Rail fare inflation - then vs now

[Olive_Green1923]

Every year we hear about how the price of tickets is going up with inflation, with passengers rightly angry about the cost of rail travel in comparison to other forms of transport and the wider cost of living / wage levels.

 

But has this always been the case? Have rail fares always been pretty expensive in relation to earnings, even back in the days of the Big Four or pre-1923? Or were they much cheaper in real terms than today?

 

Or is it the case that fares were actually quite expensive back in the early 20th century (even in 2nd or 3rd class), but that with such a bigger network, more choice, a better quality of service and no car or bus alternatives, people just accepted the cost of rail travel for what it was?

[Hal Nail]

Not sure you can compare that directly. 

 

Whatever people were paying in 1960 clearly wasn't enough to keep the lines open!

 

[Dungrange]

17 hours ago, Olive_Green1923 said:

Or is it the case that fares were actually quite expensive back in the early 20th century (even in 2nd or 3rd class), but that with such a bigger network, more choice, a better quality of service and no car or bus alternatives, people just accepted the cost of rail travel for what it was?

 

I'm not sure that there was more choice or a better quality of service in the past.  There may have been more destinations that could be reached by rail, but often with a much lower service frequency.  There are lots of places that I could travel to now with an hourly service (or better) that may just have been two or three trains per day a century ago.  I think it's just that people are more vocal nowadays and often have a more entitled attitude. 

 

Back in the pre-grouping era there was no car or bus alternative, so people either got the train or they walked.  Simple.  If you couldn't afford to travel by train then that meant taking a job within walking distance of where you lived (or living within walking distance of where you worked).  By the 1920s, bus was a viable alternative to rail and hence some passengers switched to buses as they became more widespread, as they were generally cheaper, but many still walked.  By the 1950s, private cars were becoming more common and many people switched from public transport to private vehicle.

 

Improvements in train services, bus services and cars have all resulted in people travelling further than they did a century ago.  For many years the average person has spent about one hour commuting to and from work (ie 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening).  Initially, that means that people chose to live within a 30 minute walk, then within a 30 minute journey by public transport and now it's often a 30 minute drive in a car (or on a high speed train).  That therefore means that people who do take the train to work are often living further from their work than they would have a century ago because train speeds are faster and there are usually fewer stops.  As such, this means people should expect to pay more than in the past.

 

If you want to look at specific examples, the Bank of England have an inflation calculator that lets you see how much prices have changed over the period since before the dawn of railways.

 

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator - For example, £1 in 1930 would be equivalent to £53.72 today (or to put it another way £1 was 53.72 times more valuable back in 1930 than it is today (May 2023).

 

However, that would only really let you see fares relative to other prices, which is probably not what you are really interested in.  However, there is also a purchasing power calculator on the National Archives website - https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/#currency-result.

 

£121 in 1930 was apparently a years wages for a skilled tradesman.  By 2017, that would have had the purchasing power of approximately £5,540, but that is considerably less than the minimum wage is now.  Much of what is considered 'poverty' nowadays would have been the norm back in the past, yet many whinge and moan now as though they are hard done by and society accepts that we all have a right to complain and grumble at costs.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Dungrange
duplicate word

[melmerby]

When I started work in 1962, I got £4 4s 0d for 42 hours

It went up later that year to £4 14s 6d and £5 5s 0d by the time I was 18.

I was officially a "Youth in training"

 

I've only just realised that each rise was half a "guinea" It's taken me 59 years to cotton on.😀

Prices were often in guineas in those days, e.g. a TV, probably 14" would be something like 110 guineas. (£110 + 110s)

Edited July 17, 2023 by melmerby

[Nearholmer]

Random example, London to Brighton Return:

 

1901, 3rd Class excursion return (this was a fare offered by certain trains on certain days, rather than a special train): 25p (5s)

 

2023: Standard day return seems to be £34, so 136x higher.

 

1901: Pullman day return, again a special fare, the lowest that you could get by Pullman: 60p (12s)

 

2023: 1st Class day return £84, so 140x higher.[Edit: see far below. It seems actually to be c£55]

 

Finding salary comparators is even harder than finding train fares, but an experienced male teacher in London seems to have earned c£200/year in 1900, and would now earn c£50000, so 250x higher.

