The rail routes that are five times more expensive per mile

[Groningen]

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4190380/Rail-routes-five-times-expensive-mile.html

• Some passengers pay 86p per mile while others pay as little as 16p per mile
• Great Western Railway is the most expensive operator followed by Virgin Trains
• Bristol, Leicester and Manchester routes to London are popular and expensive
  

Train companies have been accused of punishing passengers for travelling on certain busy routes, where fares can average as much as £177 per 200-mile return journey.


Cat Hobbs, director of We Own It, a group that campaigns for the railways to return to public ownership, said: ‘It’s just a postcode lottery on how outrageous the fare is going to be. The difference in prices for similar journeys is incredible.’

Newspaper is so the Daily Mail. Was that not the train unfriendly newspaper?

 

[me123]

The Daily Mail is the everything unfriendly newspaper.

It looks solely at the anytime return on routes where there will often be other alternatives available. I suspect that a lot of people making these trips (where the anytime return is more expensive) will be using advances. To consider Leeds to Appleby to be "comparable" is nonsense - it's a low frequency rural route with much lower demand than the others.

This is simply a demonstration of demand based pricing. And, for better or worse, it isn't going anywhere.

 

[kieron]

I wonder if SWT have upset someone at the Daily Mail for them to use a non-London flow of theirs. Had they done otherwise, they'd have found that Southampton-London is dearer per mile than Norwich-London.

Not that any of the routes chosen are representative of anything, of course.

 

[30907]

Alarmed by the discovery that Clapham Jn is 3 miles further from Southampton than Waterloo, I checked the other mileages and discovered the DM lives in an alternative universe. Bristol is almost right, but Manchester in particular is way out.

 

[northwichcat]

The Daily Mail is the everything unfriendly newspaper.

Except they are UKIP friendly.

 

[kieron]

Alarmed by the discovery that Clapham Jn is 3 miles further from Southampton than Waterloo, I checked the other mileages and discovered the DM lives in an alternative universe. Bristol is almost right, but Manchester in particular is way out.

Manchester isn't that bad. According to tables 65 and 131, it's 189 miles via Crewe and 195.5 miles via Stoke. It is 208 miles according to Google Maps if you use the M40, though (which the site prefers despite claiming that it is further and slower than the M1/M6 route).

 

[30907]

I made it 184 via Colwich-Stone using table 65.

Suspected they were quoting road mileages, thanks for confirmation.

 

[miami]

The Lancaster issue is being discussed elsewhere, and while I hate to even closely defend the daily heil, please don't fall into the "demand based pricing" trap. On the Manchester route especially, peak trains are almost empty.

 

[yorksrob]

I usually baulk at the price of an ordinary return to Appleby, but it seems that it is good value in comparison to walk-on InterCity travel.

 

[Phil.]

Newspaper is so the Daily Mail. Was that not the train unfriendly newspaper?

ALL newspapers are train unfriendly. You must remember that newspapers don't contain news per se but what the Editor wants you to read.

 

[paddington]

Except they are UKIP friendly.

Nah, they've just insulted Farage today

 

[bb21]

They are not known for being the "Daily Hate Mail" for nothing. More depressingly they actually have a large following, many of whom would believe any old nonsense they trot out.

 

[FenMan]

ALL newspapers are train unfriendly. You must remember that newspapers don't contain news per se but what the Editor wants you to read.

Not true. The Guardian is not anti-train travel, far from it, but their article in the "Money" section on Saturday could have used some input from someone who knows what they're talking about.

 

[Shippea Hill]

Not true. The Guardian is not anti-train travel, far from it, but their article in the "Money" section on Saturday could have used some input from someone who knows what they're talking about.

I don't think the Guardian are any more rail friendly than any other paper - they are just more subtle about their hostility. The arguement goes like this - if you've had a bad journey there's usually nothing you can do about it - you just have to accept it. So the papers all appeal to your impotent rage by printing articles which confirm your view that the railways are terrible and if only the politicians did this simple thing life would be rosy. They do this because most people buy papers with which they agree - if the editor presented a balanced view which suggested that tickets were good value, or that most journeys are quite efficient they wouldn't sell papers. Bad news sells, and these days all papers (especially The Guardian with its recent financial performance) are desparate to sell papers and are quite happy to present a skewed view on life if more people buy their paper as a result. So a recent article in The Guardian compared rail fare increases with wage increases over the past 10 years. A fairer comparison would be with RPI. But here's the thing. In the last 10 years the annual rate of wage increase has been substantially lagging behind the rate of inflation. So if you compared almost anything (bread, milk, beer) with wages over that 10 year period it would look expensive. To put some numbers on this RPI inflation was 30.5% during this period, so a fare increase of 30% would look like reasonable value. The inflation adjusted wage increase was minus 7.3%. So any fare increase at all would look like bad value, and a 30% increase would look shocking. So that's what they chose - despite choosing RPI or CPI in most other articles comparing the costs. Personally I think that firstly The Guardian is politically opposed to the railways so they cannot bring themselves to report any news without looking for a negative spin, and secondly since they got into such financial trouble their standards of reporting generally have hit rock bottom, with far too many articles being written with one eye on what they think the readers want to hear, rather than presenting a bit of serious journalism. I doubt whether its anywhere near as bad as the Mail, but regretfully they are taking some pretty big steps down the same road. Its just that its a bit more subtle about its rabble rousing, so its not as obvious.

 

[northwichcat]

Nah, they've just insulted Farage today

Do you mean because they said he split from his wife? I wouldn't say that's insulting him considering what kind of headlines they're known to publish. I'm sure if it was Nick Clegg there would be a headline along the lines of "Traitor to the country dumped by his foreign wife."

