FGW^▸ (First Great Western) is pilloried in it this week for a labyrynthine fare structure which not even the Managing Director understands. It seems that they arrested a passenger who had paid the legal fare. I think this really is unacceptable conduct by a rail franchisee.

We also have a UK^▸ (United Kingdom) railway that takes more subsidy than in BR^▸ (British Rail(ways))'s day and on certain lines probably including FGW delivers a worse service.

With the growth in passenger traffic since 1994, it has been pointed out that by now, if BR had been retained, it would have been generating a profit for the Treasury.

UK^▸ (United Kingdom) rail journey pricing is a morass of insanity.

(Off-topic/ Non-FGW^▸ (First Great Western)) A friend recently explained to me how to get advance purchase tickets from Ludlow to Mallaig and back for ^50 or so. The 2nd class return is ^163 which would have been a non-starter, ruling out making the journey.

Why cannot we have a renationalised railway and a website to book journeys & fill the trains as functional and transparent as say Easyjet's website? (the price of a seat depends sensitively on demand for that day and time of day, a 2000 km journey may vary from ^40 to ^150). They achieve 85% load factor. If the railways could do this they would save fuel as they achieve nowhere near 85% load factor.

With modern ICT, programming this to work for a single integrated railway system would be a relative piece of cake.

Er, renationalise the whole damned lot but run it as a government-owned limited company for which the bottom line matters, not as a department of government which is funded by the taxpayer.

BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) was doing quite well money-wise before it was forcibly dismantled. Since then, the taxpayer subsidy has risen, punctuality has on many lines fallen and it appears that fares in real terms have risen. Or is everybody else on long train journeys travelling on an advance purchase ticke. As far as I can see, these are the only way to make a long train journey as cheap as flying with Easyjet, Ryanair or Flybe. Unfortunately, their fares are cheap-ish up until the last week or so whereas advance train fares seem to disappear about a month before travel.

Because that price was so absurd, I've just checked thetrainline com, which for now works better than the new nationarail.co.uk,and it does give a return fare namely ^63.

Relative relief - but still a 25% rise on a few years ago.

D.

From previous experience, the trains I sometimes use on Xmas eve to get from Welsh border to Surrey are half-empty except for Reading-Guildford which tends to be relatively full, so why any rise in return fare which the last time I made the journey (2 years ago) was ^50. Now with inflation it would be maybe ^53?

But this year no such fare seems to be available, I'm being quoted double on nationalrail co uk although I won't know until I reach the ticket office tomorrow. Incidentally I'm having trouble using the new incarnation of nationalrail.co.uk, I gather from glancing at another forum it doesn't always even give the correct (walk-on) fares - if so, what's the point of it?

I have a solution: renationalise the whole damned lot and charge per km except for UK^▸ (United Kingdom) standard peak hours and if advance purchase helps fill trains they do can charge what they like as Ryanair does.

D.

Don't the  bulk of passengers support renationalisation given that the privatised system appears to cost more in subsidies and deliver less punctual trains than the nationalised one?

The worst example of petty red tape is that Arriva Trains Wales and FGW^▸ (First Great Western) can't be bothered to hold connecting trains for 30 seconds at stations like Newport where their networks intersect. As a result it is common for passengers to be delayed for 30 mins. or an hour just because a train was 5 minutes or so late.

Whenever I travel on continental railways, such as Switzerland, the fare structure seems to be very simple; e.g., you're never asked when you intend to return to Zurich. I suggest that ours has deliberately been made complicated in order to raise more revenue. Wasn't there an announcement last year about a supposed simplification to advance purchase, off peak returns and peak returns? That was followed this year by ... FGW renaming the off-peak the super off-peak and increasing the price of an off-peak by 15-20%.

D.

I'm new to this forum but not at all new to train travel. However, I haven't enjoyed it at all since privatisation and I'd class myself now as an "occasional traveller" - I find myself driving more than I'd like as so many train journeys are now unpunctual or a ripoff - or both.

My last real run-in with FGW^▸ (First Great Western) was in August. I was stranded at Worcester Shrub Hill after staff at Paddington didn't warn me that the engineering works between Moreton in Marsh and Evesham made it impossible to complete my journey to Leominster, despite leaving Paddington at 1750 h. Because I was uncertain of the right train to take, I spoke to FGW staff at the barrier, who looked at my ticket and said yes, get on the train to Moreton-in-Marsh.

At Worcester SH, the station staff got FGW on the phone and asked them to do the usual thing; i.e., fund a taxi for passengers who'd missed their last train, but they wouldn't pay a penny. Were any other occasional travellers stranded like this?

Being only an occasional traveller I didn't see the publicity material FGW claims to have issued. A lawyer has said that he thinks I may well have a case against FGW as they should have put up prominent notices at Paddington warning passengers not even to try and return via Oxford that day.

By the way I live in Arriva Wales territory and conductors still don't understand FGW's September fare increase. At Leominster last week I was sold a ^57 ticket that wasn't valid for my return journey from Paddington. I wanted to leave on the 15.45 h and this has now been redefined as "peak", meaning the fare has covertly increased by 20%.

D.