Sad demise of cheap train travel in UK

Kevin in wales

today is a sad day in the UK for savvy rail travel users. The new simpler fares structure means no more real cheap train travel Sad

Last week I could get a cheap one way ticket from London Paddington to Wales for £12.50 (first avance blah blah ticket) and today the cheapest one way ticket available is £53.00

Oh well, it's good for the taxi business as it's even more cost effective to go to London by taxi now rather than by train.

Let's hope we get no more simplification of fares!

I was planning on getting a train down to London to pick up the Eurostar in to Europe for my holidays this year, now I'll be driving down to the Ashford terminal and parking there.
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laz · Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 11:02 am Post subject:

Yes, it's rubbish, isn't it? Sad

We already have some of the most expensivbe train fares in Europe, and surely this will make it even worse... Rolling Eyes

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BCN Dave · Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 8:43 pm Post subject: Train Travel

I have found that in many ways train travel has got cheaper because I always book in advance and try and use MegaTrain fares. Megatrain, the partner of Megabus.com has some great fares.
Its no good really for commuters but if you want a trip just now and again it can be excellent.
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Kevin in wales · Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 8:03 am Post subject:

I've never used Megafares so I'm not sure if they get affected by the new re-organisation of fares.

I use Trainline and they have had their fares affected by the new re-organising. There used to be a lot of very cheap fares on there now that number has dropped substantially.

I have managed to find some cheaper fares to Wales from London but they are not as widespread as they were last week.

It could be down to the new system or it could just be now that the holiday season is here all the cheap discounted fares are not available.
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laz · Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 4:05 pm Post subject:

I read in the paper yesterday that the cost of the cheapest fare from Holyhead to London has gone up >200%.

As usual, our wonderful privatised rail system wastes no time in making itself look bad...
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Kevin in wales · Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 5:05 pm Post subject:

paul · Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 12:42 am Post subject:

Readers of this thread might find this link helpful: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-train-tickets
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londontours · Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 9:30 pm Post subject:

It is really bad... I moved to devon and commute to London once a week and the fares are crazy at times and have got worse since the change. Its considorably cheaper for me to drive which to me is just crazy.

pjdscott · Flight Steward Joined: 20 Dec 2007 Posts: 69 78 ants

Most of the online rail tickets sites charge for using your credit card (in recent months thetrainline.com also included a cheeky 50p charge for collecting your tickets at a fast ticket machine!). National Express East Coast do not charge for using a credit card, nor make any other surcharge. Additionally, they are giving 10% off advance tickets - if the tickets are more than three months away, you can register your interest in that date and NXEC mail you when they are available.

I've migrated from using thetrainline.com to NXEC - I should add I have no commerical in NXEC.

PJD
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nab82ba · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:31 am Post subject:

Hasnt train travel always been expensive? I mean i pay £30 for a 3hrs train journey and thats with a 30% discount. When you go to USA you pay around £8 for a 4hr train journey and the trains are far better inside too!
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willneu · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:25 pm Post subject:

I agree i'm from down in Cornwall and my employer frequently commutes to london at a cost of £75 return!?!
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raaboo · Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:23 am Post subject:

I would definitely say that tran travel is a rip-off - I now hire a car instead for the same prce - and that includes Petrol!!!

If i do go by train i trya nd use megatrain or megabus as they are the only ones that do give decent train fares, tickets again are limited but the main issue i have is that the trains get so overcrowded - why sell more tickets than there are seats for? especially when my last train journey had every carriage full with people standing the whole journey in the aisles and that was going from edinburgh to manchester - 3 hours!!

I hat trains now and even consider flying instead - at least that way you can get a seat!
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sunshine82 · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 11:52 am Post subject:

I've got used to splitting my journey into sections, costing them out individually and comparing that with the proce for the journey as a whole (a wheeze I was put onto by station staff, though apparently they're not meant to tell you). Now I'm having to get used to comparing single fares with returns.

Recently I got from Bangor to Harrogate and back for about £25 (with a railcard). But if I hadn't fiddled about with the journey plan I'd have paid closer to £40 for a saver return. As it was, my "ticket" covered about 8 pieces of paper including the seat reservations.

I could be cynical here and say that it's the train companies trying to force us online so they can downsize their booking offices - this system's so complicated now that you really have to sit at home to work out what you want to buy, and you can't trust station staff to tell you all the ways to save money.

The price hike form Holyhead to London, incidentally, isn't related to the ticket changes. Virgin brought it in because commuters from Birmingham were using the definition of peak travel times to pay less - the early train from Holyhead leaves well before the morning peak, but hits Birmingham in the middle of it, and it was cheaper to pay for the extra mileage than to pay for thpeak travel supplement. The way round it was to penalise passengers from North Wales.

Kate

raaboo · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:32 pm Post subject:

I would always suggest using nationalrail.com - they can usually give you cheaper options by splitting the journey up, it usually works for me!
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Sliemawarrior · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:19 pm Post subject:

Advance planning otherwise you get stung. I believe if you look around you can still find offers and deals but turning up and getting a ticket nowadays means expense. Another thing to watch for is the train companies charging peak travel time after midnight. I have been stung for this a couple of times. Ridiculous really, when you look around and there are four people sitting on the train.
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