Fare increases

Good afternoon Stevo and welcome to the Forum. Feel free to introduce yourself so we know a little more about you.

Do you live in the commuter zone or have to travel by train regularly? Those who do would have different views paying literally thousands of pounds per year for standing-only services: I think a season ticket from St. Albans to KX costs a smidgeon under £4000, more than many people's mortgages. For a journey of twenty minutes (and invariably standing up) it's about the most expensive journey in Europe. Add to the general fact that England's rail prices are hugely more expensive than almost anywhere else in the world and many people would have a different opinion. I'm sure many on here could give much more comprehensive and erudite reasons why the continuing rise above the rate of inflation in train travel is not altogether justified.

Edit: and I've just read this piece in the Grauniad about how rail fares have gone up 50% in the past decade.

Transport does account for the largest proportion of household spending these days, so it is unsurprising that people complain about higher motoring costs or higher rail fares.

You are welcome to your opinion of course and you probably won't like my ten penn'oth!

In this country we have since the 1960s seen huge increases in the cost of all commodities and services. It can be argued that the price of raw materials has increased to a point at which they have found a truer level in real terms but there is little or no justification for the annual increases in the cost of living, the annual increases in wages and salaries, above inflation price rises for services and utilities, blatant profiteering, government overspending and public service inefficiencies and wastage.

Rail fares are the tip of a vary large iceberg of unfairness in the UK economy which quite frankly has been mismanaged for decades. There are practical reasons why the costs of raw materials have increased year on year at an ever increasing pace which can really be traced back to the loss of the empire and the subsequent transfer of manufacturing overseas, both of which have had a huge impact upon the UK economy and the cost of living.

People will suggest that we are all better off collectively as a nation now than 50 years ago but it simply isn't true. It is a myth that Great Britain is one of the richest countries in the world, in truth all that has really happened is that the currency has been devalued endlessly to create 'growth' in the economy. The numbers on a pay or benefit cheque are much bigger now but they are meaningless as a penny (1/240 th of a pound) in the
1950s bought more than one pound does today.

British 'workers' are a scarce resource nowadays, most have no idea how easy life is today compared to then. Britain has changed for the worse in so many ways and it really hasn't been 'great' since we granted independence to the colonies. That is not to say that we should not have done so but it should have been realised by the end of the 1960s that we were no longer a world power and we are even less so today, we are no longer a self supporting nation and I really wonder how anyone can have pride in what remains of the Britain that I saw the tail end of as I grew up. Once a world leader in technology and manufacturing it has all been frittered away leaving us with a service based economy which produces nothing but paper assets for incompetent politicians, a few gifted entrepreneurs and lots of greedy bankers and investors to fight over.

There is nothing reasonable about the increases in rail fares, the problem is that too much is being creamed off the revenue to pay nice dividends to shareholders rather than paying realistic dividends and reinvesting the profits. The taxpayer has been picking up the tab for the railways for too many decades and when the railways were privatised they should have been forced to survive without state handouts. Whether we use the railways or not (I don't) all taxpayers are being fleeced for a service that is not fit for purpose and seen only as a cash cow by its many operators.

In a time of austerity what is really needed is a return to realism and fairness and the entire transport industry should be renationalised, fares frozen and wages capped to realistic levels.

No government will be able to prevent the country bankrupting itself if it cannot halt the price/wage spiral and bring real jobs back into the economy. Increasing rail fares hits commuters, many of whom, it would seem, will be having to choose whether or not to continue working for a living if they cannot secure wage increases to cover the additional cost. A ridiculous and untenable solution which will only see further demise of the infrastructure. Of course there is an alternative scenario in which the railways could switch to freight only, taking all main distribution haulage off the roads and letting all commuters become motorists fighting for ridiculously highly priced petrol and claiming their spaces in the daily traffic gridlock nationwide.

Don't forget that even those of us who never use the railways are affected by increases in rail fares, I am still a taxpayer even though I live on a small pension and the price of motoring is so high already that I cannot afford to use my car except for essential trips to the hospital, my GP and the weekly/fornightly shop. The increase in rail fares will cause an increase in the cost of living for all of us and that will incur additional taxation and yet any increase in my pension never covers the true cost of the increase in the cost of living so year on year I am getting poorer and poorer while greedy companies and workers are demanding higher prices and wages every year.

What I don't understand is people complaining that they pay £thousands and have to stand up. If that's really the case, then ask about being able to start work a bit earlier or later and miss the top of the peak. I do this; generally work 10 to 6 and pretty much always get a seat. Of course, several of the peak trains to/from St. Albans have recently been lengthened to 12 cars, as part of the investment in the Thameslink upgrade, and once the new rolling stock is delivered most of the fast services will be 12 car.

So should the passenger pay for the upgrades whilst they are underway, or wait until all the work has been finished before the fares rise?

Also, I don't agree that £4,000ish per year (£333 per month) is anything near most mortgage payments (or rent) in the south east, at current mortgage rates this would be less than an £80,000 repayment mortgage (over 25 years).

