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Sky presenter brands Virgin Trains a 'national disgrace'

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noddingdonkey

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Is it not the case that these silly fares are a result of the railway having insufficient capacity, so walk up fares are (over)priced deliberately to discourage people from using them?

Advances booked for specific trains allow the TOC to match demand to supply, but are obviously no good for people requiring flexibility.

If my theory is correct, then she is right - it is a national disgrace that our railways do not have sufficient capacity to meet demand.
 
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Bantamzen

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as usual the vast majority of posters miss the point and have little idea what those outside the rail fan community think about railways and fares in particular. They want to turn up at the station and buy a simple, decently priced ticket for an on the day journey. They don't expect to need any "special knowledge" or to need to book 17 years in advance to get a reasonable fare.

Go and talk to some real people about railways. There views might shock you.

£338 for a ticket from London to Manchester IS outrageous. The sad thing is many of you don't see that.

People do think that some walk-up fares are outrageous, there's no doubt about that. But how many people actually pay these, I suspect a lot of people who rock up to a station for an unessential long distance journey find out that its going to cost a three figure sum & just say "sod that" and change their plans. But from what I see quite a few people will happily pay these when they can pass the cost on to an expenses account. I think this is at least part of the driver behind these daft fares existing, if nobody bought them they would soon disappear.

This is the UK, screw everybody out of as much of their money as possible

Nail, meet hammer. And so long as people and/or companies continue to overpay it will continue.
 

LOL The Irony

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Exactly - to use the example of London Sydney used in the article if you want to fly to Sydney tonight on BA it will cost you £1954, not £305!

And its £370 at the time of writing for the earliest flight I can get from Heathrow to Manchester today with BA.
There's clearly a reason that info was left out...
 

Bletchleyite

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Is it not the case that these silly fares are a result of the railway having insufficient capacity, so walk up fares are (over)priced deliberately to discourage people from using them?

Advances booked for specific trains allow the TOC to match demand to supply, but are obviously no good for people requiring flexibility.

If my theory is correct, then she is right - it is a national disgrace that our railways do not have sufficient capacity to meet demand.

Anyone who has been on VTWC in the morning peak will know that there is no issue with capacity, at least on the 3tph routes. These fares are to maximise income, not reduce demand.
 

FQTV

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There's a small but identifiable section of the market that, whether they are on expenses or not, do seem to find it extraordinarily difficult to make even vague commitments to travel plans with published restrictions.

I deal with them every day, and it's sometimes like pushing water uphill to get them to understand that there's only one train that will get them there in time, and therefore they can perfectly adequately restrict themselves to an Advance.

Likewise, for the inbound, I appreciate that they may not know exactly when they'll be able to travel, but might they be able to commit to before 1530 or after 1900?

That can blow their minds.

I shan't speculate as to the reasons why they do this, but they do, and if I observe it then the revenue managers for the railways must too. Media rhetoric about 'the complexity of ticketing' may even play into RevMan's hands here, as that absolutely confirms the necessity for an 'Open' ticket in the requester's mind.
 

Starmill

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Point taken but at what point doesn't it become outrageous - £300? £200? £100? Even if it was £100 you would still get people claiming that that was too much!
For those interested, the Anytime Return fare is going up to £350. The Anytime Single is to be £175.

To continue my comparison, the Sheffield to London Anytime Single for use on the direct trains, will be £100.50.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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For those interested, the Anytime Return fare is going up to £350. The Anytime Single is to be £175.

To continue my comparison, the Sheffield to London Anytime Single for use on the direct trains, will be £100.50.
And indeed even an Anytime Return to Edinburgh is cheaper than that monstrosity of a fare.
 

Wolfie

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as usual the vast majority of posters miss the point and have little idea what those outside the rail fan community think about railways and fares in particular. They want to turn up at the station and buy a simple, decently priced ticket for an on the day journey. They don't expect to need any "special knowledge" or to need to book 17 years in advance to get a reasonable fare.

Go and talk to some real people about railways. There views might shock you.

