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View offers Hi {{fullName}} * My Independent Premium * Account details * Help centre * Logout (BUTTON) Off-peak intercity are congested while at peak times many people simply can’t afford to travel ( Getty ) The train that exposes what's wrong with Britain's absurd rail services Simon Calder on the finer points of why train ticket pricing doesn't make sense * Simon Calder * @SimonCalder * Thursday 18 August 2016 12:45 {{^moreThanTen}} * {{total}} comments {{/moreThanTen}} * Last Friday evening, just before a blanket of cloud chased the daylight from the skies over eastern Cumbria, the fells and valleys appeared as an alluring blur of wide, open spaces from the London-Glasgow express. But the wide, open spaces inside the train were alarming. This week we learnt how rail fares have risen at twice the rate of wage increases since 2010. They will go up again in the New Year by 1.9 per cent. An increase in regulated ticket prices in line with inflation is annoying to train travellers, though not to the non-rail-using taxpayers who subsidise us. But the fuss over a modest increase in fares is just a distraction from a more fundamental problem: we have the wrong kind of train fares. Those wide, open spaces on the London-Glasgow express should not exist. I boarded the northbound train at Euston at 5.30pm on Friday. That is the moment each week of peak demand, at least in theory: business travellers returning home should be jostling for space with city-breakers and people visiting friends and family in Cheshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and Scotland. Download the new Indpendent Premium app Sharing the full story, not just the headlines (BUTTON) Download now Southern rail strikes: Simon Calder on board the 5.20pm from Victoria With a £40 Advance ticket to Carlisle that I had booked 12 weeks ahead, I walked past a string of first-class carriages that were almost entirely empty. I imagined that standard class would comprise a Friday night scrum, but instead it was barely half full. The train between the largest cities in England and Scotland set off with hundreds of empty seats: a scandalous squandering of a valuable and perishable asset. Read more * Read more Rail fares increasing at double speed of wages, new report warns So where was everyone? Let’s consider just the category of people heading for Preston, the halfway point in the journey, who ideally would have wanted to leave the capital by train at around 5.30pm. Unless they planned well in advance, or had someone else paying, they would have been deterred from travelling on that service by a punitive one-way fare of £172. Instead, some of them were already well on the way to the Lancashire city; the last off-peak departure before the rush hour, fare £86, is mid-afternoon. By the time the 3.30pm service leaves, the fare doubles, and remains stubbornly high until the 7.30pm – which, from past experience, is a crush of ill-tempered travellers who are rightly irritated by not being allowed to reach their Lancastrian loved ones in time for dinner. Others will have opted to add to the congestion on overcrowded roads, whether by driving the 200 miles or going by bus. I don’t blame Sir Richard Branson, who lends his business empire’s name to the train. Nor do I accuse Stagecoach, his Scottish partner, of profiteering. They are obliged to incentivise you and I to travel when we don’t want to, and each week see their most valuable assets – seats on the 5.30pm from Euston – squandered. Created with Sketch. British rail travel through the ages Show all 30 Created with Sketch. Created with Sketch. (BUTTON) Created with Sketch. British rail travel through the ages 1/30 1875 The general view of St Pancras station in London 2/30 1880 The locomotive which plunged off the Tay Rail Bridge into the Firth of Tay after its recovery from the estuary. The disaster occurred when a section collapsed during a storm in 1879 and 75 passengers were killed 3/30 1885 An East Coast Express train at King's Cross Great Northern Railway, London 4/30 1890 A porter directing a passenger on the platform of a station on the outskirts of Liverpool 5/30 1900 Passengers sitting in the observation car on the Llandudno to Llanberis line in Wales 6/30 1910 A London and North Western Railway worker in the slip-coach of a train, which detaches at a station that the rest of the train is not stopping at 7/30 1914 French people leaving Victoria Station in London on the boat train to Paris, at the start of World War I 8/30 1916 A female guard on the Metropolitan railway with her emergency lantern 9/30 1925 