Comments on: Simplified train fares ripoff scam price rises

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:09:16 +0000

Has anyone else noticed that advance fares on Cross Country have all but disappeared? Anything out of Cornwall now is almost guaranteed no advance fare – so you have to split your journey – e.g. boom from Cornwall to Exeter and then you can sometimes (not often) pick up a cheap fare from Exeter to the north. CC Trains are the pits – there is no longer any buffet service between Penzance and Plymouth (2 hours). Badly managed too – all the buffet staff I've spoken to were employed originally by Virgin and are dismayed by the change of franchise. Their train managing staff are dreadful – rarely properly turned out, and look scruffy. Still – they are making First look like heroes of the hour – almost all First Advance fares have fallen (if you're quick enough), and the service is smart and pretty efficient.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:09:16 +0000

By: alex N

alex N — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:46:19 +0000

i realise that cross country has just gone stupid with there advanced fares now, it used to be that you could get a advance single from plymouth to birmingham new street for £15,50 and now that has gone up to £55.85

i think that is just profiteering, and apparetly they do not want to do any cheap fares anymore

it is actually cheaper to go via london to get there in first class in some cases,

most of first great westerns prices on advaced fares have dropped. with a railcard, plymouth to london it just £8.60 down from around £12.10

By: Teresa

Teresa — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:10:30 +0000

I agree completely about the hidden fare increases. It now costs three times as much to get my mum from Pembrokeshire to Cumbria, using national rail or virgin websites. There are no advance fares available at all, no matter how early I look, nor if I phone up. If I spend hours and hours researching the very few advance tickets available from the three separate train companies that make up the route then I can get the price down to about twice what it used to be by buying two or three tickets for each direction. (where does she stand however, if her first train into Crewe is too late for connection to Tenby, with only a pre-booked advance ticket for onward travel on a train that has already gone? Would the second company honour this ticket? It probably will not be dealt with on the same basis as a through ticket from Carlisle to Tenby.)

Her dad, by the way, was both a true gent and chief accountant to British Rail in the last year they made a profit, back in the days when customer “service” meant something. He and many of his colleagues are doubtless turning in their proverbial graves. “Customer prevention” – I like it!! Thats exactly the way it seems. They should give the lass behind the buffet counter who serves dried up sandwiches with a surly grunt a badge that says “I’m here to help you”, instead of one that says “retail services manager”. Manager? of what??!! There will be no sane customers left soon.

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:57:51 +0000

I have had the pleasure in the last month of not having to travel by rail – my blood pressure is down and i feel humanised again. Last week I travelled from Berlin to Leipzig – the train was comfortable and everyone had plenty of leg space – the food was not just ropey sandwiciche and the price was fait.

I’m currently on the national express train from london KX to Leeds. I’m cramped, feel depressed and have been grunted at several times by what are supposedly customer service (prevention) staff. I’ve also just had to pay full fare as I missed my previous train by 2 mins due to London traffic and my advance ticket is not refundable or redeemable against the full fare. When will train companies get into their thick heads – they run an inferior service but charge way over the top prices and if once in a while they were to try to help people instead of fleecing them at every opportunity they may get a more supportive customer base.

I really am going to do all I can to avoid travelling by train as the service is just getting worse!

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:51:12 +0000

hey guys, probably time to revisit this now that the fares have come in – *everything* is a lot more expensive. The cheapest ticket I can find on Virgin from London to Wolves now runs to over £40 return – with a fair wind a super advance return fare could cost as little as £25 or so before these changes. Chiltern trains (who do the really cheap walk up fare at Marylebone to Brum) have also doubled in price – used to be £5 each way (seriously!) and is now £10 each way and ticketing now looks to comply with the national rail standards (which is a step backwards in their case – they could previously text you a barcode to your mnobile to be scanned on the train, or you could just print out a simple form – 21st century or what – all gone now – it’s fast ticket machine or nothing)

This fare rationalisation is Just an excuse for rail companies to increase their profits at the expense of all customers – including the savvy ones who used to know how to get cheap fares by using the system to their advantage. We all pay the same price as the thicker end of the consumer spectrum now :\

By: Chris Barlow

Chris Barlow — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:55:32 +0000

We for me this now means I drive 9 hours every weekend rather than use the train. London Euston – Bangor leaving on a Friday evening returning on the 06:01 has risen 215%! This is due to the saver ticket restrictions being changed. I could turn up on a Friday evening and buy a saver return for £69.80 and use it on a Monday morning. No it costs £219.00!!!!

To take the care the return journey of 540miles cost aproximately £55 in fuel, it is crazy and I’m very angry about this. Especially as this happen as they began engineering works which means taken the train on a Sunday to avoid the new high fares isn’t even an option. Luckily I can drive but I feel very sorry for those that can’t. Base on doing this journey 46 weeks of a year it saves almost £7000.00 compaired with using the train.

What a disgrace these train fairs are!