£338 for a ticket from London to Manchester IS outrageous. The sad thing is many of you don't see that.
I believe, albeit in more restrained terms, you are making a similar point to the one that l made. I will be interested to see if your approach is any more accepted on here.
 

mpthomson

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When the fully-burdened HMRC mileage rate of 45p per mile is applied, driving from Central London to Manchester or Sheffield comes in at £94.05 (Manchester) or £75.15(Sheffield). While you can argue for slightly different mileage rates - higher or lower - for private travel, that's broadly the comparison that businesses will be making. To encourage people out of their cars, the rail system needs to have a comparable offer.

For what it's worth, the average farebox receipt across the entire National Rail system a year or two ago (I can't remember exactly when I worked it out) was 23.2p per passenger-mile, which is actually pretty competitive. Walk-up fares are often considerably more expensive, and Advance fares usually considerably cheaper, both for good reasons. Interestingly, though, after allowing for inflation it's pretty close to the pre-Beeching fare rate of 2d/mile.

It's not that simple and as you also need to take into account the time that's available to work on the train. If midlevel corporate managers are paid at, say £30ph (ie c£60k a year) but can work at a table or seat on the train then it benefits the company. An average drive from Manchester to London is 4hrs, so that's 4 hrs of unproductive time for the employee each way if they're driving, which adds £120 each way to the journey.

Your one way journey has now cost £214, or £428 for a return journey which makes the train competitive again.

When I used trains for business a lot I used to go First Class but the expectation was that I worked on the train. The company still felt this was reasonable value compared to driving and the time lost. Clearly this will alter dependent on the salary level of the employee but for mid-level or senior people it makes sense.
 

kilonewton

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No she isn't. Sky is now owned by 21st Century Fox, Murdoch isn't involved.
Errr, Rupert Murdoch is co-Executive Chairman of 21st Century Fox.

And to respond to an earlier post, to which nation is he a National Disgrace? The UK, where his newspaper and television interests give him a disproportionate amount of influence?
The country of his birth where his newspaper and television interests, practically monopolistic in some markets, give him a ridiculous amount of influence? Particularly as he publishes The Australian which is read by nobody except political staffers in Canberra, a newspaper that loses millions of dollars a year that exists just so the publisher can exert influence.
Or the country of his citizenship, the US, where...(see above).

Sorry, rhetorical question, he’s a three time national disgrace!
 

kilonewton

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21st Century fox is now owned, provisionally, by Disney

Sky UK is now owned, provisionally, by Comcast
We could get bogged down in semantics, but the editorial stance of Sky News has been influenced by said man for a long time.
Although, given Comcast own MSNBC, the editorial stance could start leaning back the other way.
 

DarloRich

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We could get bogged down in semantics, but the editorial stance of Sky News has been influenced by said man for a long time.
Although, given Comcast own MSNBC, the editorial stance could start leaning back the other way.

indeed - but to say Murdoch is these companies is wrong. We should be accurate.
 

cjmillsnun

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Plumbers
Roofers
Electricians

So you have an objection to paying skilled trades decent money. They have overheads like training, equipment, compulsory membership of a trade body to self certify for building regulations, vehicle fuel, servicing and other maintenance, parts, parking charges and congestion charges. Not to mention time taken, corporation tax and VAT. Trades aren’t trying to rip you off. They have to make a living despite their overheads.
 

Bletchleyite

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Trades aren’t trying to rip you off.

The problem is that too many of them actually are.

I must admit to being surprised that while housebuilders are generally large "chain" type companies, there aren't very many large trade chains other than the likes of British Gas who do it on the side of flogging actual gas. Pimlico Plumbers are the only famous ones I can think of.
 

andrewkeith5

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Just to put some perspective on the ridiculous "you can fly to Australia for that", the equivalent ticket to Australia (Heathrow to Sydney, Travel Today, Flexible Ticket, Economy Class) would be £1,499 each way if you fly British Airways; or £1,511 if you change to Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong. If you were clever enough to compare prices (although clearly this reporter isn't), then you'd fly Qantas who'd only charge you £899 each way on the same terms - clearly still not a comparable price.