 

On that basis, train fares appear to have fallen over the past 120 years.

 

But, it isn’t that simple, because income inequality was even worse in 1900 than it is now, so a very high proportion of people would have struggled to scrape together enough for one trip to Brighton at excursion fare each year, the top few percent were up and down by Pullman on a regular basis (and the LBSCR knew how to tap both markets!). Factor-in the complexities of housing costs changing over time, and a host of other things, and it gets very difficult to make a meaningful comparison.

 

 

But, one thing has remained exactly the same: when fares go up, people complain.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Dungrange]

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

But, one thing has remained exactly the same: when fares go up, people complain.

 

It's not just fares - look at all the threads announcing price rises from model railway manufacturers (or even just the 'ridiculous' cost of new models).

 

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

On that basis, train fares appear to have fallen over the past 120 years.

 

That's not unsurprising, as the cost of motoring has fallen and so has the cost of flying.  Indeed a lot is cheaper now than it was in the past.  As you rightly highlight, a century ago a very high proportion of people spent most of what they earned on rent, heating and food (ie the basic essentials) and an annual trip by train to a coastal town would have been a luxury (even in third class).  Many of the equivalent people nowadays don't want to work any harder (ie they want more leisure time) but they also want a bigger house, to run a car, go on a foreign holiday, buy the latest smartphone or games console, and still have money left to afford the latest high-spec locomotive for their model railway.

 

If the dastardly rail companies put up train fares (to cover increases in fuel costs and demands from rail workers for higher salaries or better conditions) then that is just seen as an obstacle in pursuit of their aspirations to afford everything that they want - hence the complaints.

[Nearholmer]

Or, put another way: we all got used to being able to afford a lot more “stuff” than our parents could, so that now some of those things are beginning to feel unaffordable again, if feels painful.

 

I try not to do the grumpy old bloke “when I were a lad” thing (try; not always succeed), because like everyone else over about 50yo, I grew up at a time when prosperity was increasing, and social mobility was pretty high. Taken overall, and recognising that every person’s experiences were different, “the only way was up”., so that you were pretty sure that effort led to reward. Younger people are now growing into a time when prosperity is decreasing, and social mobility is becoming a thing only old blokes remember; they can put in a stack of effort, but despite that the reward slowly reduces. It feels a less positive time to be coming of age than even the late 1970s.

PS: from what I could glean listening to oldsters as I was growing up, the 1930s was a fairly rubbish time to be coming of age too, even in the south of England.

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Nearholmer

[woodenhead]

Isn't the inflation rate rise we have now a formula like mobile phone contract increases so that the fares rise to cover increased costs and was a mechanism for managing contracts with TOCs?

 

However, in the early 1980s the Government of the day definitely targeted the amount of subsidy railways received and deemed that it had to reduce which meant bigger fare rises which culminated somewhere is massive increases in season ticket prices.

[Derekl]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

1901, 3rd Class excursion return (this was a fare offered by certain trains on certain days, rather than a special train): 25p (5s)

 

2023: Standard day return seems to be £34, so 136x higher.

The "Measuring worth" calculator gives the cash value of 5/- in 1901 as £28.87 (in 2021), so not that far different. But, there are other ways of comparing the value - the labour value of the 5/-, that is the multiple of average earning required to purchase the ticket as £109.90, suggesting that rail fares have become more affordable (not that i necessarily feels that way when buying a ticket).

[Nearholmer]

31 minutes ago, Derekl said:

that is the multiple of average earning required to purchase the ticket

Which, I think, is because of the very sharp distribution of earnings in 1901 as compared with now. Although distribution has become spikier again in recent years, the trend through most of C20th was a flattening of income distribution. The reversal of that trend is part of the “pain” being experienced by those who have become used to the C20th way of doing things.

[andyman7]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Random example, London to Brighton Return:

 

1901, 3rd Class excursion return (this was a fare offered by certain trains on certain days, rather than a special train): 25p (5s)

 

2023: Standard day return seems to be £34, so 136x higher.

