mile to run just for the tyres.

What's HMRC's rate these days, 45p/mile? That's probably conservative.

Didn’t someone on here have an argument with a conductor fairly recently, the jobsworth tried to claim that the ticket was invalid because they’d got onboard at a later station?

Which is correct for advance tickets at least for some operators.
Getting on at a later station or off early invalidates the ticket and so you can get fined.

Random example from last year.

I suspect the train pricing algorithm works by station or routes.  If I can't get a cheapy from Manchester airport I take bus into Manchester and a cheapy ticket from there.  I suspect where there's more competition train pricing has to match.  Or they may just make it all up.

I took a train from Northampton to London and it was £18 single.  I took a train from Berkhampsted back to Northampton (I'd ridden my bike along the canal towpath to Berko) and it was £25 single.  I asked the ticket person if that was correct and she looked at me like I was an idiot.  Yes I am an idiot but why should a shorter journey be 40% more expensive?

Demand based pricing.  It's based on some calculation that busier routes/times get charged more, and less busy routes/times, less.

EG: derby-York return, £120  Derby-sheffield-york return, on the same train, £55 wih more tickets (split at sheffield).

Bonkers.

There are specific split ticketting websites to look up the best way to "break" your journey.  Or just buy a longer one and get off early.  If you are not booked onto a specific train, there is a clause to allow you to "break" your journey, and they cannot fine you for not using all of your ticket.

I rarely take the train these days, but used to travel from Leicester to London regularly some 15 years ago. Of course if I had to pay for the ticket myself I would have driven. If I rocked up at the station the cost would be around £95 at peak times and around £60 at other times. Don't know what it is now with inflation over those years.

These days if we as a family go to London I drive and park in Edgware for the day. The whole journey would work out at less than £40.

do you have a green MSP at all?  worth going for a chat to point out the stupidity - I doubt it will fix it but at least it will be on someone's radar who should get the point you are making and might one day be in a meeting where they can influence it.

Rail privatisation was John Major's little baby, he promised that the efficiencies made by profit hungry private companies would keep fares down.

This was the debate going on before rail privatisation:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/the-story-of-a-bad-idea-privatisation-of-br-could-soon-bring-higher-fares-and-higher-state-subsidies-and-reduced-services-so-whose-idea-was-it-who-still-supports-it-and-how-on-earth-did-it-get-this-far-1464062.html

The other - and politically far more important - criticism is about cost. The Government argues that efficiencies brought in by the private sector will keep fares down. Yet it does not seem to have made any financial calculations to support its claim. Many of those who have done the sums reckon that we will all be paying more for our railway system, either as consumers faced with higher fares or as taxpayers paying higher rail subsidies.

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/write-to-your-mp-save-ticket-offices/

"Unlike ticket office staff, TVMs do not automatically offer passengers the cheapest ticket for their journey, or clearly explain restrictions on certain fares, such as operator-specific tickets. Indeed, there is no requirement in the DfT’s Schedule 17 guidance for TVMs to offer all fares. This risks passengers losing widespread and easy access to a range of products and fares."

When I was at school in Dunblane it was cheaper for a return to Stirling than a single. Possibly extended to Glasgow/Troon.

Scotrail is all sorts of messed up.

The introduction of Anytime Single tickets that you can break your journey overnight is interesting for long distances.

Wait, wut?

When did that happen? We had those in Germany and they're awesome!

@cougar

Back when I had a Mondeo, I calculated that it cost me 10p/mile to run just for the tyres.

What the **** was so wrong with your car or driving that you were getting 4k from a set of tyres? I couldn't wreck a set that quickly in mine if I tried.

I could see 2p a mile with Crossclimates at today's rates but 10p???

The Daily Mash nailed it years ago

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/mafia-in-awe-of-uk-train-companies-2014082789914

What the **** was so wrong with your car or driving that you were getting 4k from a set of tyres? I couldn’t wreck a set that quickly in mine if I tried.

I don't know where you're getting 4k from (£200 a corner times two?) and I don't recall figures now. I just remember standing in the tyre place thinking "jesus, I'm glad I'm not paying for them." It's entirely possible I got the maths wrong.

Timely bump!

To my shame I wanted to travel to Dunblane in Saturday morning to start/finish a 200km Audax (having never done that distance before I didn't want to add on another 50km riding there and back).

£16 return on Scotrail or £4.60 return on the Ember bus, which also takes bikes and is a very marginally shorter walk in the morning 😎

Although in fairness to Scotrail I also found some advance singles are £10 either way, so more fool me for booking a return when 2 singles are cheaper 🙄

I don’t know where you’re getting 4k from (£200 a corner times two?) and I don’t recall figures now. I just remember standing in the tyre place thinking “jesus, I’m glad I’m not paying for them.” It’s entirely possible I got the maths wrong.

10p per mile, tyres are £100 a corner for Michelin. 400/0.1 = 4000miles (4k)

I typically get 5x that from a set minimum (assuming no tracking related wear) so 2p per mile.

@13th how is £10 each way cheaper than £16? Or did you mean £10 total?

If you want to get an off peak ticket to Preston from London you have to wait until the 7pm train. If you traveling north of Preston, say Lancaster, you can get any train you like out of London

The guards at Preston are very keen to make sure you only get off the train if your destination is actually Preston

Haven't used it personally but this site will apparently find the cheapest ticket permutation for you

https://www.splitmyfare.co.uk/cheap-train-tickets/

Tweedbank to Haymarket is cheaper than tweedbank to Waverley. But not every train goes on through

Also, some oddity about travelling West via Devizes (Wilts) halves the train fair it seems! Thus there’s something like a Brighton to Plymouth, via Devizes, is cheaper than Brighton to a station CLOSER than Devizes…

Hmmm, just checked that, because Devizes isn’t that far from where I live, and I didn’t recall there being a station in Devizes, and in fact there isn’t, it runs south between Stert and Urchfont, but there is a station in Pewsey. It’s the GWR line from Reading down through Westbury to Taunton and Exeter, linking with the line from Bath to Salisbury down to Southampton.

