March 3rd - Avoiding the train ticket price hike
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2022
⏱️ 5 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today's podcast comes from Runcorn railway station! Living the dream, in spite of the mega-rise in the cost of train tickets. This week train fares rose 3.8%, the highest price increase for the last 9 years. But whether you're a commuter or hoping to embark on a long-awaited getaway, it is still possible to save money on your train journeys. Listen in for my money-saving travel tips, from finding cheaper alternate routes to exploring more diverse modes of transport.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on traveling, whether you're just dreaming of a great escape, looking forward to one or actually away, and having the time of your life. Right now, I'm not on a train, but I'm very close to one. I'm sitting at a railroad station. |
| 0:22.9 | Got a ticket for my destination. And as you will be aware, fairs rose this week by the highest |
| 0:31.2 | annual increase 3.8% for the past nine years. So I want to talk about how you can save a bit of cash and the |
| 0:41.6 | railroad station that I'm at is Bruncourt just across the Mersey from Widnes which is |
| 0:48.4 | where the great Paul Simon is alleged to have written homewardward bound, which includes that great line. |
| 0:56.3 | I've got a ticket for a railroad station, got a ticket for my destination. |
| 1:01.8 | So I'm here on the West Coast main line, or at least that was the line I came up on as far as |
| 1:09.7 | crew. |
| 1:10.9 | And a top way to save cash is simply to accept that your journey is going to take a little longer. |
| 1:20.1 | If you were to travel from London to crew on one of the Avanti West Coast trains, |
| 1:26.2 | that's going to cost you for a walk-up fare |
| 1:30.3 | £62, which is quite annoying for a journey of about an hour and a half. |
| 1:37.3 | However, if you decide, well, I'm quite prepared to travel, take take half an hour longer maybe 40 minutes longer |
| 1:47.8 | then London North Western Railway which confusing also calls itself West Midlands |
| 1:55.0 | trains is quite happy to take you there on a pretty fast journey. It takes just over two hours and they |
| 2:03.6 | will only charge you £35 from a walk-up fare. So already you're almost halving the cost |
| 2:11.6 | of the trip. A 44% saving I make it. They also though do a number of other things. Their advanced ticket prices are |
| 2:22.0 | extremely low. I've travelled before now for just nine pounds on that journey which is an awful |
| 2:29.4 | lot less than you would pay on Avanti West Coast. Furthermore, they have a link up with transport for Wales |
| 2:39.0 | and they say, well, you don't want to pay the wrong side of £100, well, nearly the wrong side of £100 |
| 2:47.0 | for a round trip between London and Manchester. we can do it for an awful lot less. |
| 2:53.6 | If you are prepared to travel on a transport for Wales train as far as crew, and then on one of our excellent West Midland trains, |
... |
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