The bizarre UK rail fare structure
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I wrote recently about the complexity of judging the best way for me to travel to Glasgow Airport from my home in Berwick upon Tweed in Northumberland to catch my Easyjet flight to Berlin. During my research I found an advance purchase ticket from Berwick to Glasgow Central for £8.90 when bought online. I’m flying from Edinburgh Airport with Ryanair to Bremen in Germany in April, so looked for the cheapest rail fare from Berwick to Edinburgh Waverly. I assumed it would cost less than a ticket to Glasgow and you pass through Edinburgh at around the half way point or the journey from Berwick to Glasgow. Guess what, the cheapest fare from Berwick to Edinburgh cost a massive £18.20. That’s double the fare for half the journey! It’s all the more perverse because I’d be on the same train the 07.14 from Berwick to Glasgow Central, that I’m taking to reach Glasgow Airport.
Train by niznoz
I read that the UK has the highest rail fares in Europe. I would add to that that they are probably also the most bizarre. What’s your experience of the crazy rail pricing structure in the UK?
February 13th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Some people are catching on that it is cheaper to buy a ticket for a longer journey, particularly to a more popular destination, even if it is further away. So I would just get the same tickets for Glasgow again and just hop off at Edinbrugh?
The train operators, needless to say, aren’t so happy about people “taking advantage” of this and not utilising the full journey for which they got tickets for, so there’s probably caveats in the conditions now.