 

[Joe Paxton]

Worth noting that the story about Farage appeared in the Mail on Sunday, not the Daily Mail - yes, they are from the same stable but are distinct newspapers with a significant degree of rivalry between them, and the MoS often has a different (and arguably more liberal) take on things.

 

[northwichcat]

Worth noting that the story about Farage appeared in the Mail on Sunday, not the Daily Mail - yes, they are from the same stable but are distinct newspapers with a significant degree of rivalry between them, and the MoS often has a different (and arguably more liberal) take on things.

MOS actually backed Remain in the EU referendum!

 

[tbtc]

Cat Hobbs, director of We Own It, a group that campaigns for the railways to return to public ownership, said: ‘It’s just a postcode lottery on how outrageous the fare is going to be. The difference in prices for similar journeys is incredible.’

Maybe is Cat, or anyone else, could show me that BR had the same "price per mile" on every route then I'd be prepared to take them more seriously.

For example, doesn't the Lancaster/Preston - London discrepancy (and similar ones on routes like north Wales/ Cheshire - London) date back to BR?

BR were perfectly happy to price people off services that were too busy, which caused a number of fare discrepancies. At least nowadays, when we see rail fares rise, they tend to be a relatively uniform percentage across the country (some exceptions, sure, but nothing like the 1980s).

Appleby is also a really weird place to pick - not a major flow by any stretch! Being on a line with artificially lower fares (e.g. routing via the S&C is generally a bit cheaper) will skew things, so maybe it's only there to make all "northern" prices look relatively cheap?

I certainly didn't think that Appleby warrants peak restrictions in the way that busy commuter routes like Southampton to London do!

I wonder if SWT have upset someone at the Daily Mail for them to use a non-London flow of theirs

Using Clapham is a really weird comparison that seems to suggest some kind of agenda - people change there for Victoria (or Westfield at Shepherd's Bush or stations in south London), but I didn't think that Southampton to Clapham was a major flow in its own right?

Worth noting that the story about Farage appeared in the Mail on Sunday, not the Daily Mail - yes, they are from the same stable but are distinct newspapers with a significant degree of rivalry between them, and the MoS often has a different (and arguably more liberal) take on things.

MOS actually backed Remain in the EU referendum!

Aye, the "Mail vs MOS" debate is a fun one to watch in Private Eye, as they discredit each other etc - someone in the public eye can easily be riding high on a Saturday/Sunday only to find themselves described as "discredited" on a Sunday/ Monday

 

[FenMan]

I'm sorry, but that reads like a content-free rant.

It is not an "alternative fact" to state that, for many years, The Guardian has been the most enthusiastic promoter of a green agenda in Fleet St. Ergo, it is more sympathetic to train travel than most other national papers. However, it continues to hold power to account by running pieces that are critical of the rail industry, the DfT and the government where warranted (and rightly so). Unfortunately the article under discussion, while well-meaning, was poorly researched.

 

[sheff1]

For example, doesn't the Lancaster/Preston - London discrepancy (and similar ones on routes like north Wales/ Cheshire - London) date back to BR?

No, as has been explained on the Virgin ticket row thread.

BR were perfectly happy to price people off services that were too busy, which caused a number of fare discrepancies. At least nowadays, when we see rail fares rise, they tend to be a relatively uniform percentage across the country (some exceptions, sure, but nothing like the 1980s).

Are there some references/figures to confirm this, or is it just another dig at BR ?

I am pretty sure I have read articles explaining that the % rise in unregulated fares since privatisation has varied considerably across TOCs, but I can't remember where.

 

[kieron]

Maybe is Cat, or anyone else, could show me that BR had the same "price per mile" on every route then I'd be prepared to take them more seriously.

For example, doesn't the Lancaster/Preston - London discrepancy (and similar ones on routes like north Wales/ Cheshire - London) date back to BR?

This has come up a few times recently. The discrepency results from Virgin's severe off-peak restrictions from Preston (which were not used by BR) and their high anytime time prices (which were also not used by BR).

Appleby is also a really weird place to pick - not a major flow by any stretch! Being on a line with artificially lower fares (e.g. routing via the S&C is generally a bit cheaper) will skew things, so maybe it's only there to make all "northern" prices look relatively cheap?

Northern don't price all that many 100 mile flows, so it could be the first one the journalist came across. Or maybe the second, after seeing the Leeds-Carlisle one but not wishing to use it due to the "via Appleby" route.

Newcastle-Lancaster is another. It's 122 miles (again, using the first option on Google maps), and £53.60 for an anytime return, to give 22p/mile.

To take another TOC, Warrington-Lancaster is 117 miles and £57 for an off peak return, for 24p/mile. There is also an anytime ticket, but not even rail staff buy those now.

 

[MichaelAMW]

Northern don't price all that many 100 mile flows, so it could be the first one the journalist came across. Or maybe the second, after seeing the Leeds-Carlisle one but not wishing to use it due to the "via Appleby" route.

Newcastle-Lancaster is another. It's 122 miles (again, using the first option on Google maps), and £53.60 for an anytime return, to give 22p/mile.

To take another TOC, Warrington-Lancaster is 117 miles and £57 for an off peak return, for 24p/mile. There is also an anytime ticket, but not even rail staff buy those now.

The other thing to note is that there is no Off-Peak return Leeds to Appleby. In effect, there is an off-peak return with an 8A (any train) restriction but they've called it an Anytime return, so it's a poor comparison to be making.