I enquired online via the Trainline & Northern regarding a day return to Knaresborough only to find it was a surprising £35. Bollocks i thought and went to the station where i got split tickets from Hpool to York return then York to Knaresborough for £20. Same date and same times.
Lets hope these closures of ticket offices dont take place or we will be in the hands of the rip of online sellers and station ticket machines that often dont work fully. Get on a train now without a ticket and its a £100 fine.

You can buy split tickets online too. Agree with your general point though - the passenger railway system in this country is in a state of collapse. Nobody who can afford one will be giving up their car any time soon. The trains are overpriced, run by rip-off merchants and constantly disrupted by industrial action.

Yes you can buy split tickets online and are sometimes highlighted but often not. In order to use them you need a bit of knowledge of the rail system and where they can be utilised but the whole thing just adds further confusion to ticket purchases. Surely what we need is a simplified system of turn up and pay where you dont find out later you have been overcharged.
The difference between £20 and £35 puts the car in front and the railways lose £20 in revenue which goes straight to their bottom line.
Madness.

just why are split tickets cheaper than just booking one from where you are getting on to your final destination. when that happened at one time it was called a mistake and was quickly rectified. just what benefit do companies actually get from passengers having to do it is totally beyond me. its not as if its a best kept secret anymore doing this. can this be done also by using a platform ticket machine.

Nationalise it.
Everyone used to slag off BR and it wasn’t justified, but it’s still a hundred times better than this crap.
If a train doesn’t go to London, they don’t give a toss.

even plenty of tories are now thinking the same. all the privitisation of the 80,s and 90,s just has not worked for the vast majority of us and gained little if no benefit from all of it. they are only bothered about london because they get their biggest profits from it and going back to the network that existed in 1960 would make most travellers happy even at 2023 prices.

Problem was that BR were losing millions and had to be subsidised by the tax payer year on year, so the solution was to privatise. Not saying the present situation is fine because it obviously isn't. Could BR have been transformed so it could break even? No idea.

if transport was regarded more as a service than a break even or profit making thing then things would improve. many other services are not there for just making a profit and are either subsidised by ratepayers or tax payers. if its arts thats your thing then its all subsidised and nobody bats an eyelid. there are plenty of things where billions can be saved for stuff we want. try the illegals just for a start and other vanity projects that pop up quite regularly for the minority.

you say BR were subsidised, how much Tax payers money goes to the rail companies now, is GNER still in government handstand what about when the banks failed, tax payers pulled them out of the crapand they are now putting rates up for borrowers but not savers, all the services should be owned by the country

The state has taken over LNER twice from failed franchise operators and turned a profit, so it can be done. Using profits to improve the service is the way forward. Customers before shareholders!

exactly and following europe more than they follow the usa on transport and possibly medicine in the future.

I have no interest in defending the current railway situation. I was merely pointing out why they were privatized in the first place but not suggesting it was a good idea because in terms of the customers experience, it can not be considered a success. I agree that making huge profits for shareholders is not the best way forward but as I recall BR's regular and ever growing losses were deemed to be unacceptable. Any organization whether transport or ice cream making, needs to at least break even because making annual losses leads to the closing of the company or the need for subsidisation. When the interest rate goes up it always benefits people who save, the idea being that they have an incentive to save rather than spend which helps reduce inflation. If people borrow money they know that interest rates can go up as they are doing now.

This is what is being proposed and seems to get cross party support but nothing has been timetabled in government to get this done which is unbelievable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_British_Railways

What surprises me is people expect the world to be fair.
Pure fantasy.

Very true.

Are you serious, the subsidies BR got were peanuts in comparison, but it it always pays to rubbish BR in the media to pave the way for the brave new world of privatisation….. flash packaging and you pay through nose for it.
BR were pilloried for years but despite subsidies were ran on a shoestring to justify privatisation.

Interesting take. So was BR run on a shoesting during during the Wilson and Callaghan government in order to prepare for privatisation or were they just running at a loss?

The railway never ran at a loss under the government as BR. It alway made money and both Torrie and Labour left them privatised for so long, was because they were making so much money from the Train Operating Company.
Now the Government want it back to line their own pockets. That's the reason why they are setting up Great British Railways. However, ASLEF who have campaigned for the last 25 years to rationalise the railway, are now spitting out their dummies. This is because they realised that they won't make as much money in Subs, because Drivers won't get pay rises every year and they'll have to drag themselves into the 21st century rather than living in the 80/90's.

These actions short of a strike are political motivated.

I’d rather the government had it back to line their pockets (our pockets that is) than lining the pockets of investors in the train companies.
The railways, aka BR and it’s property portfolio ie hotels and industrial locations was never a private company being wholly owned by the government and therefore came as one package and self subsidise itself.

They underfunded it. Like most countries in Europe it was loss making and not profitable for most of its history .
Since privatisation by Thatcher, the amount spent by governments is three times that spent on BR in comparable subsidies… and BR was not paying dividends to shareholders either, because it had none.
At the time of privatisation there was not enough revenue to to meet the operational costs, capital investment and payments to shareholders.
Was the cost increased three fold under privatisation to fund the shareholder’s dividends, do the maths.

I thought that shareholders in any company only get dividends if the company makes a profit so I am not sure how to do the maths.

It was John Major who privatozed BR though Thatcher had sold off some of its assets, hotels for example.

She turned the ignition on and put it into gear…..all Major did was put it into second gear

There are a number of apps and websites that do it all for you. You don’t really need much knowledge of railways anymore. As long as you know where you are going and where from you can get split tickets pretty easily.

For what it’s worth Train Pal is the one I use the most. Always handy for away days with pools.

Good info, Mr Corner.

Just downloaded it. Looks good.

the only problem with nationalised or council run public transport services is that they are overmanned by non essential workers. if they were both run like private companies ran em then we would not have the problems this created. then you get the NHS who find money for pen pushers and diversity officers paid 3 or 4 times a nurse with ten times less value giving more power to those who want that privitised.

Gonna disagree sort of….one time Councils and the NHS were run on tight lines, believe you me, but like everything nowadays everything is management top heavy with people who appear to spend most of their work time socialising while the work force on the ground is reduced….. but the workload increased.

when the PTE,s were set up in the 70,s to run the buses by county councils mine consisteed of bradford, halifax, huddersfirld and leeds transport companies. firstly the new company had new head offices based in wakefield where they did not have a single bus coming to it. bradford made a slight profit, huddersfield and halifax had slight losses but leeds lost a fortune. which company did they base their opperations on. you have gussed it leeds. later on in the 90,s i worked for west midlands travel in coventry where that ws privitised and consisted in a short time of losing a full floor of office staff along with every inspector.

Saw an interview in the US where they were discussing a university where there was 3 administrators for every 5 students……could it be with everyone apparently coming away with degrees now they have to justify it by employing them as ‘administrators’…?

Paid Trainline £13.70 for single from Hartlepool to Newcastle Airport on Saturday, I am now getting a lift, applied for a refund, I received £3.70 !

thats about right. 10 quid service charge remember.

How did you manage to get as much as that back you lucky, lucky man