The state of rail in the UK
A great article from the BBC News website shows how ridiculous the current state of the railway system in the UK is.
Here’s an example for London -> Manchester (a trip many of my former BBC colleagues will no doubt be doing more often as it looks like BBC Future Media is moving to Manchester after all 
).
“To get to Manchester from London early, the only throughout return fare is the open return at £219. The train’s first stop is Stoke-on-Trent so you can’t split it into short sections.
Instead, buy an open return to Stoke-on-Trent (£182) then a saver return Stoke to Manchester (£12.30). Total £194.30, saving £24.70.
This works because the cheap saver return from Stoke is valid on any train, any day - and for the homeward journey this is no problem as all bar one train a day calls at Stoke-on-Trent.”
First up, for my American readers, yes that’s about $480 to get a return from London to Manchester - a 207 x 2 = 414 mile journey.
But because of the all the different train companies, and their different fares, it’s possible to pay ridiculously different amounts depending on whether you buy a straight through ticket, or a series of returns to local stops. Oh and no, regardless of how you ticket, you still sit on the same train - this ‘hack’ doesn’t require changing trains.
And I though the CalTrain sucked…
March 14th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
“it looks like BBC Future Media is moving to Manchester after all :-(”
what’s the
about???
March 14th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Well, er, I wouldn’t want to l live in Manchester.
I don’t think many of my friends and colleagues @ BBC want to move from London to Manchester - either personally or professionally (why move outta London when people flock into London specifically from the rest of Europe to work in digital media??)
Look, ok, maybe that’s not politically correct to say, but at least I’m being honest. Mind you, I don’t really want to live anywhere in the UK right now.