Holiday crowds at King's Cross railway station, London Getty Images 10/30 1928 A young Easter holiday maker tries to reach up to the ticket office window to buy his ticket 11/30 1928 The luxurious first class lounge on board a London Midland and Scottish Royal Scot train. Known as the travelling hotel the train has a lounge, bar and private boudoir 12/30 1929 Two young women pushing their luggage on a trolley at Paddington station during the holiday rush out of London 13/30 1930 A worker sitting astride a locomotive whilst cleaning the boiler 14/30 1930 A third class Southern Railway carriage being hoisted at Southampton Docks in Hampshire 15/30 1930 The Bennie railplane being demonstrated at Glasgow, Scotland. It consisted of self-propelled passenger cars driven by air screws, suspended from a steel girder 16/30 1930 Seven of the new King Class steam locomotives Getty Images 17/30 1930 Passengers on the Bennie Railplane in Glasgow; the inventor George Bennie stands at the end of the carriage 18/30 1930 Port of London Authority workers unloading a shipment of bananas from a train 19/30 1931 London and North-Eastern Railway petrol train in Yorkshire 20/30 1931 Railway workers turning the LNER 'Hush Hush' locomotive No. 100000 on a manually operated turntable while a man films the operation with a hand cranked camera 21/30 1931 On the Great Western Railway, a film crew film the automatical train control in action 22/30 1931 Racing driver Lord Howe driving his Mercedes sports car onto the float at Dover, ready to be hoisted on board the Southern Railway's cross-channel steamer 'Autocarrier' 23/30 1933 Passengers making enquiries at one of the new Southern Railway information points on Waterloo concourse 24/30 1933 Fireman Blackett of the LMS railway saying farewell to his workmates and officials at Carlisle before finishing duty. He was off to America to assist on the Royal Scot which is touring the USA after appearing at the Chicago World Fair 25/30 1935 A steam train crossing the Darwood Viaduct, Cornwall 26/30 1937 A group of schoolboys examining a streamlined Coronation Class locomotive of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) at Euston Station Getty Images 27/30 1938 A member of the Berkhampstead Riding School tests her riding prowess against the Carlisle Express in a field that adjoins the LMS railway at Tring, Hertfordshire 28/30 1956 Women seeing off loved ones on a troop train at Woolwich railway station in south London. The men, of the Royal Artillery, are bound for Salisbury Plain for retraining because of the Suez crisis 29/30 1968 The 'Flying Scotsman' steam locomotive leaves a station to travel to Edinburgh Getty Images 30/30 1972 The Brighton Belle train leaving Victoria Station, central London 1/30 1875 The general view of St Pancras station in London 2/30 1880 The locomotive which plunged off the Tay Rail Bridge into the Firth of Tay after its recovery from the estuary. The disaster occurred when a section collapsed during a storm in 1879 and 75 passengers were killed 3/30 1885 An East Coast Express train at King's Cross Great Northern Railway, London 4/30 1890 A porter directing a passenger on the platform of a station on the outskirts of Liverpool 5/30 1900 Passengers sitting in the observation car on the Llandudno to Llanberis line in Wales 6/30 1910 A London and North Western Railway worker in the slip-coach of a train, which detaches at a station that the rest of the train is not stopping at 7/30 1914 French people leaving Victoria Station in London on the boat train to Paris, at the start of World War I 8/30 1916 A female guard on the Metropolitan railway with her emergency lantern 9/30 1925 Holiday crowds at King's Cross railway station, London Getty Images 10/30 1928 A young Easter holiday maker tries to reach up to the ticket office window to buy his ticket 11/30 1928 The luxurious first class lounge on board a London Midland and Scottish Royal Scot train. Known as the travelling hotel the train has a lounge, bar and private boudoir 12/30 1929 Two young women pushing their luggage on a trolley at Paddington station during the holiday rush out of London 13/30 1930 A worker sitting astride a locomotive whilst cleaning the boiler 14/30 1930 A third class Southern Railway carriage being hoisted at Southampton Docks in Hampshire 15/30 1930 The Bennie railplane being demonstrated at Glasgow, Scotland. It consisted of self-propelled passenger cars driven by air screws, suspended from a steel girder 16/30 1930 Seven of the new King Class steam locomotives Getty Images 17/30 1930 Passengers on the Bennie Railplane in Glasgow; the inventor