Andrew Kay: Train Strain
Can someone please sort out train fares?
So it’s that time of year when I need to sort out what I am doing for Christmas. Regular readers may well realise that this will not be easy, with my brother unwell and mum pretty much confined to doing what we can sensibly achieve. Amazingly it has all turned out rather well, considering. Mum will spend Christmas in Hay on Wye and I will travel to Somerset after that to spend the New Year with her.
Of course I no longer own a car so I travel by train. I like train travel, it’s fairly relaxing if you don’t have too many changes, and despite the service not matching up with continental services in terms of comfort, it’s okay, just okay.
The trouble is booking. I started by going online. I put in the times and dates that I would have preferred and it came back to me with a series of options that ranged from affordable to downright crazy. Prices ranged from around £180 down to £56 or thereabouts. Now that is quite a radical range of prices by any score. None of them were direct and none took into account that for part of my journey I should receive a discount for the use of my annual Network Railcard.
How I miss those wonderful dining car breakfasts of my youth
In the end I gave up and braved the queue at Brighton Station. Here I met a rather nice man who completely understood my dilemma. He wrote down the dates I wanted and started his search. He worked out the best prices possible and the routes that I would need to travel to get those prices. He even warned me that on my preferred return date there would be a replacement bus service from Littlehampton to Brighton – don’t even get me started on replacement bus services!
It was no mean task, it took him, a professional rail service advisor, a good twenty minutes to do this.
In the end, though, he really did come up with the goods and for a far better price than I found online at just over £41. Now that is a remarkable difference from the top prices that I found to do exactly the same journey.
This year I have travelled extensively and I have to say for far less than some of the listed prices for a return trip to Somerset. Helsinki cost less, Sicily cost less, Gothenburg was not much different …
I want to love train travel but I really do think that they are doing a remarkably bad job of selling it.
They don’t guarantee a seat on many services, merely the right to travel. There is seldom wifi, seldom power sockets and the buffet services leave an awful lot to be desired – how I miss those wonderful dining car breakfasts of my youth.
As for pricing, they need to make it clear, transparent and fair. I accept that travel at peak times should carry a premium price but really, is it neccesary to make it so difficult to navigate your way to the best possible price for your journey? Surely, if it takes the in-station advisor twenty minutes to sort out my tickets request, then that is uneconomical.
So why not create clear price banding, peak and off peak fares and some sort of parity reflecting distances travelled to price. Maybe I am an idealist but I bet I am not alone in thinking that right now train ticket prices are simply mad.
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