Compared with National Rail, are London’s Tube fares too cheap?

In RAIL 922’s The Fare Dealer, I wrote about the oddity of London Underground’s approach to its network.

It runs high-quality, frequent services using some excellent new rolling stock, yet many of its large outer-suburban stations are decrepit and lack most of the amenities that even smaller National Rail stations have, especially toilets.

I also criticised Transport for London (TfL’s) dreadful website, which is the worst of any transport provider in the country.

I was contacted by the excellent Barking

Gospel Oak Rail Users’ Group, to say that they found that for London Overground, TfL’s Journey Planner is only checked against National Rail’s data once a week. So, if something temporarily halves the frequency for a day, the planner will still show the full timetable.

TfL even admitted that when things go wrong, it doesn’t mention it on its website if it’s “only occasional trains cancelled”.

Reader Keith Brame emailed me in support of my comments on Thameslink being ‘temporarily’ added to the Tube map, adding that the map was too small to show every tram stop around Croydon, while soon having to show Reading to Shenfield - neither of which are ‘Tubes’ anyway.

He went on to say that his local station (South Woodford) had toilets on the Londonbound platform from the 1850s until recently, when the sewer collapsed. TfL has advised they will not be reinstated “because the sewer runs under the tracks”.

Given that its trains don’t have toilets (and not even Crossrail will, despite potential 60mile journeys), all London Underground

stations should have them.

Remember that by next year every train on South Western Railway, including its entire suburban system, will have toilets - and many of its stations already do.

I was also told that train destination indicators at Mile End were improved in 2011 for the Olympics, but have since deteriorated. They’re needed on the Central Line going east as trains alternate between Newbury Park and the Epping direction.

But TfL has said that “for technical reasons” it cannot provide adequate indicators at Mile End.

I have also written before about displays at many Metropolitan Line stations north of Moor Park - a vast investment in new trains, yet the station displays can only show the destination “see front of train”!

Now, a lot of fuss has been made regarding TfL’s March fares increase, largely imposed on the Mayor by the Government in return for the latter’s COVID bailout. Yet seen from the perspective of national fares outside London, they remain cheap.

Here are some random examples of contactless/Oyster Off-Peak adult singles: Waterloo-Paddington £2.40; Epping-Bond Street £3.30; Bank-Heathrow (Tube) £3.30; Waterloo-Chesham £4.30; Zones 1-6 Daily cap £13.50; Zones 1-9 daily cap £14.30; any bus or tram journey £1.55 (£4.65 cap). In most towns, you can’t ride one stop on a bus for £1.55.

Taking an off-peak return journey, Waterloo to Chesham is 23.7 miles each way and £8.60 on the Tube. In the provinces on National Rail, it would cost around £14. Epping-Bond Street is 20 miles and £6.60, but would be around £11 return elsewhere.

Is there not an argument for saying that fares in London are too cheap? If they were increased, might that not pay for decent stations and toilets, and generally raise the standards of the Underground to those of National Rail?