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I’m not. I have a choice on the WCML of multiple different providers. Manchester to London walk up far for almost any time can be £300 return for the fast train

I’m not. I have a choice on the WCML of multiple different providers. Manchester to London walk up far for almost any time can be £300 return for the fast train arriving in london before lunch and getting home before 9pm, or £50 for a slower train with a change. Same with crewe-Manchester, Birmingham-london, Edinburgh-london etc. Quite happy with the competition and no government interference.

pydry 5y ago
You're saying there's clearly plenty of competition when a flight from London to New York can be had for the price of a fairly normal rail ticket from London to Manchester? Those £50 tickets are about market segmentation - separating the customers who have time flexibility or are willing to suffer from those who don't or aren't.
- thu2111 5y ago
  You're comparing apples and oranges. Rail is as expensive as a plane ticket that goes much further because the railways have far more limited capacity than the skies do. It's not related to competition or lack of it - those rails just cannot safely take more vehicles.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Lol, no, rail has 10x to 50x more capacity than skies do, a single train can carry thousands of passengers and China has invested in modern raileay because their airspace is clogged. Now they have more high-speed rail than the rest of the world conbined while plans for HS2 are older than I am and are still nowhere
    - thu2111 5y ago
      Seriously? You do realize that we're talking about the capacity of the air vs land, not individual trains vs individual planes? Yes, a single train has more capacity than a single plane, but the limit to how many planes can be in the sky is more or less a function of how sophisticated your ATC system is. UK rail hit the physical limits a long time ago, and expanding it is extremely hard because the land is all taken. That's why HS2 is so expensive and slow, yet (was) still being pursued, because it's the only way to add meaningful capacity. Same with Crossrail.
- iso1631 5y ago
  That £300 return subsidizes train services in rural parts of cornwall. That's a political decision. Other options are to have more taxpayer subsidy, higher prices in Cornwall, close services in cornwall, or reduce operating costs (which are heavily staff and rolling stock based -- something that HS2 will slash) P.S. I just looked up an equivalent London-New York economy flight (flexible flight leaving this evening and returning tomorrow), and it's £2,481.02
  - pydry 5y ago
    It also subsidized Richard Branson's lifestyle. This is also a political decision. I looked at London-NY - if I put it off one week I can easily cross 1/3 of the world for less than the price of a day trip to Manchester tomorrow.
    - iso1631 5y ago
      Where does the subsidy for Branson's lifestyle come in? Branson hasn't been involved in the UK rail network for a couple of years. If I look at Manchester-London in a weeks time with a non-flexible ticket it costs £45 return (actually for £45 it's pretty flexible - you are just limited to one firms trains, a bit like that BA fare, and can't travel in the morning rush hour) https://i.imgur.com/CNCzmKu.png https://i.imgur.com/CNCzmKu.png That's less than 9p per mile. What do you think a fair price would be?
      - pydry 5y ago
        A fair price would be a £45 return ticket London to Manchester if I bought it at 9am tomorrow at the station. This would bring the UK rail prices more in line with most other European countries. £300 is gouging.
        iso1631 5y ago
        That's available and fine, as long as you leave Euston after 0845. You can take the 08:46, arriving in Manchester at 12:13 - an average speed of about 60mph. The £300 is an option that few choose, because that journey gives them major benefits. The money raised from that is plowed back into the railway and used to subsidise services to Harrogate, Holyhead and Hungerford
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
£300 for a train ticket and you are happy? Have you been on a train in China, France or even Czech Republic? This parody for 'competition' has given us most expensive fares in Europe and soviet-block quality of rail service. It's a new disease, 'neoliberalism of the brain' that maintains 'free market' even at the cost of organ failure
- iso1631 5y ago
  https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html > the next time someone says (or you read) "Britain has the highest rail fares in Europe", you'll know this is only 15% of the story. The other 85% is that we have similar or even cheaper fares, too. The big picture is that Britain has the most commercially aggressive fares in Europe, with the highest fares designed to get maximum revenue from business travel, and some of the lowest fares designed to get more revenue by filling more seats.
  - morrbo 5y ago
    I'm sorry but this article is bullshit. Go and actually check the train prices (because I did) now. Book Sheffield to London 1 month in advance, comes out to £70 odd return (nearly 4x more than article states) with a first class upgrade for an extra £70....Paris to Leon 1 month in advance? £20 odd return with another £20 first class. Idk if something has changed but you can't quote this article anymore. Train prices in the UK are criminal.
    - smcl 5y ago
      Seconded, this article is quite misleading. The UK fares always seemed quite unpredictable to me when I used them, with variances similar to those you see when booking flight tickets. Maybe the fares have an extra component based on demand? If I look for second-class tickets from Edinburgh to Montrose (which I went on semi-regularly) @ scotrail.co.uk on 1st June I see prices that fluctuate from £9.30 to £24.60. Maybe the guy only looked at the lower-bound on the London-Sheffield route?