One final point: Would people be happier to pay the higher personal tax rates, seen in countries like France and Germany, instead of paying the higher fares in the UK? After all, the money has to come from somewhere.

One catch here - it will only appear to be fair, if your monthly take-home Pay-Packet rises at least twice the rate of increase of the train fare. An example is if your monthly ticket rises by a fiver per month, you will need a monthly take-home pay increase of at least a Tenner a month to compensate....

I don't believe that peak services really do subsidise increased off-peak travel. Much of the rolling stock (certainly on National Rail, just look at locations such as Camden, Hornsey, Clapham Junction between 10:00 and 16:00) is only used on peak services and spends the non-peak time just sat in sidings. Given that rail staff can't, generally, work both peaks in a single day, the weekday off-peak timetable is run on the cheap using staff and rolling stock which would otherwise be doing nothing. Sure, there are some costs from running the train, rather than leaving the stock in the sidings, but they are not huge.

Also, single day off-peak fares are not actually much cheaper then for a season ticket holder making the same journey during the peak. e.g. A Milton Keynes to London annual travelcard is £5,500 (=£22 per day assuming it is used for 50 weeks for 5 days per week). For comparison, the off-peak day travelcard is £20.00.

Similarly, in London, a Zone 1-6 off-peak travelcard is £8.90, whilst the annual travelcard is £2,224, giving a per day cost of £8.90.

Personal taxation is the only fair way to ensure that every individual is treated fairly as regards income.

The system is so muddled these days with benefits as tax codes, benefits in cash and benefits in kind, it is really difficult to know who the real winners and losers are in terms of true income. One thing is certain and that is that shareholders are doing better than savers and most savers are being fleeced by the banks, insurance companies and investment groups. Taxation is the tip of a very large iceberg of financial inequality for most of us.

All workers are greedy to an extent, been there done that and got the T-shirt so to speak just as all other workers have. When I was a worker I thought the system terribly unfair but as a pensioner I see even greater unfairness as tax I have to pay on my income is subsidising those who are working, have kids and a mortgage and cannot make ends meet on a lot more than I have to get by on.
Why should I pay taxes to subsidise people who have more than me and why should those people be getting tax credits etc. The relationships which once kept us all relatively equal in financial terms have been broken and reworked by successive governments over the years as they dealt with militant unions, prestige projects, increases in crime, the reported terrorism threats etc and the balance no longer exists in what has become an uncontrolled grab by many segments of business and populus to try and get ahead.
The bottom line is that there are no winners as most of those workers on a good earner now will discover when they are pensioners, saving for a rainy day is a fool's errand as I have discovered. Those of us who saved to support ourselves in retirement are being shafted by the rest of society.
The rail fare increases are just a drop in the large pond as we will all see in due course as the cost of everything sees a price hike from this month.
The buck has to stop somewhere so there needs to be a freeze and a period of rebalancing in order to stabilise the economy and level the playing field towards realistic incomes related to effort and achievement rather than what exists now.

Long distance travel, such as the sleeper, is a different kettle of fish. The 'Inter-City' franchises are generally unsubsidised, so revenue covers the day-to-day operation of the trains.

The sleepers are a special case anyway, both are heavily subsided and the low price advance fares are really only filling berths which would other wise be empty. If the Caledonian Sleeper was stopped, it wouldn't make much of a difference to the commuter fares.


You've missed the point, the off-peak trains will run any way, the Advance tickets are a way of filing trains which would otherwise run with a lot of spare seats. The peak trains are the expensive ones to run, as they need the extra staff and rolling stock to run.



I would argue it the other way, annual season tickets are too cheap, compared to the cost of operating the service. An annual season costs less than the price of 10 monthly tickets, which is a big discount. There is no way that the interest earned will cover the reduction in price.

Not according to the ONS:

Transport 65.70
Recreation and culture 63.90
Housing (net)¹, fuel and power 63.30
Food and non-alcoholic drinks 54.80
Restaurants and hotels 39.70
Miscellaneous goods and services 38.60
Household goods and services 27.30
Clothing and footwear 21.70
Communication 13.30
Alcoholic drinks, tobacco and narcotics 12.00
Education 7.00
Health 6.60
Total COICOP expenditure 413.90
Other expenditure items 69.70

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Total expenditure 483.60 per week

¹ Excluding mortgage interest payments, council tax and NI rates.

The housing costs include rent payments

Quite!! The £63.90 also excludes mortgage interest (and council tax).

On page 7, of that report:



The vast majority of the transport cost quoted is actually on road transport as well. Lie, damn lies and statistics springs to mind

A passenger commuting into London on one of the busier lines (Thameslink, GW Suburban), can't complain about not getting a seat all the time, soon they'll be lucky to even get on the train if numbers keep rising! With 2min dwell times at the busiest of times and stations you can't run an efficient train service, the current 3+2 seating layouts on those routes whilst offering many seats do not offer quick dwell times, oh and the strange boundary of only 2 doors per carriage on the UK Mainline doesn't help either!