George Bennie stands at the end of the carriage 18/30 1930 Port of London Authority workers unloading a shipment of bananas from a train 19/30 1931 London and North-Eastern Railway petrol train in Yorkshire 20/30 1931 Railway workers turning the LNER 'Hush Hush' locomotive No. 100000 on a manually operated turntable while a man films the operation with a hand cranked camera 21/30 1931 On the Great Western Railway, a film crew film the automatical train control in action 22/30 1931 Racing driver Lord Howe driving his Mercedes sports car onto the float at Dover, ready to be hoisted on board the Southern Railway's cross-channel steamer 'Autocarrier' 23/30 1933 Passengers making enquiries at one of the new Southern Railway information points on Waterloo concourse 24/30 1933 Fireman Blackett of the LMS railway saying farewell to his workmates and officials at Carlisle before finishing duty. He was off to America to assist on the Royal Scot which is touring the USA after appearing at the Chicago World Fair 25/30 1935 A steam train crossing the Darwood Viaduct, Cornwall 26/30 1937 A group of schoolboys examining a streamlined Coronation Class locomotive of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) at Euston Station Getty Images 27/30 1938 A member of the Berkhampstead Riding School tests her riding prowess against the Carlisle Express in a field that adjoins the LMS railway at Tring, Hertfordshire 28/30 1956 Women seeing off loved ones on a troop train at Woolwich railway station in south London. The men, of the Royal Artillery, are bound for Salisbury Plain for retraining because of the Suez crisis 29/30 1968 The 'Flying Scotsman' steam locomotive leaves a station to travel to Edinburgh Getty Images 30/30 1972 The Brighton Belle train leaving Victoria Station, central London Where did ticket prices go wrong? At the time of rail privatisation, the Government imposed measures to try to ensure that the train operators didn’t exploit the traveller. So prices for long-distance, off-peak rail trips are capped. In fact it’s only return journeys to which the price limit applies, which is why it costs just £1 more than that £82 single to Preston to get an off-peak return; train operators traditionally set their one-way, off-peak fares only fractionally lower than the return. Train operators have been able to play about with what constitutes peak time. Virgin has eroded the times when the lower fares are available, increasing the pent-up demand for the first northbound train at the end of the evening rush hour when the fares plummet. The operator sometimes sends out plaintive messages urging anyone who can delay their journey still further to do so. But it has no power to smooth the "cliff-edge" boundary between peak and off-peak. The fact that passenger numbers have doubled since privatisation suggests that plenty of people don’t feel exploited. (I’m talking here about long-distance trips rather than commuter journeys, which entail a whole other morass of rules and resentment.) Advance-purchase tickets enable rail passengers who are able to plan well ahead and be flexible about when they travel to enjoy the lowest inter-city fares in western Europe. For those who can’t plan months ahead, and simply want a reasonable fare on the day of travel, the convoluted system of regulated fares is supposed to help. But I don’t believe it does. Passenger groups are loath to see any diminution in the protection that rail travellers get against fare rises, and may defend a pricing system that involves a blunt instrument rather than sophisticated demand management. But the world has moved on, and the regulated fares arrangement is no longer fit for purpose. Imagine if easyJet suddenly doubled its London-Glasgow air fares between 3.30pm and 7.30pm.Those flights would be mostly empty, while departures before and after would sell out too quickly. Instead, of course, the airline responds to demand with a gentle curve in pricing, reaching a peak around 6pm but with plenty of options on either side. Either side of the London-Glasgow train is spectacular. We thinly scattered passengers can enjoy uninterrupted views, as well as the benefit of an adjacent empty seat for which we haven’t paid. Handy for us, absurd for the nation as a whole. More about Virgin Trains | train travel | London | Glasgow | Show{{#moreThan3_total}} {{value_total}} {{/moreThan3_total}} comments INDY/GO newsletter Time to Travel! ____________________ Enter your email address (BUTTON) Continue (BUTTON) Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid Email already exists. 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