Rail travel - a luxury?

[LSWR Cavalier]

When and why does first-class travel cost less than standard?

 

[Bald Rick]

When and why does first-class travel cost less than standard?

When the yield management system algorithms for advance sales say so. Typically because the lower tier price tickets in standard have sold out, and the next tier Up is more expensive than the (still available) lower tier tickets in first. Happens regularly.

Most obvious is when you book in advance for first compared to a walk up fare in Standard.

 

[RT4038]

Yes! Do richer people use trains or are people richer because they use trains?

When I rule, I will require all car dashboards to display a real journey "ticket" cost including servicing, taxes and pay that the driver could have earned in that time.

I hope that you want the same display showing how much the operator would have got paid (as chef, butler, cleaner etc) , on your stove, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, kettle etc

People don't need to know that information, and it is completely useless as no-one is going to pay me for those tasks. Of course, you might get your wife to cough up, but don't hold your breath and look out for her bill......

 

[Ianno87]

When and why does first-class travel cost less than standard?

When the yield management system algorithms for advance sales say so. Typically because the lower tier price tickets in standard have sold out, and the next tier Up is more expensive than the (still available) lower tier tickets in first. Happens regularly.

Most obvious is when you book in advance for first compared to a walk up fare in Standard.

Or sometimes the yield system makes the uplift from a Standard class to First Class fare such a small amount it triggers a "Why not?!" purchase.

 

[RyanOPlasty]

Having made the decision to own a car, I am committed to the fixed costs of ownership. These will be around 50p per mile on average but decrease as I drive more. The marginal cost of each additional mile that I drive are perhaps 20-25p, taking into account fuel, servicing, tyres, depreciation etc. This is more than the average cost per mile of rail travel (19p). This doesn't equate to a luxury service.
All things being equal then rail travel makes sense when travelling alone. Obstacles for me are usually related to availability of trains when I need to travel, especially at night and weekends.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've never understood why some people have a "thing about first class" as you put it. If someone chooses to pay extra to have more space, a "free" cup of tea, or a table lamp, what's the problem? Some people are prepared to pay for extra quality; should we stop selling coffee beans in supermarkets and make people buy the cheapest brand of instant that's more chicory than coffee? No of course not.

In both cases you makes your choice and pays your money (to reverse a well known saying). Why worry about what other people want to do?

I think the issue occurs where 1st has excess capacity and Standard undercapacity. Your 1st fare pays for one seat, not a half-empty coach. That's probably best addressed with Advances, though.

 

[Purple Orange]

In people’s experience, how different do WiFi connections vary in first & standard class? I find it to be fairly poor, but often if I’m working on the train, on many occasions I try to do work that didn’t necessarily mean that I need to be connected to the internet. All of which is work I can’t do from the luxuriousness of a car!

 

[Y Ddraig Coch]

Having made the decision to own a car, I am committed to the fixed costs of ownership. These will be around 50p per mile on average but decrease as I drive more. The marginal cost of each additional mile that I drive are perhaps 20-25p, taking into account fuel, servicing, tyres, depreciation etc. This is more than the average cost per mile of rail travel (19p). This doesn't equate to a luxury service.
All things being equal then rail travel makes sense when travelling alone. Obstacles for me are usually related to availability of trains when I need to travel, especially at night and weekends.

19p a mile by rail.....I wish!

 

[al78]

Life is so terrible, isn't it? Why should some people be able to buy their food at Marks & Spencers, whilst there are some who can't afford to and have to go to Aldi or Poundland? Perhaps modern day supermarkets should be all about being a convenient public service, rather than offering luxuries to those who can afford it?

If there were no first class carriages (with people paying first class fares) we could have fewer carriages on the trains, or less frequent services, and certainly higher standard class fares to make up the revenue shortfall. In spite of the carriages 'carting mainly fresh air', first class revenue on Avanti was (pre Covid) something like 45% of the total revenue. Be careful what you wish for.

The envy card rears its ugly head, as ever. It is not about the perceived unfairness of a subset of the population not being able to afford it, it is about whether it is an efficient and logical use of finite limited space to price tickets for a section of the train so high that they are sparsely populated whilst the rest of the train is rammed full. We don't have a facility where drivers can pay a premium for exclusively use of one lane of the M25 to bypass the traffic jams.

 

[Purple Orange]

The envy card rears its ugly head, as ever. It is not about the perceived unfairness of a subset of the population not being able to afford it, it is about whether it is an efficient and logical use of finite limited space to price tickets for a section of the train so high that they are sparsely populated whilst the rest of the train is rammed full. We don't have a facility where drivers can pay a premium for exclusively use of one lane of the M25 to bypass the traffic jams.