Incidentally, if she's so fussed, why not just fly each way? It's what Virgin are pricing to compete with, and the price checks out pretty comparably on a walk up fare.

It really annoys me when people conveniently forget the standard concept that applies throughout any and all transportation - the earlier you plan, the less you pay.

For as long as people are happy to go along and let Virgin try and be the airline they aren't, by focussing on Advance fares rather than forcing TOCs to charge fair prices for ALL fares, they're going to run it like an airline and absolutely rinse anyone who won't (or in my case, sadly, simply can't, hence why I almost never travel long distance by train) plan months upon months ahead.
 
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infobleep

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And indeed even an Anytime Return to Edinburgh is cheaper than that monstrosity of a fare.
If they reduce the Manchester fare then less money will come in to help with running the railways and maintenance.

I think the nothing to see here move along answer is the fare is needed to subsidise the railway. Whilst there are cheaper fares out there for other routes of a similar distance the answer to that is that there will always be winners and losses. That's is all one needs to know!!! Haha.

On a serious point, if the fare did reduce, how would they make up the short fall to fund the railways?
 

andrewkeith5

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If they reduce the Manchester fare then less money will come in to help with running the railways and maintenance.

I think the nothing to see here move along answer is the fare is needed to subsidise the railway. Whilst there are cheaper fares out there for other routes of a similar distance the answer to that is that there will always be winners and losses. That's is all one needs to know!!! Haha.

On a serious point, if the fare did reduce, how would they make up the short fall to fund the railways?

Shock horror....they could always just charge a fair price to everyone?!

Please nobody have a heart attack that anyone dare suggest some people should pay more for their fare!
 

ForTheLoveOf

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Whilst to an extent I understand what you are referring to, I simply don't think it's realistic to think fare increases of such magnitude are required, on a fare that's already unbelievably overpriced.

It's got very little to do with funding the railway, and everything to do with profiteering on Virgin's part. Especially since it is so massively 'over'cutting the same ticket to a destination twice as far from London.
 

HowardGWR

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Referring to post #102 above

On 'Corporate' travel behaviour, I suspect some middle managers actually enjoy the privilege of booking expensively as a matter of one-upmanship. It could be argued that they can at least use the phone hands-free, if driving, but havng heard yesterday in a waiting room, against my will, one of these people chatting to what apparently was a group speak-in, I suspect the main use of these facilities is to use it to put one over on "colleagues" (i.e. competitors for promotion). On the train, they can work with their computer but again, one wonders how much time is spent in email one-upmanship.
 

IceAgeComing

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My family live in Scotland and I now live in London and the only time I've ever travelled on an open ticket between the two was earlier this year when I had to travel to London at very short notice to view flats for my new job; so I had to combine an Open Single with LNER on the way down (I'd like to say it might have been Super Off Peak but I can't remember the limitations on travelling from Edinburgh to London so it might have been anytime) with a First Class Advance with Virgin on the way back because that worked out the cheapest. But I think that events like this are rare and generally there's a level of planning that goes into long distance trips, and there's probably always a way to work it so that you can save at least some money: may it be travelling off peak on the out leg to save that; or doing advances on at least one leg if possible since in most cases you can plan for at least one leg, surely?

Besides if its for work generally work will expense for it and if they expect you to travel on short notice then they need to take that into account with how much they pay back. Although my only experience with this was working in Brussels where generally there's a fixed amount they expense for trips and if you can do it cheaper than that then you get to keep the rest; which is a little different and arguably might actually encourage people to seek cheaper alternatives than just generic Anytime tickets. When you think about alternative forms of long-distance public transport (the plane and the coach) then generally you have to book at a particular time anyway, so I don't see why we ought to perceive the train in a different way.
 

IceAgeComing

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Not for long though; 21st Century Fox is the main part of Disney's purchase of the vast majority of Murdoch's television assets (they're only retaining the Fox Network and Fox Sports for competition reasons and Fox News for... obvious reasons.
 
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