HS2....who/what should we believe?....

[jean]

I wasn't aware you'd made any points - just excuses.

[Richard Barrett]

when discussing German rail fares, you have to take into account the discounts available (about which Richard has more up-to-date information than I do) - to qualify for these, you don't have to be either very old or very young, as you do here

That is true. What's more, children under 15 travelling with parents or grandparents who have any of the three Bahncards travel free.

Anyway:
Berlin-Munich (364 miles), leaving tomorrow morning at 8.30am, 125 € (£106) without any discounts; I would pay 93,75 € (£80) with my BahnCard 25 (61 € = £52 per year) at www.bahn.de
London-Dundee (364 miles), leaving tomorrow morning at 8.30am, £164 including online booking fee, at www.thetrainline.com

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Read this, and weep:

http://www.cresc.ac.uk/sites/default...une%202013.pdf

I've glanced at this and get the flavour. Its theme appears to be that the railways are a mess and the private companies are making excessive profits.

Given #121 I can't see any point in a reply, except to point out that it's your apparent view that the solution to this is re-nationalisation. To support that argument you've offered reports of franchise failures, and some verbiage from Bob Crowe. Now this report.

Seeing that the government are fairly central players in the present farrago, why should putting them centre-stage in an nationalised industry offer any prospect of improvement? If you know someone who can't run a piss-up in a brewery, don't ask them to manage yours.

[ahinton]

That is true. What's more, children under 15 travelling with parents or grandparents who have any of the three Bahncards travel free.

Anyway:
Berlin-Munich (364 miles), leaving tomorrow morning at 8.30am, 125 € (£106) without any discounts; I would pay 93,75 € (£80) with my BahnCard 25 (61 € = £52 per year) at www.bahn.de
London-Dundee (364 miles), leaving tomorrow morning at 8.30am, £164 including online booking fee, at www.thetrainline.com

According to National Rail Enquiries (which charges no booking fees as far as I can tell), the quote for the latter journey is £162.50 (so presumably www.thetrainline.com charges a £1.50 booking fee), but I note that the part of this particular journey that requires the passenger to travel between Glasgow Central and Glasgow Queen Street has to be taken by bus, which hardly adds to the convenience; there is a train at 09.00 via Edinburgh that requires no bus journey and arrives just 18 minutes later than the 08.30 and another at 10.00 that requires no changes of train and arrives just three quarters of an hours after the 08.30 departure and the fare for each is £92.50. OK, a later train from Berlin-Munich might likewise be cheaper than €125, of course, so your point about fares in general being dearer in UK than in Germany remains pertinent.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

That is true. What's more, children under 15 travelling with parents or grandparents who have any of the three Bahncards travel free.

Anyway:
Berlin-Munich (364 miles), leaving tomorrow morning at 8.30am, 125 € (£106) without any discounts; I would pay 93,75 € (£80) with my BahnCard 25 (61 € = £52 per year) at www.bahn.de
London-Dundee (364 miles), leaving tomorrow morning at 8.30am, £164 including online booking fee, at www.thetrainline.com

Interesting
London Euston-Glasgow (god knows how many miles by train, 400 by car), leaving tomorrow morning at 08:30: £73.50
leave at 07:30 and it's £54.00
what's annoying about our fares though is that if you'd looked perhaps a few weeks back you wouldn't see the same fares, nor, I suspect, would you see the same if you started breaking the journey with separate tickets 'via', say, Carlisle.
(And travelling on to Dundee, as per your example, can be done on a separate ticket costing £20.70; a total cost of £74.70 is therefore possible).

[ahinton]

Interesting
London Euston-Glasgow (god knows how many miles by train, 400 by car), leaving tomorrow morning at 08:30: £73.50
leave at 07:30 and it's £54.00
what's annoying about our fares though is that if you'd looked perhaps a few weeks back you wouldn't see the same fares, nor, I suspect, would you see the same if you started breaking the journey with separate tickets 'via', say, Carlisle.
(And travelling on to Dundee, as per your example, can be done on a separate ticket costing £20.70; a total cost of £74.70 is therefore possible).

I know; this very kind of thing is what prompted me to describe British rail fare structures as Byzantine, well-nigh incomprehensible and thus discouraging to potential passengers and which also enables that tiny minority of experts in such matters to purchase first class tickets at cheaper rates than standard class ones for the same journey. I do not pretend to be such an expert and travel only rarely by train but even I've managed to get first class tickets for less than the standard class fare with a little effort. The whole thing's utterly absurd, of course and it must surely be very expensive just to maintain so complex a fare structure and people have to pay for that just as they do for the lines and train services themselves.

[Dave2002]

I know; this very kind of thing is what prompted me to describe British rail fare structures as Byzantine, well-nigh incomprehensible and thus discouraging to potential passengers and which also enables that tiny minority of experts in such matters to purchase first class tickets at cheaper rates than standard class ones for the same journey. I do not pretend to be such an expert and travel only rarely by train but even I've managed to get first class tickets for less than the standard class fare with a little effort. The whole thing's utterly absurd, of course and it must surely be very expensive just to maintain so complex a fare structure and people have to pay for that just as they do for the lines and train services themselves.

