Rail fares in the North West: an unfavourable comparison
ON October 22, an article appeared in The Guardian titled: “Think Westminster’s a mess? It’s nothing compared to the North’s mismanaged rail system.” The authors were Andy Burnham (Mayor of Greater Manchester) and Steve Rotheram (Mayor of the Liverpool City Region).
As with most pieces in The Guardian, readers were invited to comment, and one person highlighted the high cost of local train travel. He travels the 9.5 miles each way between Wigan Wallgate and Burscough Bridge for work, and said his season ticket costs around £150 a month for what is about a 17-minute journey.
This caught the eye of TravelWatch NorthWest Chairman David Butterworth, who thought he would investigate further. He carried out a survey into the costs of train travel across the North West region for 20 journeys of between 14 and 18 minutes, comparing the Anytime (peak) return, Off-Peak Return and monthly season.
His report went onto the TravelWatch NW website and created a great deal of local interest, as a result of which he did a revised version that added Flexi-Seasons. This in turn
replaced the original, and readers can find the full revised report at https://travelwatchnorthwest.org.uk/are-fares-fair-on-north-weststrains.
He shows that the mean cost per mile using Seasons is 35p, but that within that basket the price varies enormously from 18p per mile to 59p.
As a comparison with ‘down South’, I took fares between Bournemouth and New Milton, also 9.5 miles. This has the same twice-hourly frequency - albeit the journey time is around three minutes shorter than that in the Burscough area.
Where South Western Railway has the significant edge is in having one hourly fourcar service and the other an hourly ten-car service - and both electric units, of course. So, do SWR users pay a premium over the fares in the North?
The ex-Wigan fares are £8.70 Anytime Day Return, £150.60 monthly season, and £65.60 Flexi-Season (any eight days in 25). The exBournemouth fares are £7.00, £118.30 and £52.80 respectively. So, the cost per mile using a Season to New Milton is 30p - half the dearest Northern example.
However, ignoring extremes, SWR fares are around 20% cheaper than Northern’s for a higher-quality service. I hope readers will enjoy reading the full report, which consists of an excellent analysis of the situation in the North West.
I confess that my comparisons with the South don’t surprise me. There is a perception that fares in the London & South East area (which includes Bournemouth) are expensive, but in general that’s not the case.
Yes, Scottish fares and those in the area west of Taunton are cheaper than here. But they are exceptional, being cheaper than almost anywhere else in Britain.
R