There is a Southern Railway line from Brighton all along the South Coast via Southampton, Bournemouth, Poole, Dorchester, Exeter down to Plymouth, but I can’t honestly imagine any journeys that would take you so far North, and on a completely different railway network, South Western onto Great Western and back again.

I used to regularly fly from Glasgow to Amsterdam then get the train to Antwerp. The first time I booked that trip I felt obliged to book the train leg well in advance to secure the best price. I quickly learned I could fly in and walk downstairs to buy a train ticket for the same price no matter when I'd bought it, then board the very pleasant Thalys train for about £30 from Schiphol to Antwerp. We get absolutely shafted here and it's a joke

@13th how is £10 each way cheaper than £16? Or did you mean £10 total?

Sorry, I've been very lazy explaining my various costs. £10 each way is the whole journey from Gleneagles to Edinburgh (so £20 return total). The £16 return I keep referring to is JUST Gleneagles to Dunblane, from whence it's £19.10 return to Edinburgh, so £35.10 total.

So with the £10 advanced singles my original complaint is now irrelevant! 😂 If I want to take train from local station for the purposes of leaving car at home it only needs to cost me £20 return and suddenly the maths starts to stack up e.g. cheaper to walk and take train than it is to drive. I'd just gotten out of the habit of booking in advance for my commute as I use flexipass now. Shame I can't load flexipass with cheap advance singles but hey ho

^ while that may be the case, there are far too many foibles in ticket pricing in the UK.

I have just booked half a dozen trains long distance this autumn and the price of journeys massively varies mainly based on how busy a particular train is. I would much much rather have a 'in advance and discounted' rate and an 'less than a week or on the day' rate - and when a train is full, it is full...

DrP
"I’ve bought hundreds of tickets to Aldershot and never been, maybe I should sack off work one day and actually visit?"

Don’t.

DrP

Despite agreeing with you I'll be there later to visit my favourite butcher. Luckily its a ten minute bus ride for me and I have a bus pass.

In the interests of joined up travel they closed the bus station next to the rail station and now all the buses run from stops scattered around the town.

It's all about supply and demand. It's £100-odd for me to get to London, which is a 1h50 trip, but I just recently found out it's only £35 to get to Pwllheli by train which is a 4.5hr trip through fantastic scenery. It's also a 4.5hr drive through different fantastic scenery. I'm thinking of doing a long weekend or something by train.

Ah okay that makes sense.

We get absolutely shafted here and it’s a joke

We do.

The fact that the Dutch, French and German national railways own some of our rail franchises and use the profits to subsidise their own fares is an absolute joke.

Does commuting Gleneagles to Edinburgh not involve a change at Stirling? Genuinely interested as it’s one of my local stations but i’m put off using it, especially with a bike, for anything heading east.

I m in Spain, to get people back on the trains it's free, well you pay 10 euros deposit and if you make 16 trips in 3 months you get your deposit back.  Brilliant for me as I use the train for cycling trips, train up, cycle part way back, train back.

I was in uk this summer, 3 cheapo rail tickets bought, 3 refunds.

Haven’t used it personally but this site will apparently find the cheapest ticket permutation for you

Splitmyfare is great. It doesn't save anything on my commute, but it does massive savings on longer journeys. £60 saved on a return ticket to Bedfordshire this week

The fact that the Dutch, French and German national railways own some of our rail franchises and use the profits to subsidise their own fares is an absolute joke.

I think you need to get up to date with who owns what and how much they have lost in the past. Yes, lost.

Abellio Scotrail posted a £65m loss in 2021, they were glad to give it up.Others were in the same boat, and have given up their franchises. All ex BR franchises are now run and owned by the government.The only private companies running trains are the open access operators (Hull, GC, Lumo etc), the excursion market (numerous like Pathfinder, Statesman etc) and the ones run by the local government (Merseyrail, Tyne and Wear, TfL).

The vast majority of services are directed by the DfT, who have little idea about running a railway, and are only there to cut costs, of which there are many which need to be cut. Ticket Offices - why keep them open? 11% (iirc) of tickets are bought there, which, though not insignificant, is a small number, which gets smaller each year. Extra staff on the concourses are a better option IMO, and cuts fixed costs by not need to keep an underused office open. Maintenance and new buildings cost are a joke. The same companies apply each time, for any project, then double or triple their usual cost. The DfT seem to disregard such cost infaltion, when, there should be someone there who knows how much things cost, and only give tenders out to those who give value for money, not a winning lottery ticket each time they win a Contract.

Maintenance and new buildings cost are a joke. The same companies apply each time, for any project, then double or triple their usual cost.

They built a new train wash near us, worked 7 days a week, lots of nightime working and Weekend working - shipped contractors in from 100s of miles away. 95% of it was built before the live overhead lines went in and it's in sidings, so they could have just worked 9-5...

It's then sat idle for 2 years.....

https://flipboard.com/topic/transportationuk/britain-paying-up-to-8-times-more-than-eu-for-road-and-rail-projects/a-q4pwdUNkRPSrDm6sHQLbpg%3Aa%3A3110941400-80b1036b32%2Fco.uk

Link above says some projects are 8 times more expensive than in mainland Europe. It isnt the only source with the same story.

That, and DfT/Government incompetence go some way to show why train fares are expensive.