Vocal Voices

When we fly from Birmingham on the 25th we plan on getting there and back by train so I thought I'd check out times (and that there's no planned evening engineering work when we arrive home).

I looked at out regular route which is Cannock-New St-Birmingham International. All running as planned, travel time of 1 hr 3 mins which includes a 15 minute wait to change trains in New St and a cost of £9.20 for the return each.

We have another station nearby, in Penkridge about 3 miles away and this little village has a mainline station for some reason so I wondered if there was a direct train from there which stops at the airport (eg. from Manchester or Liverpool to Euston).

There isn't but we could get a local train from there to New St and then the same connecting Virgin train from New St to International which we'd get if we went from Cannock. Penkridge-New St-Birmingham International takes 53 minutes (again, with a stop in New St to change trains) and costs....£18.35 per person for a return.

I'm baffled at how it can be so different for a journey which is pretty much the same.

They charge what they like jo it's terrible yet trains are always full because they know passengers don't have a choice but to use them

I think the answer, Jo, is that Cannock is within the "Network West Midlands" metro travel area by concession, as are all the stations up your line to Rugeley. The idea originally was to "promote" the line when the train services were restored / enhanced on it, a throwback to the old "Centro" days.

Penkridge is outside the Network West Midlands area.

It might be that ticket-splitting at Wolverhampton would save you money, but it would probably be negligible. I used to ticket-split at Coventry when heading for footie matches in Northamptonshire; for me it was free to Coventry (Centro Senior Concession) and I only paid from there onwards.

https://journeyplanner.networkwestmidlands.com/station

We have some funny business down here as well, affecting fares and when you can travel. If you are on cheap day tickets, on weekdays, there are restrictions on when you can arrive at London Waterloo if you start from Salisbury or any of the stations east of there. Here at Gillingham, just to the west of Salisbury, we classify as a "rural" station and those restrictions are relaxed. There are, however, still restrictions on what trains you can use to travel back! It's all a bit of a minefield, to be honest, and even the Network Rail Journey Planner doesn't always get it right …..

There is supposed to be a root and branch review of how tickets are priced going on at the moment. It will be interesting to see the outcome - if any!

I have always found this website useful ……

ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/planjourney/search

might be worth a try.

Rail fares really should be standardised and affordable, available in the day of travel. The current situation is loopy

That makes sense in terms of the subsidy Os, but almost twice the price is ridiculous isn't it.

I only looked at Penkridge in case there was a direct train through to the airport but there isn't so it's not different to traveling from Cannock apart from a 10 minute shorter journey and the cost) and if we went from Penkridge we'd need one of the lads to drop us off as a lot of the walk would be down country lanes whereas Cannock station is walkable or there's a bus every 15 minutes if it's raining.

Crazy prices though, when we go to London we usually go from Moor St to Marylebone and can get a £12.50 return

Shouldn't have bothered buying tickets!!

We got on the train in Cannock and it was pretty empty yet the conductor didn't come through to check tickets or sell them to anyone who hadn't bought one at the machine. We changed trains at New St, no checks done on the next train but then it's a journey of less than 10 minutes and we walked straight through open barriers at Birmingham International so there was no need to put the tickets in the slot there.
On the way back the barriers were open at Birmingham International so again no checks were done. We had 40 minutes to kill at New St between trains so walked through open barriers there and went up to Grand Central for food. There were no checks done on the train between New St and Cannock either, and Cannock doesn't even have ticket barriers so obviously we just walked off the train and down to Joe on the car park without being checked.

How lax jo not very effective are they
Pity they have a date on them or do they welcome back

A few years since some work colleagues had to be in Southampton for a meeting at short notice. They found out it was cheaper to fly from Leeds than to take the train!