Last month, it was announced that rail fares would rise in March – again. But why are UK train tickets so expensive? I asked Cat Hobbs, the founder of We Own It, a group campaigning for public ownership of the railways.
I recently got married in Scotland, and it took eight hours to drive my bickering family up there. It was cheaper to do that – and pay for the therapy afterwards – than all take the train. Why do some experts say our trains are cheap?
Some of our advance tickets are cheap, but our walk-on fares are expensive. A ticket from London Paddington to Bristol in 1995 was £28.50. If the price had increased with inflation, it would be double – but it can go as high as £115. The 2011 McNulty report found that the UK’s fares cost roughly 30% more than those of other railways in Europe. And our government is obsessed with passengers footing the bill.