pydry 5y ago

You're saying there's clearly plenty of competition when a flight from London to New York can be had for the price of a fairly normal rail ticket from London to Manchester? Those £50 tickets are about market segmentation - separating the customers who have time flexibility or are willing to suffer from those who don't or aren't.

thu2111 5y ago
You're comparing apples and oranges. Rail is as expensive as a plane ticket that goes much further because the railways have far more limited capacity than the skies do. It's not related to competition or lack of it - those rails just cannot safely take more vehicles.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Lol, no, rail has 10x to 50x more capacity than skies do, a single train can carry thousands of passengers and China has invested in modern raileay because their airspace is clogged. Now they have more high-speed rail than the rest of the world conbined while plans for HS2 are older than I am and are still nowhere
  - thu2111 5y ago
    Seriously? You do realize that we're talking about the capacity of the air vs land, not individual trains vs individual planes? Yes, a single train has more capacity than a single plane, but the limit to how many planes can be in the sky is more or less a function of how sophisticated your ATC system is. UK rail hit the physical limits a long time ago, and expanding it is extremely hard because the land is all taken. That's why HS2 is so expensive and slow, yet (was) still being pursued, because it's the only way to add meaningful capacity. Same with Crossrail.
iso1631 5y ago
That £300 return subsidizes train services in rural parts of cornwall. That's a political decision. Other options are to have more taxpayer subsidy, higher prices in Cornwall, close services in cornwall, or reduce operating costs (which are heavily staff and rolling stock based -- something that HS2 will slash) P.S. I just looked up an equivalent London-New York economy flight (flexible flight leaving this evening and returning tomorrow), and it's £2,481.02
- pydry 5y ago
  It also subsidized Richard Branson's lifestyle. This is also a political decision. I looked at London-NY - if I put it off one week I can easily cross 1/3 of the world for less than the price of a day trip to Manchester tomorrow.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    Where does the subsidy for Branson's lifestyle come in? Branson hasn't been involved in the UK rail network for a couple of years. If I look at Manchester-London in a weeks time with a non-flexible ticket it costs £45 return (actually for £45 it's pretty flexible - you are just limited to one firms trains, a bit like that BA fare, and can't travel in the morning rush hour) https://i.imgur.com/CNCzmKu.png https://i.imgur.com/CNCzmKu.png That's less than 9p per mile. What do you think a fair price would be?
    - pydry 5y ago
      A fair price would be a £45 return ticket London to Manchester if I bought it at 9am tomorrow at the station. This would bring the UK rail prices more in line with most other European countries. £300 is gouging.
      - iso1631 5y ago
        That's available and fine, as long as you leave Euston after 0845. You can take the 08:46, arriving in Manchester at 12:13 - an average speed of about 60mph. The £300 is an option that few choose, because that journey gives them major benefits. The money raised from that is plowed back into the railway and used to subsidise services to Harrogate, Holyhead and Hungerford

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

£300 for a train ticket and you are happy? Have you been on a train in China, France or even Czech Republic? This parody for 'competition' has given us most expensive fares in Europe and soviet-block quality of rail service. It's a new disease, 'neoliberalism of the brain' that maintains 'free market' even at the cost of organ failure

iso1631 5y ago
https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html > the next time someone says (or you read) "Britain has the highest rail fares in Europe", you'll know this is only 15% of the story. The other 85% is that we have similar or even cheaper fares, too. The big picture is that Britain has the most commercially aggressive fares in Europe, with the highest fares designed to get maximum revenue from business travel, and some of the lowest fares designed to get more revenue by filling more seats.
- morrbo 5y ago
  I'm sorry but this article is bullshit. Go and actually check the train prices (because I did) now. Book Sheffield to London 1 month in advance, comes out to £70 odd return (nearly 4x more than article states) with a first class upgrade for an extra £70....Paris to Leon 1 month in advance? £20 odd return with another £20 first class. Idk if something has changed but you can't quote this article anymore. Train prices in the UK are criminal.
  - smcl 5y ago
    Seconded, this article is quite misleading. The UK fares always seemed quite unpredictable to me when I used them, with variances similar to those you see when booking flight tickets. Maybe the fares have an extra component based on demand? If I look for second-class tickets from Edinburgh to Montrose (which I went on semi-regularly) @ scotrail.co.uk on 1st June I see prices that fluctuate from £9.30 to £24.60. Maybe the guy only looked at the lower-bound on the London-Sheffield route?