The envy card is frustrating. First class snobbery I’d call it. Trouble is, all it does is serve to shut down debate under the false assumption that the person questioning the need for 1st class can’t afford it or doesn’t value their own time as highly as the 1st class traveller. That isn’t necessarily true in the slightest.

 

[al78]

I think there's also an issue of spontaneity and fault.

For instance, if I wanted to go see my family this weekend by car, I could phone them up Friday morning and travel on the Friday evening and the price will broadly be the same as if I went on Saturday morning, Saturday evening or the middle of the day on Monday. But by rail this can vary massively which adds a level of inconvenience. Rail can be very cheap; but only if you book in advance which again adds some inconvenience and prior planning. It's not dissimilar to the airlines that way; when was the last time someone went to an airport to get a "walk-up fare"? It's a key feature of the railway to be able to do this, but you'll pay a cost premium to do so; again this is something people fail to understand when the sensationalist headlines come out about "Flight to sunny X half the price of a train ticket to Manchester"

Then there's fault - people often bemoan the train "oh I was 40 minutes late because I missed my connection by a few minutes so had to get the train 30 minutes afterwards". Or even without a connection, there's the issue of a point-to-point delay for what could be many reasons. People don't take that account in their car because a) there are no "connections" but also b) they fail to understand the delay. If you're stuck in traffic apparently that's "just the way it is", even though that is the equivalent of a signal failure somewhere on the line. People don't tweet at Highways England very often because they are stuck in traffic!

The rail company is the most visible presence when using the train, so instinctively if there are problems on the journey, that is where a passenger is going to look and/or turn too first. Unlike driving, if a train is delayed or cancelled, there are some regulations that govern what the passgener is and isn't allowed to do e.g. with an advance ticket, the ability to get the next available train of they miss a connection for a delay that wasn't their fault. If you are held up driving, that is usually caused by everyone wanting to drive on the same bit of road to the point where the road's capacity is exceeded, or because some careless idiot has had a crash and partially or completely blocked the road. Roadworks amplify these effects by reducing the capacity of the road. It is much easier to see that Highways England is not at fault because everyone wants to go to the seaside or the Lake District on a hot sunny Good Friday, but it is less obvious to those uninformed that rail delays are not always the fault of the rail operator, because the vast majority of rail operation takes place outside the field of vision of the passenger. Even so, people do complain about traffic congestion and delays that is likely primarily caused by roadworks, e.g. the smart motorway upgrades on the M6 and M62, decades ago we had something called the cones hotline, which people could contact if they felt there were roadworks that were questionable in some way e.g. taking a surprisingly long time, or is it really necessary to cone off that much road.

 

[ChrisC]

I would find it very difficult not to own a car because I live about 30 minutes walk to my nearest railway station and in a village which has no buses after 7pm Monday to Saturday and no buses at all on Sundays. When using the train, I currently enjoy the walk of just over a mile to the station, but will I still enjoy it in another 10 years time when I am in my 70’s? I mainly use my car for local journeys for shopping etc and for visiting relatives who live in parts of Lincolnshire and Suffolk with no useable public transport.

For a number of years now I have tended to leave my car at home and use public transport when I go on holiday. I enjoy the journey to and from my holiday destination by train and usually use local rail or bus rover tickets to travel around whilst I am there.

For me a very important factor in planning my rail travel is how acceptable the price is. In the past I have often used cheaper advance fares to bring the price down to a reasonable level. Using slower routes and trains and split ticketing are things I have researched into to keep the price down. I don’t really mind how long the journey takes as I enjoy travelling by train and using different routes. I certainly would never consider paying for a full priced ticket using XC for a journey like Nottingham to Cornwall.

A big game changer for me has been on reaching the age of 60 and getting a Senior Railcard. The 33% discount for me has brought most Off Peak walk up fares down to an acceptable level. I still split tickets to avoid paying extortionate fares set by XC. I now very rarely use advance fares as I prefer flexibility and I don’t worry quite so much about using inconvenient routes just to save a small amount. Having said that, I do tend to purchase First Class cheap advance fares for Off Peak journeys from Nottingham to London.
To sum up for me getting an acceptable price, where I don’t feel that I have been ripped off is the main thing, and the Railcard discount seems to achieve this for me in the great majority of cases.

This year with Covid has been very different. The few holidays I have had have been in quiet country areas inaccessible by train and so I have taken my car. I’ve actually really enjoyed this and may now do this more often in the future. However, I am also missing my holidays by train and bus.

 

[Harold Hill]

I travel on trains for recreation. Always First Class when available. If First Class goes I won't travel on trains. Cattle class doesn't appeal

 

[GlitterUnicorn]

Lots of people in poverty don't have a huge range, they don't travel much or travel far. In some places the train will be the cheapest way for them to get around their local area, but trains are almost always priced higher than the bus, so people will pick the bus. For them the train is an unnecessary expense.

