It’s time to end senseless rail fare anomalies

Martin Shipton

In a couple of weeks time I have the unpleasant duty of attending a funeral in the north east of England.

As a young reporter I worked for the Northern Echo, a regional morning paper based in Darlington. My chief reporter was Malcom Wright, an outstanding journalist for whom I have great respect.

Sadly Malcolm, who went on to work for Tyne Tees TV and the Guardian, has died. Having heard of his passing from another old colleague, I decided that I had to go to his funeral.

I don’t drive, so will be travelling by train. A quick search on the National Rail Enquiries website told me that the return fare from Cardiff Central to Darlington with a railcard was £158.35 – not exactly a bargain.

Based on previous experience of buying separate tickets for different parts of the same journey, I managed to bring the cost down to £74.45, less than half the originally quoted price. That entailed buying advance tickets from Cardiff to Manchester and back, and similar tickets from Manchester to Darlington. I’ll be spending more time on the train than at the funeral, but I’ll make sure I have a good book.

I’m pleased to have brought the cost down, but annoyed that many people are paying far more than they need to when travelling by train over long distances.

Why can’t the train companies – who are largely responsible for setting the fares – get their act together and have a standardised charging system, like in other countries?

The fact that fares are so complicated and full of anomalies is one consequence of the botched privatisation of Britain’s rail system that went ahead in the early 1990s. Instead of privatising British Rail as one entity, the provision of train services was carved up into a series of franchises awarded on a geographical basis.

At the same time, rail infrastructure – the tracks etc – underwent a separate privatisation and became owned by a group of companies under the name Railtrack. After a few years Railtrack got into serious financial difficulties and its assets were taken over by a publicly owned not-for-profit company called Railtrack, which continues to this day.

The Labour UK Government is now in the process of reversing the privatisation of rail services by progressively taking back charge of them as franchises expire.

Setting fares

A factsheet issued by the Department for Transport about its Railways Bill states: “When Great British Railways (GBR) is established, it will become the main body responsible for delivering rail passenger services in the UK. As part of this, it will have responsibility for setting fares on the services it operates. Alongside GBR, open access and devolved operators (for example, ScotRail and Transport for Wales) will remain responsible for setting fares for services they operate.

Rail fares are widely seen as complex and confusing, with the current system of fares regulation proving inflexible and ill-suited to a publicly owned railway.

“The new Railways Bill will therefore empower GBR to simplify and modernise the fares landscape, enabling it to create a more intuitive and consistent experience for passengers while also granting greater commercial freedom to manage fares revenue and push forward with essential reforms.”

‘Extremely complicated’

However, Professor Stuart Cole, one of Wales’ leading experts on public transport policy, said: “I’m afraid it will be years before passengers notice much change in terms of fare charging policy. It’s an extremely complicated issue.

“A lot of the differential pricing happens on long journeys when part of a trip is in peak time and another part off-peak. Fares were made more complicated after privatisation when the old Virgin franchise introduced airline pricing, where passengers could find themselves paying different fares to travel on the same train, depending when they bought their ticket.

“It’s certainly true that you can save a lot by splitting your tickets, even if you’re travelling in the same seat on the same train. There used to be an anomaly where if you were travelling from Cardiff to London, you could pay less by getting one ticket from Cardiff to Swindon and then another on to London.

“There are a number of websites you can use with search engines that help you reduce the fare you pay. They will take as a fee part of the saving.

“But if you’re lucky enough to live near a station with a staffed booking office, those working there are meant to help you get the cheapest fare to where you want to go. There used to be an excellent booking clerk called Emyr at Burry Port station who was extremely knowledgeable about fares and how to get the best deal for passengers. Unfortunately he retired seven or eight years ago and the station no longer has railway staff.”

Current fare anomalies of the kind exemplified by my impending trip to Darlington should be eliminated. Surely Parliament has the chance to do that as it scrutinises the Railways Bill.