This is the biggest issue when it comes to increasing rail use– it is too expensive. Especially for longer distance travel.
‘Travelling by train from the capital to Scottish destinations is on average £161 more expensive than flying’
It’s 2 or 3 times more expensive to get the train. We’re not talking about a tenner here.
Solution provided won’t be to make trains cheaper, it will be to make planes more expensive so people get ripped off no matter what.
This has literally always been the case
You know that spaceman meme with the gun saying always has been?
>The Telegraph looked at a typical journey being made by a lone adult departing on a Wednesday and returning after seven days, with the journey being booked a month in advance.
>For one adult travelling from London to Edinburgh, the train is £256.80 more expensive than flying.
This seems…wonky? I go to London quite often and I’d be shocked to be paying £256.80 for the return, let alone £256.80 + whatever the cost of flying is.
The last train I got to London cost me way less than that – booking just over 1 month in advance for a return was sub-£100 on Lumo. No Railcard.
The article doesn’t say anything about the Telegraph’s methodology here – I’m not saying they are wrong but this seems so massively out of line with my experience I have to doubt it.
Yep. I’m far more likely to fly because of cost, and number of options. Plus, I just don’t trust the trains at all. The value for money is terrible and the recent storms just proved that putting your faith in rail travel in this country is a bad move.
It’s going to take a lot more than removing peak fairs to get the majority of people back onto them.
I’m not taking a crappy train from London to Scotland. I’m driving or flying.
The only time it’s ever slightly worth it is if you get lucky with the times and prices, have a big railcard discount, you’re bringing bulky luggage that you’d otherwise have to check in, and if you’re going somewhere right next to the station so won’t need to pay to travel into the city from the airport. It’s shocking
I think internal flights should be way less. Why can I fly from Edinburgh to Germany for £20 but not to London.
Use the bus
The UK is fucking haunted
I’m in Edinburgh and just out of curiosity I had a Quick Look to see what it would cost me to get to London. I could get on a train in a few minutes for £76
I do this journey a lot and, with a railcard, I find with advance booking it generally works out about the same, once you factor in cost of travel to and from the airports.
Reminder that it’s much cheaper to run an air route than a train. The infrastructure cost of rail is massive.
It’s though privatisation of a public service with a key environmental and social role is a bad idea. At least Labour will sort it out by deciding to do what ever your average gammon thinks is right.
It happens. The train has the advantage of city centre to city centre. The plane has the advantage of being marginally quicker including airport transfers. Just look for bargains on your preferred method!
Child lives in Edinburgh, we live just south of the border. They decided to have a weekend in london, do a show etc etc. Was far cheaper to get a return flight than use the train, absolute madness
Last time I flew into Stansted I ended up paying 20 quid single to get into London and the same back a few days later (though I suspect I could have done it cheaper with an open return), so i always add 40 quid to any flight when I’m comparing prices. Train usually winds up cheaper for me if I get my timings right. Though if you’re booking after the cheaper 12 week in advance release, it’s probably less expensive to fly.
I’ve stopped going home as often because the trains are so expensive now.
This totally depends on where you start – got a first class round trip for two for about 50 quid more than the flight cost. That flight cost didn’t include the cost of getting to the airport or parking the car there for several days.l or the cost of getting into the city from my destination.
The flights could have been cheaper if I had decided to travel to Edinburgh in rush hour which is always a good time.
Yeah, can be cheaper and it can be 10x the hassle.
oh man, 2 things.
I worked with the HS2 and it’s bonkers. Honestly, I have no idea what are they spending money on.
Second, when I was working in London, I wanted to grab a ticket and visit Scotland for tourism… the tickets were so expensive that I’ve decided to postpone the whole trip and figure out a cheaper way like flight or renting a car or whatever. Train was prohibitively expensive.
That‘s not new, is it…? I remember my friend having to pay more than £300 for a ticket from London to Edinburgh. That was in 2018.
UK train travel is quite f*cked in that respect. Which is a shame, the trains in Scotland were nice and the scenery was astounding. I also faintly remember a nostalgic notion of the British Isles as „train country“ from my childhood.