 

1901: Pullman day return, again a special fare, the lowest that you could get by Pullman: 60p (12s)

 

2023: 1st Class day return £84, so 140x higher.

 

Finding salary comparators is even harder than finding train fares, but an experienced male teacher in London seems to have earned c£200/year in 1900, and would now earn c£50000, so 250x higher.

 

On that basis, train fares appear to have fallen over the past 120 years.

 

But, it isn’t that simple, because income inequality was even worse in 1900 than it is now, so a very high proportion of people would have struggled to scrape together enough for one trip to Brighton at excursion fare each year, the top few percent were up and down by Pullman on a regular basis (and the LBSCR knew how to tap both markets!). Factor-in the complexities of housing costs changing over time, and a host of other things, and it gets very difficult to make a meaningful comparison.

 

 

But, one thing has remained exactly the same: when fares go up, people complain.

I've just taken a look at a random date for August for London to Brighton and in addition to the above fares, a number of trains both out and back are currently available to book for £6 each way (= £12). That is probably the closest equivalent to the 5s (25p) fare quoted. That makes it remarkably close in terms of inflation and somewhat cheaper when compared to earnings.

[Nearholmer]

We could really do with a set of LBSCR fare tables, because I strongly suspect that the normal Pullman and 3rd fares were considerably more than the ones I found at random, which were clearly something exceptional, because they made it onto advertising posters.

 

There are some Met and District ordinary fares on a poster on-line, so maybe I’ll have a go at those later.

 

Of course, another route to thinking about relative affordability is to look at train usage, although there are other factors in that too. If you do that, then certainly commuting around London has been affordable (when mixed-in with housing costs) for a very long time, the railways having made it so, and progressively increased the distances over which it was affordable, until recently ………

 

Anyway, I’ve just passed through Victoria, so here are today’s benchmark “walk up” fares:

 

 

I make the “standard” fares to be about  1000th of the national mean ‘take home’ household income. 

[The Stationmaster]

Dobn't forget taht it was relatively easy to arrive at the price of a 3rd Class ticket prior to 1914 because it was fixed by Act of L. Parliament at 1d per mile,  After then it ceased to be fixed but the NRM have had a go at getting to some figures for the period from then until Selective Pricing came in -

 

https://www.railwaymuseum.org.uk/sites/default/files/2018-03/resource-pack-fares.pdf

 

Wage comparisons are a lot more difficult because of the factors mentioned by 'Nearholmer'.  It really boils down to whose , or what sector of the labour market's , wage/salary you are talking about.  Similarly lots of people simply didn't need to travel as part of their daily lives or to take the 'holidays' which their employer didn't give to them.

[Nearholmer]

London to Brighton by rail 47 miles x2  seems to run out at 7/9, so the 5/- ‘excursion’ fare was a bargain.

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Nearholmer

[roythebus1]

If you look at the fare quoted above £55 return, it's a tad over 50p/mile for London to Brighton. The Government/IR figures for using your car for business and tax purposes is 45p/mile.

 

I tend to compare prices by the cost of a gallon of diesel or a pint of beer. :)

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

A further factor which is very difficult to adjust for is change in the intrinsic quality of the product or service. Your current fare pays for such as smoke free travel (which reduces your laundry bill), air conditioning, power for your laptop, mobile phone signal, and a faster end to end journey time. 

 

I made the comparison today of the 20 miles return on the ECML between home and KX, remembering the previous usual vehicles, from the less than spacious GNR design Quad-arts 'rock and roll' via LNER and BR design all compartment  stock, Cravens DMU, and the 312 and 313 units once the route got 25kV overhead. I didn't pay attention to the identity of the zippy units that I rode in today, (probably 717s), because I was assisting newcomers to the UK to find their way. Incomparably more comfortable and faster than all previous, with the above mentioned utilities at seat (and keep in mind there was (well managed) service reduction today due to some industrial action, and it was still all good).

