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Are rail fares overpriced?

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Ianno87

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I'm not sure that is an ORCATS raid in my understanding, though I agree the definition is debatable.

One good example to me is the old FNW Manchester to London service. This was very much a budget service (£13.20 "Anytime Return" with a Railcard, even in 1998 money rather good), but also had a First Class section which was just regular Class 158 seats with antimacassars. This was arguably an ORCATS raid - nobody would pay for a First Class fare as it had no benefit at all (the trains were far from overcrowded), but it would get them a small share of Any Permitted First Class revenue.

Another example is Open Access operators stopping at a main station (like, say, GC at York) on the way to London to get a share of Any Permitted fares for that flow even though almost nobody will actually use the service as it's slower than the main TOC. I've long wondered why OA operators are allowed to be part of the

Without wanting to go too OT, I'm not sure how much of an "ORCATS raid" the FNW services were - they didn't have the equivalent of a York or Donny stop. For example, the Manchester Airport service called Alderley Edge, Sandbach, Tamworth (for pathing) and Watford (pick-up/set down). No real railheads, other than the odd passenger who would've otherwise connected at Crewe. And the first southbound arrivals at Euston weren't until around 1000 or so (at least from Manchester Airport - first departure was about 0619).

Similarly, the Blackpool service omitted Preston and Wigan and only called at Warrington (non-passenger) to attach to the Rochdale portion.
 
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dcsprior

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Back to the topic of whether rail fares are overpriced, I guess you can only judge that by comparing them to other things.

The car isn't a fair comparison - it has high fixed costs and relatively low variable costs, so it appears cheaper for a single journey; also with the car you need to drive yourself rather than be driven, so you can't read a book / have had a few beers / etc.

For some journeys, air is a competitor, personally I find flying Edinburgh-London return weekly (at peak times) to be cheaper door-to-door than rail.

Another comparison would be rail services in other countries - an easy one to compare against here would be the BahnCard 100, it costs £3478 Std / £6342 1st per year for unlimited rail and local public transport throughout Germany - UK season tickets don't compare well against this - below are some example seasons to Z1-6:
Brighton: £5,340 Std / £8,012 1st
Peterborough £8,120 Std / £13,804 1st
Milton Keynes £5,976 Std / £9,264 1st
Reading £5,116 Std / £10,128 1st
Gatwick £4,348 Std / £6,524 1st
Welwyn £4,032 Std / £6,252 1st

Or to compare with a long weekly return plus some local travel, below is what I'd pay if I travelled by rail, going Edinburgh-Kings Cross return (at 05:40 southbound & 5pm or 6pm northbound), and then staying in Croydon midweek:
£128.50 std / £193.50 1st (for last week currently bookable)
£1.60 * 2 Lothian Buses
£2.40 * 2 Z1 Tube
4 * £5.10 Z1-5 Rail​
Total = £7217 Standard / £10,207 1st (not factoring in 1st for the Croydon-London bit)
So either a relatively long daily commute, or a weekly commute would be significantly cheaper elsewhere.
 
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