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Comment by scmbradley | Hacker News Reader

From the looks of it, this chap was travelling around in first class. Which would probably give a slightly different impression of train travel... I suspect he also wasn't travelling at peak times when trains are at their busiest and most unpleasant.

To some extent, I agree that trains get a lot of criticism, and only some of it is deserved. But some of that criticism is very deserved...

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And travelling around with the sort of budget that can consider first class and a willingness to book tickets at suitable times (and comparing prices with international sleeper trains in the rest of Europe!) completely misses why British commuters paying 20%+ of their after tax income for an annual rail pass into London consider it expensive.

I doubt many people are paying 20%+ of net income to commute in

you'd have to be on minimum wage and a reasonable distance out (in which case you might as well just work locally)

10% however I can believe

I've posted this before: a monthly season ticket comparison from 2017 for UK and Continental Europe. The price differences between UK and other countries are stark:

- UK: Luton to London St. Pancras (35 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £387

- UK: Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly (32 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £292

- Germany: Dusseldorf to Cologne (28 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £85

- France: Mantes-la-Jolie to Paris (34 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61

- Italy: Anzione to Rome (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61

- Spain: Aranjuez to Madrid (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £75

Source is the TUC (2017): https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/uk-commuters-spend-6-times-much-...

> UK workers on average salaries will spend 14% of their income on a monthly season ticket from Luton to London (£387), or 11% from Liverpool to Manchester (£292).

> By contrast, similar commutes would cost passengers only 2% of their incomes in France, 3% in Germany and Italy, and 4% in Spain.

I checked the German rates recently and I wish that were still true. The ticket for going between Dusseldorf and Cologne train stations with intercity or regional trains is 175 GBP (146 if you book for the whole year). The one for regional trains only but including transport within the two cities is 269 (216) GBP.

Thanks for the update. The Dusseldorf and Cologne route monthly price seems to have risen quite high.

Here are the 2022 prices for the UK. The Liverpool to Manchester route price has dropped:

- UK: Luton to London St. Pancras (35 miles) | Monthly ticket cost: £387 (2017) | £452.80 (2022)

- UK: Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly (32 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £292 (2017) | £234.70 (2022)

I can add an extra data point for a country on the continent.

Switzerland: £327 a month with an annual commitment, unlimited use of the swiss rail network, local buses/metros/trams/boats etc, with the exception of mountain tourism railways.

I pay £8 for a 13 mile (~20 minute) train ride, 3 days a week.

Quick maths:

8*3 = £24 per week

24*4 = £96 per month

96*12 = £1152 per year

Which is about 4% of my annual income.

If I would take the train everyday, it would be about 6%. On top of that I also make up about 2.5 miles by foot every single day, to save on bus fares or even worse, cabs.

A comparison of a car driver would be useful.

I used to pay £68pm for this ticket https://legacy.wmnetwork.co.uk/tickets/#/ticket/109

It's now £80 but that's unlimited train travel around Birmingham and surrounding areas (to Wolverhampton or Coventry)

That was costing me like £3 a day for my travels for one train to Birmingham and back.

It can be quite affordable.

> UK workers on average salaries will spend 14% of their income on a monthly season ticket from Luton to London (£387), or 11% from Liverpool to Manchester (£292).

these figures are deliberately misleading (well... it is the TUC)

they're using the average UK salary

not the average London or Manchester salary, which are both quite considerably higher (London is almost 100% more)

The median should probably be used - the trains are much more likely to be used by people at the lower end of the wage scale. Charles may live in London and make ungodly income, but he’s unlikely to be found on the train.

> people at the lower end of the wage scale

I don't think anyone commutes from the Home Counties to a job at Pret. People on lower income still live in London, just in not as great housing. People on the train are people who can afford the choice of a luxury of a home in a village or the countryside instead of London.

> People on the train are people who can afford the choice of a luxury of a home in a village or the countryside instead of London

And spend 3 hours a day on a hellish commute 5 days a week?

Thats not luxury, that's torture.

I do know folls on lower end salaries that commute far, its not rare.

The "Stockbroker Belt" is a thing, and Sir Humphrey used to commute in from Haslemere (if only fictionally, but I'm sure he was based on real examples).

Have a play with https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/Season-Calculator...

My old commute into London was £3,660 per year - standard class. Pretty close to 20% of my net at the time. Plenty of people do it because big cities are where the opportunities are.

And that's not necessarily out of line. Where I live outside Boston which is within a (long--about 90 minute) commute into the city, commuter rail passes (including subway/bus) + parking at commuter rail station would run you about $6,000 per year.

But the point of comparison most people are making isn't with the infamously public-transport-averse USA, it's with countries in Europe where rail travel is state run and heavily subsidised (and the house price savings from living further up the line are smaller)

As of 2020 about 60% of MBTA costs were not covered by fares. I don’t know if that’s considered heavily subsidized by European standards or not.