23 comments
This is the biggest issue when it comes to increasing rail use– it is too expensive. Especially for longer distance travel.
‘Travelling by train from the capital to Scottish destinations is on average £161 more expensive than flying’
It’s 2 or 3 times more expensive to get the train. We’re not talking about a tenner here.
Solution provided won’t be to make trains cheaper, it will be to make planes more expensive so people get ripped off no matter what.
This has literally always been the case
You know that spaceman meme with the gun saying always has been?
>The Telegraph looked at a typical journey being made by a lone adult departing on a Wednesday and returning after seven days, with the journey being booked a month in advance.
>For one adult travelling from London to Edinburgh, the train is £256.80 more expensive than flying.
This seems…wonky? I go to London quite often and I’d be shocked to be paying £256.80 for the return, let alone £256.80 + whatever the cost of flying is.
The last train I got to London cost me way less than that – booking just over 1 month in advance for a return was sub-£100 on Lumo. No Railcard.
The article doesn’t say anything about the Telegraph’s methodology here – I’m not saying they are wrong but this seems so massively out of line with my experience I have to doubt it.
Yep. I’m far more likely to fly because of cost, and number of options. Plus, I just don’t trust the trains at all. The value for money is terrible and the recent storms just proved that putting your faith in rail travel in this country is a bad move.
It’s going to take a lot more than removing peak fairs to get the majority of people back onto them.
I’m not taking a crappy train from London to Scotland. I’m driving or flying.
The only time it’s ever slightly worth it is if you get lucky with the times and prices, have a big railcard discount, you’re bringing bulky luggage that you’d otherwise have to check in, and if you’re going somewhere right next to the station so won’t need to pay to travel into the city from the airport. It’s shocking
I think internal flights should be way less. Why can I fly from Edinburgh to Germany for £20 but not to London.
Use the bus
The UK is fucking haunted
I’m in Edinburgh and just out of curiosity I had a Quick Look to see what it would cost me to get to London. I could get on a train in a few minutes for £76
I do this journey a lot and, with a railcard, I find with advance booking it generally works out about the same, once you factor in cost of travel to and from the airports.
Reminder that it’s much cheaper to run an air route than a train. The infrastructure cost of rail is massive.
It’s though privatisation of a public service with a key environmental and social role is a bad idea. At least Labour will sort it out by deciding to do what ever your average gammon thinks is right.
It happens. The train has the advantage of city centre to city centre. The plane has the advantage of being marginally quicker including airport transfers. Just look for bargains on your preferred method!
Child lives in Edinburgh, we live just south of the border. They decided to have a weekend in london, do a show etc etc. Was far cheaper to get a return flight than use the train, absolute madness
Last time I flew into Stansted I ended up paying 20 quid single to get into London and the same back a few days later (though I suspect I could have done it cheaper with an open return), so i always add 40 quid to any flight when I’m comparing prices. Train usually winds up cheaper for me if I get my timings right. Though if you’re booking after the cheaper 12 week in advance release, it’s probably less expensive to fly.
I’ve stopped going home as often because the trains are so expensive now.
This totally depends on where you start – got a first class round trip for two for about 50 quid more than the flight cost. That flight cost didn’t include the cost of getting to the airport or parking the car there for several days.l or the cost of getting into the city from my destination.
The flights could have been cheaper if I had decided to travel to Edinburgh in rush hour which is always a good time.
Yeah, can be cheaper and it can be 10x the hassle.
oh man, 2 things.
I worked with the HS2 and it’s bonkers. Honestly, I have no idea what are they spending money on.
Second, when I was working in London, I wanted to grab a ticket and visit Scotland for tourism… the tickets were so expensive that I’ve decided to postpone the whole trip and figure out a cheaper way like flight or renting a car or whatever. Train was prohibitively expensive.
That‘s not new, is it…? I remember my friend having to pay more than £300 for a ticket from London to Edinburgh. That was in 2018.
UK train travel is quite f*cked in that respect. Which is a shame, the trains in Scotland were nice and the scenery was astounding. I also faintly remember a nostalgic notion of the British Isles as „train country“ from my childhood.