[rant] single journey fares are like a rip off that I start to think about getting a car

giraffe69

I get the booking in advance thing as well, but I wonder how busy trains would be if they were reasonably priced always. Is it better to sell 1 ticket for £122 or 3 tickets for £60?

I imagine, perhaps, more people want to travel at or around lunchtime. I've certainly experienced that on a trip from London to Manchester. I know to avoid the train from my area which leaves at around 7.15a.m. It is a lot more expensive than others because it is popular with the commuters. Rail pricing is sometimes bonkers (I've made journeys where 1st class cost more than 2nd for the same journey) but you can be wise and up to speed to take advantage of ways to reduce prices.

anotheruser

coffeehound said:

Yes agreed single fares are over-priced.

Over-priced compared with what?

Or is it just that returns are very cheap compared with singles.

The reason railways do this is to combat fraud / ticketless travel.  If the price for the single is very high, may as well be honest and buy the return.  Most people will return so the single fare price is irrelevant to the majority of passengers.

anotheruser

Herzlos said:

giraffe69 said:

 I agree £122 for a single is relatively expensive for this journey but you don't need to pay that (why would you catch the 13.03 for £122 when the 12.03 is £60.20?)

But why would the same train, an hour later (still off peak) cost twice as much? If they can afford to run it for £60 then why the £122?

Because perhaps it's busier?
Can still be off-peak but be a lot busier.
That's why you get cheap tickets on some trains.  Train companies use them to control the flow of people.

Even weirder is that some destinations are always off-peak.  I'm pretty sure trains west of Bristol from Paddington are always off-peak - even at 5pm!
Avanti have an off-peak coming out of Euston in the evening (3pm - 7pm I think it was?), yet London Northwestern don't if you're returning.  If you have a single, then I think there are some peak restrictions.  

Remember, standard train fares are set by the government.
Advance fares or TOC only fares are set by the train companies.  It may be that the 13:02 train had 10 Advance tickets at £20 each and they've gone already.  They could have had 100, or none at all.

Also, some TOCs will have particular "routes" that affect the train fares they set.
They could have very cheap fares from Derby to Newcastle or even Bristol to Newcastle to help passengers choose that train rather than a busier one.  This means there won't be any left in the allocation for Birmingham to Newcastle.

Train fares are complicated and it will change and get better but it won't be a quick job.

Find a local ticket office and ask if there's a better way to board the train.
They can advise certain things but will most ticket clerks will get you the cheapest ticket available.

NBLondon

giraffe69 said:

Rail pricing is sometimes bonkers (I've made journeys where 1st class cost more than 2nd for the same journey) 

Did you mean the other way round?  I've certainly been on journeys where a promotional Advance 1st Class was the same price as a Standard Class and cheaper than the walk-up Standard Class fare.

anotheruser said:

  Most people will return so the single fare price is irrelevant to the majority of passengers.

On business travel, you might go from A to B to C and back to A.  I did that often as a trainer.   Which was on expenses so we assumed the company travel agent was finding the best deal...  There might even have been cases where buying a return and discarding the return half was a cheaper overall option.

TELLIT01

Booking weeks in advance isn't always practical.  We will check the weather a couple of days before the weekend to decide whether or not it's worth going away, and to where.  Forecast for one area may be great but poor for another.  Short of making several bookings and then cancelling, advance booking doesn't work for that kind of spontaneous travel.

sand_hun

giraffe69 said:

I agree £122 for a single is relatively expensive for this journey but you don't need to pay that (why would you catch the 13.03 for £122 when the 12.03 is £60.20?) and I repeat that if you lower the cost someone else has to pay. Who do you think it should be? You need to take some care and perhaps make a modicum of effort to check as, for example, you also need to do with air fares. 

Perhaps not everyone has the same flexibility as you in terms of when they can travel. Having said that, I'm absolutely prepared to put effort into finding cheaper fares where practically possible. Let's say I managed to avoid the £122 fare and instead picked up return tickets (between Birmingham and Newcastle) for approx £120. For four family members this would rise to £480. In my car that journey could be done for about £60. It's a shame as I'd prefer to go on the train, you can stretch your legs, read a book etc!

In answer to your second question, see the point made by @Herzlos above.

giraffe69

I think the answer to all that is you pay for greater flexibility. If there were 4 of you a friends and family rail card would apply thus significantly reducing the cost. Seems to me you are just looking for difficulties when solving some (but not all) of the problems is not that hard. There aren't that many people who have to catch the 13.03 and not the 12.03 I suspect.

yorkie2

anotheruser said:

Even weirder is that some destinations are always off-peak.  I'm pretty sure trains west of Bristol from Paddington are always off-peak - even at 5pm

Avanti have an off-peak coming out of Euston in the evening (3pm - 7pm I think it was?), yet London Northwestern don't if you're returning.  If you have a single, then I think there are some peak restrictions.  

Remember, standard train fares are set by the government.
Advance fares or TOC only fares are set by the train companies.  It may be that the 13:02 train had 10 Advance tickets at £20 each and they've gone already.  They could have had 100, or none at all.

Also, some TOCs will have particular "routes" that affect the train fares they set.
They could have very cheap fares from Derby to Newcastle or even Bristol to Newcastle to help passengers choose that train rather than a busier one.  This means there won't be any left in the allocation for Birmingham to Newcastle.

Train fares are complicated and it will change and get better but it won't be a quick job.

Find a local ticket office and ask if there's a better way to board the train.
They can advise certain things but will most ticket clerks will get you the cheapest ticket available.

Fares for journeys from Paddington to west of Bristol do have evening peak restrictions.

Restrictions out of Euston depend on the journey made and ticket held.

I am not sure what you mean by "standard train fares" '; Government does impose some limits on what train companies can charge, but the train companies do set the fares.

I don't understand the bit about "routes that affect the train fares they set" and don't understand your example.

As for fares being complicated, I don't agree for Anytime or Advance fares. For off peak fares you are right but there is no way to prevent complexity, at least not without massively increasing costs and/or introducing huge anomalies.

I don't understand what "Find a local ticket office and ask if there's a better way to board the train" means but in general a ticket office will only offer you the same fare as a standard train company website. Savings can be made - for some journeys - by using a split ticket provider, such as Trainsplit.

sand_hun

@ daft giraffe69

You are missing the point. For the journey in question, (Birmingham to Newcastle) £122 is the most common price for standard class tickets on this route. By your own admission, it's overpriced.

Even if someone is flexible with times,  eligible for rail cards and applies split ticketing, the cost is still higher compared to the same trip in a car.

Cost of single tickets from BHM to NCL in January 2022:

 

giraffe69

Then go by car! Often cheaper if there are several of you but count in the equation how much more tiring it will be especially for the driver. All I ever said was that no-one had the absolute need to buy tickets which, indeed, I agree are not cheap. Travel at a cheaper time and look at split ticketing seem like money saving efforts to me and if the former is not possible and splitting is not "worth it" for a 30% saving then, of course, consider an alternative. I would consider the 11.03 at £47.80 even if marginally less convenient and I'd also look at getting a rail card( unless you are 30-60, able bodied and travelling on your own you should qualify). You just seem to be looking for reasons to make it harder than it really is. Oh and is the pathetic insult at the top of your post adding to the force of your argument?