Finally, some good railway-related news! Prices of many single-journey tickets across the country were slashed to almost half price overnight. It’s a result of return off-peak fares being scrapped altogether in favour of apparently simpler ‘single-leg’ pricing.
The price cut only applies to LNER trains travelling along the East Coast mainline and it actually doesn’t make much of a difference to people who regularly take return trips. But it’s a start, right?
The fares have been trialled for the past three years on LNER routes between London, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh. The new system benefits those who want to travel on a one-way basis or hope to follow ‘circular’ routes, like Durham-London-Manchester-Durham.
If you bought an off-peak single ticket from York to London on Saturday, you would have been charged £103, but the new prices came into place on Sunday and the journey will now cost you just £68. Prior to the new pricing, many off-peak return tickets cost just £1 more than a one-way journey. For example, travelling one-way from Durham to London used to cost £163 at off-peak times but a return ticket was £164. The same single journey is now £83.
So, if you’re travelling on the LNER East Coast line, you now only have three ticket options: anytime singles, which can be used on any journey and are more expensive; super off-peak/off-peak singles which only allow you to travel certain times of the day; and advance singles, which are the cheapest but only valid for a specific train.
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