Train fares are an interesting thing.

Daughter has a new, to her, car to collect from deepest Wiltshire not far from Bath, and until she made alternative arrangements with her brother to go down Saturday it was pencilled in that i would travel down on the train from Northants tomorrow morning.

I checked train fares and times, and the standard East Midland train site quoted me a cool £143 for the journey, some 3 hours via St Pancras.

I think it was one of our flock here who put me onto Split Ticketing, which had me going via Leics B'ham and Bristol (one extra connection1 hour longer journey) for £40.20 total.

You really do have to shop about.

As someone who works in the rail industry, GB's experiences are typical. If part 1 of a journey is at peak time, then the whole part of the journey is charged similarly. Going in a more direct route resulted in a sensible price. It should also elimiate far too many anomolies in ticketing including where a longer journey can be cheaper.

There are around 55milion fares in the database, which is barmy and the consultation is to make things simpler, more understandable and most important, the change will be revenue neutral, so as to eliminate increases. It is a needed exercise, as it's too complex, too unfair.

GB said he used split ticketing and this does need trial and error to make the splits work in the customer's favour, the only provisio is that the train must stop at the split stations. If one train is late and it will impact your journey, get guard/conductor/train manager etc to endorse your ticket(s) and then take next available train. You do not have to pay again because one operator failed in its obligation to run on time. And single fares can sometimes be cheaper.

The consultation also aims to get away from the silliness of off-peak and super off-peak tickets the latter having more restrictions. Also what bugs passengers is that every train operator has different peak and off-peak times, and what is worse, is that they can set them. Advance tickets, also quota controlled, offer great savings, but restrict you to chosen train.

Car parking is another lucrative area, Leicester station charges £14.50 per 24 hours, Rugby only £9. Captive market with unregulated prices.

Rail franchising was supposed to generate competition but this has not happened as many lines have a sole operator. That said, they are under no incentive to offer cheap prices so tend to offer a minimum number of advance tickets on a quota controlled basis - when they've gone, etc. The operator from Leicester is typical of this, and yet 20 miles away, at Rugby, you have the choice of two operators, one with a 50min journey to London, the other up to 10 mins longer who offer cheaper fares.

Finally, if anyone is travelling regulary over the same route, consider a season ticket - sample: Anytime return Leicester-London £162.50, 7 day season ticket - £270. Swindon-Paddington anytime: £133.60 season: £248.50. You do the maths.

It is a minefield.

<< Too many pigs with their snouts in the trough in this country, doing 'nowt and making money for it. >>

I hope you have seen some of the Channel-5 (I think) programmes showing what happens at Paddington 24/7. There may be a few snouts in troughs, but I don't think the travelling public have much idea of the effort needed for the railway to come anywhere near their expectations. Partly because of H&S, whenever something happens they have to stop almost everything while a relatively trivial problem is sorted - for example a large plastic bag getting caught on the overhead wires.

It's dead easy to knock a complicated system because it seems far too expensive. Add up the cost of signalling, maintenance and replacement of track and rolling stock (usually overnight), and it looks rather a better bargain. The main reason is that since privatisation, shareholders expect some of the profits.