The bizarre UK rail fare structure
Written by Karen Bryan
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?
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.
I am a steam buff and would like to take my friend who is allso a steam buff from crawley in sussex to york. The cheapest fare so far is £64 pounds each for a day return. I have looked at the train line ( cheapest fares on the net so they say ) to find they are no different to what the individual carriers are qouting £185 for a day return. Perhaps the National rail museum would concider building a replica museum down south as we cannot afford to travel to the north or maybe I will just polute the ozon layer and go by car for a mear £50 return in petrol for the 2 of us. Come on Government shake the railways up and make it affordable.