First £1,000 rail fare in British history

[John Ashworth]

First £1,000 rail fare in history of British train travel

Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Business Editor
06.11.09
London Evening Standard

The first £1,000 fare in the history of Britain's railways has sparked fresh outrage over the “ludicrously” high cost of train travel.

The latest round of price rises means a first-class “walk-on” return from Newquay in Cornwall to Kyle of Lochalsh in Scotland is £1,002. Rail experts say it is the first time since services began in 1825 that passengers have been asked to pay “a grand” for a trip entirely in the UK.

Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Norman Baker said: “It is a very unwelcome landmark and will do nothing to encourage people to travel by train.”

The record-breaking fare emerged in a survey by rail expert Barry Doe. It shows that since privatisation in the mid-Nineties fares for long-distance trips have soared by up to three times inflation.

A first-class “walk-on” return from London to Manchester was £134 in 1995, the last year British Rail set all fares, but has trebled to £387.

Even inter-city fares “capped” by legislation put in place at privatisation have risen far more than inflation. In 1995 the cheapest “walk-on” return from London to Plymouth was £39, but is now £72. This is a rise of 85 per cent compared with inflation of 45 per cent over the same period.

But the most spectacular rise has been in the cost of the near-1,700 mile round trip from Newquay, on the Cornish north coast, to the remote fishing village of Kyle of Lochalsh, opposite the Isle of Skye.

As recently as September last year it was £486. But in May it breached the £1,000 mark. The total cost will be even higher as, except for the hardiest travellers, it will involve booking a £43 sleeper berth each way on the overnight section from Crewe to Inverness.

The train operator responsible for the ticket is CrossCountry. Three companies share the route: First Great Western, CrossCountry and Scotrail.

Mr Doe said that despite the high price passengers got little in the way of frills during the 20hr 30min trek. Trains on the first leg (Newquay to Par) and last section (Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh) do not even have first-class carriages, he said: “For the price I would expect to be given a meal as soon as I got on board.

What do you get with CrossCountry? For the first 183 miles to Bristol you might get a trolley service offering a cup of tea.

"From Bristol you might get some paltry snacks. You ought to be getting linen tablecloths and wall-to-wall service.”

Stephen Joseph, executive director of the Campaign for Better Transport, said: “We've been concerned about regulated fares rising by more than inflation, and by what's happening to unregulated fares. We would like to see the Government do a complete rethink of fare regulation so that they are simpler and lower.

"You don't get £1,000 fares in other European countries of Britain's size.”

Rail enthusiast Michael Palin, whose first TV travelogue was a train trip to Kyle of Lochalsh, said: “The fare is staggering. Fares do seem to be rising and complicated. If you're good on the internet you can spend a couple of hours and get
good deals.

"If you're not so good you can end up paying £1,000. This is what happens in a free-market economy where railways have been privatised. I don't think this is a journey I'll be doing.”

A CrossCountry spokesman said: “We've never sold one of these fares but there has to be a fare for every route regardless of whether anyone's bought one or not. The price of a first-class saver return (book in advance) is £561. That's
what people will pay if they want to do that route.”

Paying for the confused legacy of privatisation

Analysis

The long, tortuous journey by rail from the Cornish Riviera to the Isle of Skye is probably best left to the anoraks. If they could afford it.

A grand buys you a whole lot of Marmite sandwiches. But the price is symbolic of some of the jawdropping fares that can be found on the railways.

The research published today shows that if you want to just turn up and go, fares for long distance rail travel have soared since the last days of British Rail. The private operators, as you would expect, highlight their cheapest fares which are bookable in advance and some of these are remarkably good value.

But privatisation left a confused legacy of a two-tier pricing system: regulated fares that can only go up by one per cent more than Retail Price Index inflation; and unregulated fares where the industry sets the price.

Rail firms, under pressure from falling revenue in the recession, have pushed through huge increases in the unregulated fares to make up for the shortfall.

Cynically, the biggest rises have been on routes such as London to Manchester where they have pretty much killed off the competition from airlines.

Twelve years into the New Labour era, transport remains one of its biggest failures. There may not be many takers for Newquay to Kyle of Lochalsh but the extraordinary fare is a grim epitaph for a Government that promised “a clear, coherent and strategic programme for the development of the railways so that passenger expectations are met” in its 1997 manifesto.

Those expectations did surely not include having to fork out £1,000 to travel from one end of our relatively small island to the other.