Why aren’t all train firms backing Veterans Railcard?
Q When you reported on the new Veterans Railcard, you said that Grand Central and Hull Trains were not participating. Why not? Do train companies have to bear the cost of the railcard discount or is it the government?
Dave T
A Applications are now open for the UK’s ninth national Railcard – with an estimated 830,000 armed forces veterans eligible to apply. “UK veterans who served at least one day in Her Majesty’s armed forces or merchant mariners who have seen duty on legally defined military operations” who invest £21 in the card can, from 5 November, get 34 per cent off most rail tickets. But not aboard trains run by the two “Open Access” operators on the East Coast main line: Grand Central and Hull Trains. They are privately owned enterprises competing against the state-run incumbent, LNER.
As far as I can tell, this is the first time that train operators have declined to join a railcard scheme. Their
thinking is, approximately: “We manage our pricing to deliver good-value tickets for everyone. We can really do without having to give one-third off these fares to yet another cohort of hundreds of thousands of travellers.” That reasonable point of view has become particularly relevant with the collapse of passenger numbers due to the coronavirus pandemic and the only recently eased public messaging warning against rail travel.
LNER, the main operator on the East Coast main line, is publicly owned and all its losses are covered by the taxpayer. The same goes for other operators who were appointed by the Department for Transport (DfT) to run franchises. They are now acting as outsourced providers, with the DfT (and ultimately the taxpayer) making up the revenue shortfall. So the government is certainly bearing the cost of the discount schemes (and much else besides).
Hull Trains and Grand Central have no such safety net. A spokesperson for the latter says: “Grand Central, along with fellow Open Access train operators, continues to run services through the toughest trading conditions in living memory.
“Operating under an Open Access business model means we take the full financial risk of any local or national discount schemes we participate in. We continue to be recognised as the UK’s best-value operator in the twice-yearly National Rail Passenger Survey and last month we launched our own 25 per cent discount offer to students.
“On board-social distancing, local lockdowns and the ensuing drop in rail passengers mean Grand Central and its fellow Open Access operators face extremely tough business decisions daily, as we look to attract a share of a hugely reduced market. It is under these circumstances that, regrettably, we recognised it was not viable to participate in the latest national discount scheme.”
Veterans Railcards holders are of course free to buy tickets on LNER, where the discount applies.
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