Lessons from a walk in the woods
Later this week I’m going to write about the Williams review.
But first, here’s a case-study that illustrates some of what I’m going to say.
Holmwood bound
Do you remember how, last October half-term, we were allowed to go places?
Well, as a family, we decided to go for a country walk.
I had identified what looked like a lovely walk in Surrey that was just the right length for our kids.
Holmwood be where the heart is
The journey started and finished at Holmwood station. We made the decision to go on Saturday evening, but we couldn’t go the next day as, for what I’m sure are excellent reasons, there are no trains stopping at Holmwood on a Sunday.
However, it was half-term, so we decided to go on Monday instead.
This is what we found when we checked the fares:
For an early start (you’ll see from my brilliantly drawn map above that we planned to have lunch on the walk back), we’d have to pay £57. An hour later, split-ticketing would enable the trip to be done with £41. But to pay the £24 fare that was roughly our ‘budget’ for a country walk, we’d have to not start the walk until nearly 11.30.
Now this is clearly bonkers, isn’t it? I’m going to stick my neck out and say that (Covid or no Covid), the 08.25 from Victoria to Horsham is rarely crowded, even on a weekday. Certainly not at half term. That train is priced as a peak fare not because it will be full but because all trains around that time are priced at peak fares, regardless of where they go.
Well, starting out at nearly midday just didn’t work for us. With little legs (my kids, not me), we couldn’t even be sure of finishing before it got dark. And, anyway, we didn’t want to have lunch right at the beginning and then have to do the whole thing afterwards.
So, we didn’t go.
It was utterly infuriating, as that 08.25 train will, I am quite certain, have left Victoria with 8 or 12 carriages and been virtually empty.
But, of course, the operator GTR is not incentivised to care whether or not I get that train; and the DfT is far too distant. So the railway lost a potential passenger and I lost a potential walk.
This case-study is an illustration of a wider issue, which will be discussed in tomorrow’s post (betcha can’t wait…)
Do you Tweet? Here’s one ready-made