By: Frank Spooner

Frank Spooner — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:26:43 +0000

Prior to May 18 I could buy a saver return from Manchester to Reading for £64.90 which allowed me to depart on the 07:54 and return on any train later in the week. To travel now with the same flexibility costs £108.00 if I want to catch the 07:54 from Manchester – This was quietly slipped in by XC under the quise of the Advanced Fair rationalisations. This is a fare increase of 66% – They claimed after much proding that only Virgin now allow savers before 09:30 and that they were just aligning with the rest of the TOCs.
Because of this I started buying Advanced when they are available (which seems to be quite rarely on the journeys I take) which reduced my flexibity and I now find that there has suddenly been an unannounced increase in these fares as well – this week the cheapest Standard Advanced Single from Manchester to Reading and vice-versa is £20.00 as of next week it is £21.50 an additional increase of 7.5% and the cheapest 1st advanced single has gone from £47.00 to £50.50 an increase of almost 7.5%. It seems to me that XC allowed a month to go by so they could say that there were no fare changes caused by the Advanced Fare rationalisation (the Saver return issue is something different according to XC staff) and then quietly slipped another 7.5% fare increase which of course has nothing to do with the rationalisation. It seems to me that XC just keep increasing the fares but doing absolutely nothing about the quality of service of timeliness of the trains.

By: V.Devers

V.Devers — Sat, 24 May 2008 09:35:22 +0000

Yes indeed!
Cheapest advance (railcard) fare from Reading to Weymouth before 18th May:£5.60.
18th May onwards:£8.90.
Representing a 59% increase.
Having contacted X-Country Trains about this, they basically said the fare hike was due to “other train operators” ie:SW Trains.
I won’t waste more of my time contacting SWT, as I’m sure they’ll blame “other train operators” as well!
What I really want to know is: How are large organisations seemingly allowed to get away with misleading/ conning the public (ITV/BBC with their premium rate phone scams to name but one example)?
Network Rail’s ‘Simpler Rail Fares’ leaflet clearly states that “fares will not increase as a result of the new fares structure”.
I bet if I made such blatently false & misleading statements to my customers, I’d be carted off to one of Her Majesty’s “Hotels” quicker than any train can travel!

By: Christopher Thomas

Christopher Thomas — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:28:28 +0000

Yes what a rip off! On Arriva cross country trains you can no longer use a cheap day return before 09:30 (used to be 09:00) and worst of all you cannot use a cheap day return to travel between 15:30 and 18:15 Monday to Friday. You have to buy the full standard return usually costs 70 to 100% more depend on journey! I travel to work after morning peak Burton on Trent to Birmingham (35miles) now I haVE TO PAY £13.80 INSTEAD OF £7.80 to return at a reasonable time. The increase will also hit shoppers who travel these times. Also any SAVER ticket priced by cross country is not valid before 09:30 before it only applied if your were travelling to London. How about Birmingham to Bognor regis £58.30 before and now £141. I think Arriva Cross Country are the first train company to try this before it affects everyone in September.

I think there are too many rail industry contractors, shareholders, consultants with their greedy snouts in the public trough. I have read that the government want to reduce public subsidy by letting us pay the high cost of a fragmented railway. But don’t be dishonest and dress this increase as simplification.

By: Jonathan H

Jonathan H — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:23:46 +0000

That’s great that your journeys are working out for you – for some, there may be improvements, for millions of others, there are doubling of fares. As I said: “It doesn’t appear to apply to ALL fares”.
Why would you want to go to Doncaster via B’ham? Reading > Doncaster is £11 via London.
I am talking about the heavy penalties for ALL inter-TOC journeys involving an AXC > ATW interchange affected by this “simplification”.

You heard ATOC saying this will NOT mean a price increase. And you heard AXC saying there will be price increases because of this. How can you defend that?

And thanks for your good luck wishes – and well done for representing your industry in some an embarrassingly “missing the point” fashion. Shouldn’t you be prosecuting women for standing near 1st class?

BTW, the journalist I spoke to yesterday (Wed) also read the release saying that this would not mean higher prices, and will be giving it “the works” when the local elections are done.

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:04:59 +0000

Sorry, tried local and long distance journeys and can’t find any major problems (Bristol – Doncaster, York – Kings Cross, Goole – Sheffield, Sheffield – St Pancras).

Checking journeys 9th May & 20th May has a couple of price differences of a pound or so on the long distance routes, but Advance tickets readily available.

I see your Oxford – Aberystwyth problem, so thought it might be a Great Western thing again, but Paddington to Dockyard prices are unchanged.

So is it a multi-TOC thing? So I tried Shoeburyness to Caldicot, via c2c, FGW & ATW, but again, prices are unchanged.

Last chance to get to the bottom of this, so Reading to Doncaster via Birmingham using the evil CrossCountry. Cheapest Advance option £46.50. May 20th, cheapest ticket on the same route £34.00 (prices via FGW & NXEA via London were unchanged).

Good luck with exposing this obviously crippling nationwide scandal. Heres some advice – You win some, you lose some, move on.