It's the same for people on low incomes travelling long distance, a cheap train fare to London from Scotland is almost always more expensive than a bus ticket the day before!

 

[387star]

It's not a luxury; I invite you to travel on the Bishop Auckland to Saltburn line and tell me it's a "luxury".

Or the Hallam line (aka the @yorksrob line ). Or perhaps closer to home, let's say the Hadfield line.

Where fares are affordable you will find so-called "working class" (I really dislike this class terminology you wish to use!) people using them.

I wonder how you would define me? I don't own a car.

Interesting
My parents didn't own a car for years
What was the reason ?

 

[nlogax]

It was arguably kind of a luxury for many inner-city dwellers in the old days as well.

Rail travel was a luxury for certain phases of many of our lives. As a student coach travel took a far smaller chunk of my grant / loan than an equivalent rail journey and I'm sure I'm not alone in that experience. Having online access to dirt cheap advanced fares would have been a godsend.

Now I'm a middle-aged fart all UK rail travel is now well within my financial means but there's a bit of me that still vividly remembers student life and being broke all the time. Because of that I still ascribe long-distance rail travel to the notion of luxury, even if the reality is often entirely different.

 

[Ianno87]

I think the issue occurs where 1st has excess capacity and Standard undercapacity. Your 1st fare pays for one seat, not a half-empty coach. T

In reality, people do pay a 1st class fare often with the expectation that not every seat will be occupied.

Having online access to dirt cheap advanced fares would have been a godsend.

Now there's something we all take forgranted these days; easy online access to find fares deals. In days gone by it would be a 20 minute queue at the local station Travel Centre.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In reality, people do pay a 1st class fare often with the expectation that not every seat will be occupied.

They do, but they have no right (legal or otherwise) to hold that expectation; the fare pays for one seat.

 

[Purple Orange]

One angle to look at all as, is first class a luxury or an unnecessary extravagance? Tomorrow you could get an off-peak return from Manchester to Edinburgh up the WCML for £84.70 in standard or £179.90 in first (either direct with TPE or change on to Avanti). An off-peak return to travel from Manchester to London is £92.10 in standard and £318 in first.

For what you get in first class, an additional £226 is not worth the little niceties you get. Even those who think that being able to work justifies the expense are deluding themselves in my humble opinion, as you are subject to the same rubbish network.

In short, the incremental cost would make me feel very ripped off. Better to spend that cash on something of far better quality out in the real world.

 

[tornado]

As someone who did own a car, but now doesn't there is an advantage of rail travel not mentioned yet. I would often find that following a medium to long distance car journey I would need an hour to unwind from all the focusing on the road my brain had been doing during the drive. Also my eyes would be more tired than normal, and in general I would be slightly tense.

Take a long distance train journey on any of the Class 800 stock and the journey is so smooth you feel like you haven't travelled any distance at all. Plus there is zero downtime as you can do any activity you like as a passenger.

Also, looking to the future, more people are choosing to live in urban or semi-urban areas which can only mean more train travel.

An interesting survey was done in recently in which they found that a) there is a growing demographic of younger affluent Brits who don't own a car by choice b) there is also a growing demographic of working class suburban folk who couldn't afford a car but now can. Together these trends now mean that there are now slightly more cars on the roads, but a similar percentage of people don't drive. We could end up with a country in which only the poor and the very rich drive!

 

[nlogax]

Now there's something we all take forgranted these days; easy online access to find fares deals. In days gone by it would be a 20 minute queue at the local station Travel Centre.

Technology has definitely opened up the market to replace fresh air with actual passengers.

For what you get in first class, an additional £226 is not worth the little niceties you get. Even those who think that being able to work justifies the expense are deluding themselves in my humble opinion, as you are subject to the same rubbish network.

For someone like me in IT, yeah, £226 could be spent on better things (for instance it's half a PS5 ). For a lawyer or someone of a similar professional ilk they can make that back in a few hours and not even have to think about it. There's always going to be a market for some sort of premium travel on the network regardless of some of the hopeless underpinnings.

 

[route101]

Not to me, though this year I've had to tighten the strings. Took the overnight the megabus from Glasgow to London in Feb, not worth the cheap cost at all and false economy! Usually train for me around UK. Easyjet for a few select destinations.

I dont own a car, high start cost and i cant afford, will get one if a job requires me to get one. Though where i stay its 20 mins walk to a bus stop for bus to city or 30 mins walk to railway station. Does limit where i can work.