The UK has an explicit policy of not subsidizing commuter trips, only longer trips.

it's actually the exact opposite

the commuter fares are regulated, none of the others are

I have been a London commuter for 15 years, with a £5k season ticket

quite why you'd subject yourself to that pain if you're on barely more than minimum wage I really don't know

If you’re doing that it’s because you don’t have a choice

Season ticket from not that far from Brighton is the best part of £5k a year. My good friend who commutes from there earns £40k before tax from his job in London. So I reckon some people pay 20 percent or more if they have a job they can only do in London, and for various reasons cannot living in London.

Annual season ticket to London from Peterborough, at the edge of the commuter belt with relatively affordable housing is £9,500 (including Tube)

That's 20% of your after tax income if you're on more than double the median UK salary

Or £8,800 if you choose the "Great Northern and Thameslink" only one rather than the "Any Permitted" one. The former lets you travel on the same services as the latter as well as intercity services operated by LNER. They are somewhat quicker of course by virtue of not stopping anywhere after Peterborough (if they even stop there in the first place!), but as Thameslink services continue through London instead of terminating at King's Cross their slower time to get to King's Cross can pay off with a shorter overall journey by virtue of not having to change trains (for a number of people, this can also mean not needing to pay for the tube either - bringing it down to £7,388 year).

Now undoubtedly £7,388 a year is a significant chunk of cash. But to be clear, Peterborough is very much on the edge of the commuter belt at 60 miles from London. A more typical 'commuter belt' origin on that route would be somewhere like Stevenage, Welwyn or Hatfield - which come in at £4,224/year, £3,300/year and £3,076/year respectively.

Commuting from Peterborough would be absolutely insane. You can't convince me you can't find cheaper housing between London and Peterborough. That radius has got to be the majority of the UK's housing stock?

Peterborough is a commute of around an hour, was a designated New Town for precisely that reason and tops most people's list of least expensive London commuter towns to actually live in.

Sure, you can pay a mere £4k per annum for your rail ticket coming in from somewhere like Stevenage, but then you have to find a mortgage lender that will let you borrow another £100k (and won't have a more exciting locality or fancier house to show for it)

Are we talking about the same Peterborough? It's north of Birmingham?

Yes, we're talking about Peterborough, the city whose main attraction is fast trains to Kings Cross in 47 minutes and slower ones around 1hr 10 combined with relatively affordable housing for southeast England. I take it you're not familiar with the place or the line (tbf you haven't missed much...)

It's about the same latitude as Birmingham but due north of London so the distance is a lot less. The property in the fens around is affordable and often comes with land; it is absolutely a commuter station.

Don't look at the geography, look at the travel time.

It's something people might do for a short period, or while looking for a better option.

A friend commuted from Coventry to London for a year. She moved there with her husband, but had one more year to go on her PhD -- using the labs at the university was essential, but there was also plenty of work that could be done on the train.

I’ve encountered people who commute daily from Worcester - 2hrs from Paddington. (One guy in particular used to get in at the end seat of the quiet carriage and snore quietly all the way into London.)

In the US at least that would get close to the cost of a small car with insurance and gas. However I assume the equivalent in UK would be more especially considering parking and intercity fees.

Sounds like the commuter rail is pricing itself just below the cost of a car.

Commuting into central London by car is the sort of thing that makes using the British railway system sound appealing

there's like 5 people who commute daily from Bristol too

peterborough is on the border of super-commuter category

Many more than that. Pre-pandemic Bath was quite busy in the mornings. Only 75 mins from Paddington, good comfortable trains, and always a seat, so you could work. What's not to like

10% is very believable. 20% isn’t implausible, e.g. Cambridge to London is £6k which would be about 20% of your net income if you were employed earning £40k (and putting nothing into salary sacrifice for pension).

Plenty of young people live in London on that sort of income but it’s obviously more difficult to make it work if you want to live alone or with more space for eg a family and I guess this is a big reason for people wanting to live outside the city. Though Cambridge is a slightly weird option there: the town is expensive and so are the tickets.

A funny quirk of the UK train system is that if you know what you are doing you can get first class upgrade for I think it was £5 on some of the major routes like Edinburgh to London, The author talks about the price differences with advance tickets so it seems like they did their research and didnt necessarily travel expensively

He mentions one first class journey.

That's easily affordable by booking well in advance, I sometimes even did this as a student if it was £5 more or so on a £50 ticket.

He mentions eating a hot meal in first class, he also has a picture of Trans Pennine Express first class seats. There's two pictures of hot meals. I'm leaning towards mostly first class tickets.

Yeah it can be affordable, but it doesn't give a representative view of train travel...

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