 

And the station announcement on return to WGC was priceless, guiding disembarking passengers to keep their distance from the train to give the driver a clear view; he got applause for it.

[johnofwessex]

I remember somebody saying that in the late 30's Swindon had something like 7 yes 7 expresses to Paddington on a weekday.

 

My mother went up to London for the day to see The Coronation from Bristol and that was thought quite remarkable.

 

These days a day trip from much further west than Bristol to London is quite unremarkable.

 

Its very hard to compare like with like

 

 

[adb968008]

Circa 2002 I could fly bmi between London and Manchester for £50.50 return in economy

What made it more remarkable was that they served a full english breakfast during that 30 mins or so airbourne.

i recall being grumpy when it crept upto £60…

now this wasnt advance fares either… on occasion they were walk up fares at Paddingtons checkin desk for LHR.

Pretty much the same price by rail at the time in standard off peak walk up in 2003.

 

Hex was. £25 return..in 2005.

 

Tonight a last minute BA flight to manchester will run me £355 (its actually sold out tomorrow)

a walk up fare return off peak on Avanti will be £103

a HEX ticket is £37 return (£25 single)

 

Of course Elizabeth line is £12.80 single… to zone 1, compares to Heathrow connect £6 from Hayes + zonal fares.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2005/jun/12/travelnews.observerescapesection1

 

 

So in general..

 

To Manchester has double in railfare, but 6x in airfare

Hex has doubled

Heathrow via none Hex looks to have been £6 + approx £3 (£9) from Paddington, or £8 for a travel-card (£14) if using tube, train and connect where as today its a direct train and costs less into zone 1 £12.80.

https://londonist.com/2011/11/london-transport-fares-2000-2012

 

market forces play here…

the days of BA and BMI flying hourly to manchester are long gone.

Connect was definitely replaced by a more convienient product, and thats eating Hex too.

 

Oh and chance of a full english on any mode of transport today to Manchester in economy.. zero.

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by adb968008

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

In 1969/70 a turn up and buy day return Sheffield to Chesterfield was 4/3 or 21 and a bit pence, nowadays it seems to be £11, I'm sure wages haven't risen 50+ times since then have they?

 

Mike.

[hexagon789]

11 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

In 1969/70 a turn up and buy day return Sheffield to Chesterfield was 4/3 or 21 and a bit pence, nowadays it seems to be £11, I'm sure wages haven't risen 50+ times since then have they?

 

Mike.

I don't know where you get £11 from but the four main return fares (Std Class) are in the fares database as:

 

Off-Peak Day Return (Northern Only) - £5.20

Anytime Day Return (Northern Only) - £6.40

 

Off-Peak Day Return (Any Permitted) - £6.70

Anytime Day Return (Any Permitted)

- £8.20

 

[keefer]

21p in 1969 is equivalent to £4.40 in 2023, so not that far off.

The thing to remember is, even when sticking to £sd, 1/- in 1901 was not the same value as 1/- in 1945 or whenever.

And surely the direct conversion between Imperial and Decimal (1/- = 5p) is only valid, value-wise, at or near Decimalisation.

There are so many other factors that come into play with the Railways, especially since the late '70s/ early '80s(?) with the increasing use of different fare structures according to route/day/time of day etc.

Normal return, day return, peak/off-peak, Savers/Supersavers (remember them?)  

I suppose another factor in pricing is seating capacity (or lack thereof).

Passenger stock today is relatively limited in number and certainly tightly controlled/diagrammed to achieve maximum usage. There is simply not the stock available to run any extra/relief services if required, so capacity is limited - hence the emergence of the 'airline' booking model where your fare depends as much on demand & availability as on route/distance.

[Nearholmer]

It’s not just train seats. It’s about everything that it takes to deliver a person moved from A to B, track, signalling, power supply, station platforms, circulating areas on stations, drivers, guards, station staff, depots, maintainers etc, etc.

 

Demand increased hugely in the past c25 years up to Covid on almost all routes, and it costs such a huge amount to increase capacity that it is vital to make sure that every last bit of the capacity that exists already is used ….. and one way to do that is by using fare structures to flatten the demand profile. The most cost efficient railway is one where all the seats are full, and the opposite is true of one with very peaky load factors.