I don't think it's so difficult to get cheap fares, but it's rather like booking an Easyjet or Ryanair flight. The fares vary according to day and time. Of course we mere potential customers don't know the exact algorithms used (against us?). With flights I have on occasions noted that checking at the end of the day by then the prices are going up, yet sometimes try again the following day and they're gone back down again, possibly due to some blocked seats being released. For the East Coast ML you can book months ahead, but if you try more than a couple of months ahead the price will usually be quite high - though of course this will guarantee you a seat. Around 2 months ahead the price drops to minimum, and then it's worth trying booking on different days and times to obtain the cheapest fare. You can also get East Coast to send you alerts when the prices are dropping. The strategy is similar with Eurostar - though the time before the train goes might be different. Probably the window of opportunity for a cheap fare is 1-2 months ahead of the train leaving.

I'm not going to discuss here whether this is a good policy - not yet anyway - but that might give a clue as to how to get the cheap fares.

[jean]

And you say that's not difficult?

[teamsaint]

just in case anybody isn't aware, (and cautious of the fact that I may have this wrong....) the first class tickets that are cheaper than standard second class are basically a feature of "Advance" tickets. So, where an advance ticket is theoretically available , an associated first class advance is also theoretically available.
I think its sometimes possible for second class advance to sell out, leaving first class advance fares available cheaper than standard off peak.

If an advance is never available, (EG for journeys to london from Salisbury) the cheap firsts are also not available. I think.
Although there may be other first class offers, EG weekends.

Actually, who knows? Handsoutosideshakeyheadsmileything.

[Dave2002]

And you say that's not difficult?

I think the people who think these price structures up work on the assumption that if you value your time more than the money you'll just pay whatever the "going rate" is, and very probably the tab will be picked up by a firm. That's the theory, anyway. Otherwise, people with too much time spare are not entitled to an easy solution, and have to work at it, and be computer literate, or know someone else who is, in order to get this done!

[Flosshilde]

And you say that's not difficult?

It's not, as described by Dave. It gets really difficult when you can split a journey into sections & end up paying less for the combined total than you would for the through ticket, even though you stay on the same train for the whole journey.

[Dave2002]

It's not, as described by Dave. It gets really difficult when you can split a journey into sections & end up paying less for the combined total than you would for the through ticket, even though you stay on the same train for the whole journey.

We used to have a man in our ticket office who was good at this. If you wanted to travel at, say 9am, he'd point out that you could get a ticket to a station further up the line, and then another ticket from there - which because the time had changed, would result in the total cost being lower. Lovely man, though "due to cuts" most of the ticket office services have now been reduced and he has I think retired.

I once wanted a ticket to Sheffield, and all the cheap tickets had gone. However, my final destination was somewhere between Sheffield and Chesterfield, so I checked the tickets there instead, and got a cheap ticket to Chesterfield, and arranged to be picked up there. As I sat on the train I noticed it was just about empty as we entered Chesterfield station - and remained so as the train left. It had in fact been rather empty all the way from Nottingham. The difference in ticket prices was far greater than the cost of additional petrol for the few extra miles needed to get to where I wanted to go, and I think probably far more than the cost of a ticket from Chesterfield to Sheffield.

Then of course there's the situation where the return ticket costs more than two singles, sometimes even with fewer restrictions.

A real fun one is on the GWR lines, as some reductions (significant) can apply for trains which go through Slough. This can mean it's actually worth starting at Paddington, rather than meeting a train further up the line, perhaps at Reading, which otherwise might be an option. There's no need to stop at Slough, or get off, and in fact it'd be rather difficult as most trains belt through it at fairly high speed!

[An_Inspector_Calls]

There is a further wrinkle to booking UK trains. I've found if you use the train operator's own booking system you can get better deals than those listed on the national system. I was booking tickets back from Glasgow just yesterday, but wanted to break the return journey at Carlisle. The national timetable was showing fares of ~£24.50 for this, but the Virgin system showed up several morning fares as low as £9.50. And the onward journey down the west coast was also cheaper than the national system showed.

There is a huge advantage to the rational system used in Germany. A few years back I'd booked the journey Frankfurt to Bayreuth at times to link with a flight from the UK. The UK flight was later cancelled and we were put on a later flight, rendering the train booking useless.

Not a problem: simply enter your booking reference into the Bahn system for a complete refund, ticket cancellation, and then book again. the tickets are all electronic as well.

[Dave2002]

There is a further wrinkle to booking UK trains. I've found if you use the train operator's own booking system you can get better deals than those listed on the national system. I was booking tickets back from Glasgow just yesterday, but wanted to break the return journey at Carlisle. The national timetable was showing fares of ~£24.50 for this, but the Virgin system showed up several morning fares as low as £9.50. And the onward journey down the west coast was also cheaper than the national system showed.

Nice one - I think we have noticed that as well with different operators.

Otherwise we use the national timetable to find out what's possible, then choose a booking system which doesn't charge an extra booking fee - e.g Cross Country Trains, or use Red Spotted Hanky ..... which I think gives points. There can be advantages in booking ECML tickets directly with East Coast Trains on occasion, other things being equal.

Simples - isn't it?!?!

[jean]

There is a huge advantage to the rational system used in Germany...

But how can that be? It's a state-run system!