The railway can only serve some markets
Sometimes demand exceeds supply on certain lines at certain times, which is why we have peak fares - that's not telling people not to travel, it's just dealing with the reality that we don't have capacity (in terms of carriages or paths or station length) to cope with the absolute peaks in demand
Of course people on here are going to argue for those things - I'd be delighted if my ticket prices were lower and I didn't have to deal with restrictions - sure
But it's the predictability of it all - it's like people have certain paragraphs saved in a Word document so that they can copy/paste in the same things on every thread
- Significantly cheaper fares
- No time restrictions
- Longer trains
- Increased Government subsidy
- Abolish ROSCOs
- Electrify everything
- Invest massively in rural branch lines
- Large and consistent railcard discounts
- Nationwide railcards available to everyone
- Cheaper railcards too
- We might as well give away tickets on quiet trains for "pennies" because it's better than them being empty
...all of which have their merits but it just feels knee-jerk - people aren't looking at how to deal with the post-Covid environment (which is meant to be the subject of the thread)
Is there a short term boost to "leisure" numbers whilst people visit the friends/family/ cities that they've not been able to see over the past couple of years (and whilst there have been restrictions on some foreign holidays etc)? How much of this is sustainable? People don't seem interested in looking at the new realities, just in banging on about the same things they always always argue for
It's still important - not only does it make up a large number but it's been fairly predictable demand, fairly straightforward, and fairly cheap to collect (direct debit, rather than needing lots of individual transactions each year)
So that's taking a round trip of about fifty miles, for four people, a train station less than half a mile's walk from the beach... for less than twenty five quid?
That doesn't sound a terrible example
Sure, you can drive for less - if you travel by train then someone else is driving, someone else is doing the cleaning, someone else is dealing with traffic signals and vehicle maintenance and all of the other jobs that we have on the railway - you can do all of those things yourself and save a few quid
Similarly it's generally cheaper to cook a meal at home than eat that meal in a restaurant, where someone else is doing the cooking, someone else is clearing the table etc etc - same applies
As usual on these kind of threads, I'd ask the question of "if you think that the train fare looks expensive then what level of fare would be appropriate?" - are you saying that a fifty mile round trip for four people should cost closer to a tenner?
I agree with
@JonathanH here - people forget the first word in "
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" - lots of people seem to want to play the Green card whilst also having lots of leisure travel - I'm going to pretend to be "green" to argue for improved trains but I still want to travel thousands of miles a year gallivanting around the country etc etc
What's the alternative? Presumably
@TravelDream wants train fares for an entire family to be no more than the shared petrol/diesel cost of that journey, but how do you make train travel as convenient as opening your car door and turning the ignition? Direct trains from everywhere without more than a five minute wait?
If that makes me look "anti-rail" then fair enough, but we have to recognise that the car will often be much cheaper for an entire family and often be more convenient too