At last. Some good news on the railway: literally overnight hundreds of rail fares have almost halved.
On Saturday evening an off-peak single ticket from York to London cost £130. On Sunday morning it will be £68. From Berwick to Peterborough, the fare falls from £139 to £73.
From today, return off-peak train fares have been scrapped in favour of simplified “single-leg” pricing.
But before train travellers get too excited, this applies only to London North Eastern Railway (LNER) on the East Coast main line.
How will removing some of the anomalies in the fares system affect your journey plans? These are the key questions and answers.
What’s the problem with train fares?
Many people feel they are too high, and this move should address some of those concerns. More broadly, the rail industry (now almost completely controlled by the government once again), is hobbled with an anachronous fares system.
It was devised in the 20th century by British Rail for entirely different times and without the concept of online booking.
Rules have been “baked in” since privatisation that typically make an off-peak single ticket almost the same as a return.
Off-peak tickets are much more flexible than advance tickets, since they can be used on a wide range of trains and allow breaks in journeys – subject only to rules on timing, avoiding rush hours.
But one-way off-peak fares can be punitive.
Between Durham and London, for example, until today the off-peak single cost £163, with a return priced at only £1 more. It is now £83, a saving of 49 per cent.
This disparity was a deterrent to people who wanted to make journeys on a one-way basis (eg Durham to London by train, back by coach) or put together “circular” journeys such as Durham-London-Manchester-Durham.
What is now happening on LNER?
There are just three kinds of tickets:
- Anytime singles, which can be used on any train and are generally extremely expensive (eg £68 for a 45-minute trip from London to Peterborough).
- Super off-peak/Off-peak singles, which is what this measure is largely about (the difference between super and normal off-peak is usually just an issue of the times allowed). This is the category which has changed overnight.
- Advance singles, which as always are for specific trains and sold more cheaply than off-peak tickets.
That one-way Durham to London super off-peak ticket has…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Independent Travel…