 

Off at rather a tangent, and ‘anecdata’ rather than science, but: I’ve used trains in and out of London in the past fortnight, and at multiple different times of day, intercity and “regional”, much more than I have since giving-up daily commuting nearly seven years ago, and I’ve been quite taken aback by the changed travelling patterns. At ‘traditional peak’ the trains seem surprisingly under-filled, and it looks as if first class commuting and early morning business travel on intercity have absolutely plummeted (cars that were previously full enough to pay very handsomely, now re-assigned premium-standard, and three quarters empty), but the load factors off-trad-peak, including what used to be ‘counter-flow’ look significantly healthier, with what looks like a lot of people travelling on business, but in a different way from before. I tested my observations on the train conductors, and they said “yes, it’s a lot different”. It looks to me as if the Great British Public has significantly changed its travelling habits, and that, once all the current labour disputes are settled and stability eventually achieved, there is going to have to be a serious readjustment of capacity, fares, and “the offering”.

[figworthy]

40 years ago, with my student railcard, I could get a day return from Coventry to Rugby for the princely sum of £0.76. Looking at the National Rail Enquiries site, and selecting a  "16-25 Railcard" I get £4.95 as the fare.

 

Adrian

[bécasse]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The most cost efficient railway is one where all the seats are full, and the opposite is true of one with very peaky load factors.

 

While that is often stated, frequently by very senior railway managers who should know better, it actually isn't true. The most cost efficient railway is one where one never operates a full train unless just about every seat has been sold at the highest price. Thirty-plus years ago a certain BR sector director (who very definitely should have known better given his academic background) was seduced by the quoted load factors being achieved by the SNCF on their TGV network which used market pricing (as a political tool, it might be added, providing access to cheaper fares for the masses prepared to book well in advance) without noting that those load factors were only achieved by leaving significant numbers of train sets sitting idle in sidings on most days, totally contrary to the BR policy (established by Dr. Beeching) of largely maximising fleet usage, at least for long-distance services.

 

It is interesting that Eurostar, no longer able to operate fully-occupied trains because of frontier control logistics, seems to be making a success of targeting maximum yield instead.

[andyman7]

18 minutes ago, figworthy said:

40 years ago, with my student railcard, I could get a day return from Coventry to Rugby for the princely sum of £0.76. Looking at the National Rail Enquiries site, and selecting a  "16-25 Railcard" I get £4.95 as the fare.

 

Adrian

 

It's worth noting that until 1986 the 'Young Person's Railcard gave a 50% discount on Day Returns, the discount was then reduced to 1/3rd off; so the base fare has not increased by as much as you comparison suggests.

 

11 minutes ago, bécasse said:

While that is often stated, frequently by very senior railway managers who should know better, it actually isn't true. The most cost efficient railway is one where one never operates a full train unless just about every seat has been sold at the highest price. Thirty-plus years ago a certain BR sector director (who very definitely should have known better given his academic background) was seduced by the quoted load factors being achieved by the SNCF on their TGV network which used market pricing (as a political tool, it might be added, providing access to cheaper fares for the masses prepared to book well in advance) without noting that those load factors were only achieved by leaving significant numbers of train sets sitting idle in sidings on most days, totally contrary to the BR policy (established by Dr. Beeching) of largely maximising fleet usage, at least for long-distance services.

 

It is interesting that Eurostar, no longer able to operate fully-occupied trains because of frontier control logistics, seems to be making a success of targeting maximum yield instead.

Eurostar never tried to fill all their trains for the simple reason that the operational requirement for all sets to have 18 vehicles (2 power cars, 2 bar cars and 14 cars of accommodation) meant that filling all seats would have depressed the overall yield far more than optimising the revenue from each train.
That remains good pricing practice today not least because outside the times of highest demand having some spare seats makes for a more comfortable journey and in any case even nominally fully reservable services such as those operated by LNER require a quota of walk-up seats to be maintained.

Edited July 19, 2023 by andyman7
Spelling