Rail fares up to pay for a worse service
■ The rise of train fares by up to 3% from January has quite rightly angered many rail travellers (Mirror, December 1). However, that is not the whole story.
Commuting from Letchworth Garden City to King’s Cross used to take 30 minutes but, since the timetable reorganisation fiasco, that journey now takes 57 minutes.
So, passengers are being charged more for a much worse service. Not a week goes by without delays and cancellations somewhere on the network and we aren’t even fully into the bad weather yet.
It is time the Government stepped in to protect rail travellers from this annual rip-off.
Harry Wright
Letchworth Garden City, Herts
■ The Department of Transport’s response to the proposed 3% rail fare increase was to say “any fare increase is unwelcome” and that the “taxpayers already subsidise railways by more than £4billion”.
How ridiculous. Why should our hard-earned money go towards paying the fatcat rail bosses, on average, a 6% pay increase on their already massive salaries? It is time we had a Labour government back in power to stop these insane pay awards and shareholder dividends.
S Womack
Selby, North Yorks
■ It has just been announced rail fares are to rise by another 3%. The reason, we are told, is because millions is being invested to improve the rail system. I beg to differ. Millions is being used to pay the likes of former Network Rail boss Mark Carne who earned £750,000 a year (Mirror, November 30) and to give huge dividends to shareholders. Very little is actually invested to make improvements for the poor passengers. Dorothy Baston Stockport, Gtr Manchester
■ The latest hike of rail prices from next January by 3% is a disgrace. Since May of this year rail travel in my part of the country has been in utter chaos. The trains are either late, cancelled or packed to capacity, which in itself poses a safety issue. I strongly suggest that until the rail companies address these issues they should be forced by the Government to freeze prices.
Ken Pennington Stalybridge
Cheshire
■ Once again, a price rise has been announced for rail passengers. The private rail firms do this knowing full well that they can get away with it because this useless Government will just stand by and do absolutely nothing to stop them.
It is a disgrace that they are allowed to treat the travelling public in this way.
David Mills, Bolton, Gtr Manchester
■ People need to stop complaining and realise that if they want a better rail system with new trains, then we need to start paying more.
The proposed £3.25 a week average increase for a season ticket is nothing. The days of rail travel being given large subsidies by the Government have gone. Paul Fletcher, via email ■ It’s been announced that rail fares are to go up, despite the timetable chaos. To add insult to injury, Network Rail boss Mark Carne got a CBE on the very day the industry regulator slammed the firm’s bad performance. It’s another example of failure bringing success, which is the norm in this country. Douglas Higgins Liverpool