 

[6Gman]

As someone who did own a car, but now doesn't there is an advantage of rail travel not mentioned yet. I would often find that following a medium to long distance car journey I would need an hour to unwind from all the focusing on the road my brain had been doing during the drive. Also my eyes would be more tired than normal, and in general I would be slightly tense.

Take a long distance train journey on any of the Class 800 stock and the journey is so smooth you feel like you haven't travelled any distance at all. Plus there is zero downtime as you can do any activity you like as a passenger.

Doesn't need to be an 800 either. Coming back from Manchester after an afternoon shopping or an evening concert we cross the congested M6.

And always thank goodness that our train (be it a 390, 175 or 323) allows me to relax not battle through all that traffic!

 

[Ianno87]

Technology has definitely opened up the market to replace fresh air with actual passengers.


For someone like me in IT, yeah, £226 could be spent on better things (for instance it's half a PS5 ). For a lawyer or someone of a similar professional ilk they can make that back in a few hours and not even have to think about it. There's always going to be a market for some sort of premium travel on the network regardless of some of the hopeless underpinnings.

Plus lawyers etc can work in first class with a greater likelihood of privacy / containment of sensitive information.

The cost of the train fare is loose change in the context of their fee.

 

[6Gman]

I was thinking earlier about what I sometimes hear rail passengers say from time to time even in the present era, that 'this is their first time on a train in umpteen years' and 'why don't British Rail do this or that', or 'I'd like to reserve near the buffet car, facing the engine' etc.

You do realise you can still do that? (Even though the front of the train may no longer feature a locomotive)

 

[Purple Orange]

Technology has definitely opened up the market to replace fresh air with actual passengers.


For someone like me in IT, yeah, £226 could be spent on better things (for instance it's half a PS5 ). For a lawyer or someone of a similar professional ilk they can make that back in a few hours and not even have to think about it. There's always going to be a market for some sort of premium travel on the network regardless of some of the hopeless underpinnings.

Assuming you’re paying out of your own pocket, I can say from experience that the lawyer/accountant/other professional service ilk are just as likely to baulk at the additional £226. To earn that back in 3 hours, you need to be earning £128k per annum after tax. While there are accountants and lawyers et al who earn north of £300k, they are few and far between.

Remember when there was all the fuss other news about the top 5% of earners earning £80k per annum? A day’s work for them is £300 before tax, so roughly £200 after tax and pension costs. Even then it’s a case of asking if you’re happy to spend a day’s salary for a couple of hours on the train.

 

[Philip]

You do realise you can still do that? (Even though the front of the train may no longer feature a locomotive)

Buffet cars haven't existed for a long time on West Coast. It's part of what I mean about this luxury feel.

 

[yorksrob]

I don't have a problem with first class - except where it is empty and standard is rammed.

Technology should ensure that the above situation need not happen.

Whilst I do buy first class for some long distance journeys (providing the overall cost isn't extortionate)

I do regret not having the money in my youth to spend on 1st when the slammers were around with their first class compartments. That would have been worth paying a premium for !

 

[3141]

The OP has made a number of generalisations, but while it's true that a great many people never travel by train, there are a great many reasons why they don't, a few of which have been mentioned in other posts. I don't regard rail travel as a luxury, but like many things I weigh up how to get from one place to another, and choose the one that most suits me ands the circumstances.

No-one's mentioned sleepers yet. That's the form of rail travel that I'd most likely regards as a luxury,, but again, if I had to be in Scotland early one morning I might find that the cost was counterbalanced by the saving I'd make by not travelling the previous day and staying overnight. And if I had to be near my home the previous day then the sleeper might be the only way of getting to Scotland for the next morning, which might turn it into a necessity.

 

[L401CJF]

I work around 15miles away from my house, my early starts and late finishes mean rail travel isn't an option for a lot of the shifts. First train gets me to work for around 7am, last train means I can finish no later than 2315 however I think currently due to covid the last train is 30mins earlier so no later than 2245.

I own a car and so does the Mrs, I work 5 days a week so spend around £15 per week on petrol for commuting. A return on the train to work is around £4.90 i think, so around £10 per week more, which adds up over time.

I do use the train occasionally when I can purely for my own enjoyment, but the car is definitely more convenient, cheaper and quicker for me - I live 30 seconds from the motorway and get to work in 20minutes. On the train its 15minute walk to the nearest station, or 5minute drive to one with a car park, then takes 35minutes on the train (including a connection) followed by a 10minute walk to work when I get there. In my mind it is definitely a luxury, I couldn't afford to use it every week. My car is cheap on tax and never needs work doing on it touch wood.

If I wasn't interested in trains, I'd almost certainly not bother using them for commuting. That said, I always use public transport if I'm going shopping or for a drink over in Liverpool, much more convenient and cheaper when you factor in parking costs and tunnel tolls.