The Price Is(n’t) Right

Thursday 6th November 2025

Taking day trips by train north from London always brings home the huge inconsistency of rail ticket pricing, especially if you want to leave the capital around 09:00 to make the most of your day and enjoy reasonably priced fares.

One of the worst culprits for setting unreasonable fares is East Midlands Railway. Reasonably priced off-peak tickets leaving London on the Midland Main Line don’t become valid until 10:05, which is frustratingly (and deliberately) set three minutes after a fast train, taking two hours and three minutes, leaves St Pancras at 10:02 for Sheffield. Catch that train and a return to Sheffield will set you back £161.50 – and that’s jokingly called an “Off-Peak Return” which also applies on the 09:02 and 09:32 departures. Catch the 08:32 and it’ll set you back £254.20 for a return London to Sheffield. What a joke. Aside from business accounts, does anyone ever pay that?

But after 10:05 the price falls to £101 – it’s called a “Super Off-Peak Return” – but the first departure you can escape from London for your day trip to Sheffield with that ticket doesn’t leave until 10:32 and as it’s a stopper you don’t reach Sheffield until 12:42. So, that’s the morning gone, and time for lunch.

A few weeks ago I needed to be in Derby earlier than the 10:32 departure would have offered (to take a ride on bus route 442 from Ashbourne) so I sought out an Advanced Single I could use on the 10:02 from St Pancras (well, actually, I bought the ticket to commence from my home station of Hassocks, rather than St Pancras). I was able to buy a single from Hassocks to Derby for £33.95 (with a Railcard) enabling me to leave Hassocks at 08:20 – a journey time on that network classed as peak hour and would have cost me £27.20 just to reach St Pancras (not being able to use a Railcard) or buy an Off-Peak return from Hassocks to Derby which would have set me back £184.20. So quite a saving as lovely though route 442 is, I don’t think it’s worth £184.20 to get there and back.

Out of curiosity, while on that 10:02 from St Pancras which is normally off limits to me, I did a head count of the number of passengers on this five coach train. There were just four passengers in the two First Class coaches (well, one and a half coaches actually) and only 40 passengers in standard class, with four members of EMR staff having hardly anything to do.

This just shows how completely bonkers EMR’s ticket pricing is. Why do we have to wait years for Great British Railways to magically make all this better (irony alert)? Why can’t someone at EMR ask permission of someone at DfT to change the time conditions for the availability of “Super Off-Peak” tickets from St Pancras by three minutes to 10:02 instead of 10:05, or even better, 09:02 as I bet that train is similarly lightly loaded. It might actually encourage passengers to use the railway when there are patently hundreds of empty seats going begging.

And before readers comment – well you could always buy Advanced tickets as you did on that occasion – I’m afraid restricting my travel to a specified journey doesn’t suit my travel needs. I want a walk on railway, not a book in advance railway. I want and need flexibility – not only in choosing the day I want to travel often at the last moment (seeing what the weather is like in the morning, for example) but also being able to change plans during the day and not be tied to a specifically timed train home again either. Just like I’d do if I drove.

That £33.95 ticket was purchased a fortnight in advance of travel, something I don’t like doing as it’s no fun travelling on a scenic rural bus journey in the pouring rain or gale force winds. Luckily the weather was fine when I travelled, but it might not have been.

After EMR, I’d nominate Avanti West Coast as the next most extortionately priced company. Travel for a day trip from London to Manchester on the 09:13 from Euston on a Monday to Thursday and it’ll set you back £386 for a return ticket. First Class is even more of a joke at £580. What planet are these fare setting people inhabiting?

But wait twenty minutes and catch the 09:33 from Euston where, unlike EMR at St Pancras, you don’t have to wait until after 10:05 for cheaper tickets as they’re available from 09:26, and the price drops to £114 for the two hour and 11 minute journey making for an arrival into Manchester before noon at a reasonable 11:44.

Moving across to King’s Cross for a day trip to York and, unlike St Pancras and Euston, you can leave as early as 09:06, albeit under the current timetable that’s a stopping train taking 2 hours and 24 minutes giving an 11:30 arrival in York. Mind you, it’s pricey as LNER’s flexible Super Off-Peak Single on Mondays to Thursdays is £75 making for a round trip equivalent return price of £150. Travel on the earlier train leaving King’s Cross at 09:00 with its non-stop journey time to York arriving at 10:53 and just the single ticket will cost £172.50 with a further £75 to get home making for an overall price for the day of £247.50.

Do you want to read a good joke? The equivalent First Class return price would be £291.40 (up) and £205.40 (back) making a total price of £496.80.

Let’s go south instead of north. A day trip from Waterloo to Bournemouth leaving London at 09:05 gets you to the Dorset coast at 11:02 and costs £172 return, but wait half an hour and catch the 09:35 which is 12 minutes quicker, having less stops, and arrive at 11:20 at a cost of £96.30. Not bad compared to heading north.

Update – sorry, the above paragraph contains errors as the prices quoted are to Weymouth not Bournemouth. An Anytime Day Return to Bournemouth is a bargain at £78.30 with departures after 09:30 seeing an Off-Peak Day Return at £75.30. Making for a great deal compared to heading north.

And heading down to Exeter from Paddington for the day you’ll need to find £299 to travel on the 09:03 which arrives at 11:13 but a more reasonable £153.60 on the 09:34 and 10:03 with the former taking a tedious two hours and 20 minutes, arriving 11:54, and the latter taking just two hours arriving 12:03. However, in a leaf out of EMR’s book, travel after that 10:03 has left Paddington by catching the next departure at 10:36 and the price you pay reduces to £115. But the catch is you don’t arrive into Exeter until 13:07 making it the latest arrival for your day out in this sample and time for lunch already.

Here’s a summary of the foregoing in a table.

You may have picked up that for both Avanti West Coast and LNER I referred to Monday to Thursday. That’s because on Fridays there are no peak time restrictions, so never mind the St Pancras ludicrously late 10:05 and Paddington’s 10:03 before reasonable prices kick in, from Euston and King’s Cross you can leave for a cheaper day out from the very first train in the morning on a Friday.

And that’s why many of my day trips north are taken on a Friday (eg Runcorn last Friday and another long distance trip is planned for tomorrow). From my observations, it would make no difference, and indeed might even generate extra passengers and revenue if the same applied on Mondays to Thursdays too.

Come on, all the hundreds of people working at DfTO, Shadow GBR, GBR Transition Team, DfT, RDG, and all the train companies. DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS. NOW. Not “coming soon”. Now.

Try making it that all reasonably priced fares (Off Peak/Super Off-Peak) commence from 09:00 Mondays to Thursdays and no restrictions at all on Fridays to Sundays from all London’s termini.

Simple. It could be sold as something to celebrate Great British Railways “coming soon”.

Roger French

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