Rail fares are still a bargain

Commuter fares are going up (22/8/14)! So? Battle to London peak-time return is £49; off-peak £22. Yet a £4,800 season ticket covering 47 working 5 day weeks equals £20.42p return, which equates to 17.6p/mile for the 116 mile round trip by road. Hastings to Tunbridge Wells for ‘only’ £2,300 p/a, equates to 16.8 pence per road mile. A bargain!

Compare that with those who have no option but to drive to work at an average 21p/mile running costs (47p/mile including tax, insurance, depreciation - AA figures). Road users pay heavily in taxes (especially hauliers, forcing up the cost of goods - which rail fares don’t do). Yet when Gordon Brown famously refused to reduce fuel duties “because they were necessary to save the NHS” - and then promptly raised the direct National Insurance tax on workers’ by 10% “...to save the NHS!” - there was not a whimper of protest from rail commuters!

No one forces anyone to commute to London and accept the higher London weighted salaries (well above our local salaries) which adequately compensates for the train fare! The London commuting lifestyle is entirely of their own choice, so can someone explain to us simple country bumpkins why they should expect local taxpayers to subsidise their chosen life-style and save them 15mins on a massively expensive High Speed train, which will run empty for most of the day?

With petrol at £6 gallon, would any rail commuters care to fund a new car for me?

Barry M Jones

Bixley Lane, Beckley