Five Grand Fee to Hit Rail Commuters

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Five Grand Fee to Hit Rail Commuters

August 15, 2012

Train firms are being allowed to raise regulated fares by 3% more than RPI inflation from January next year.

Car insurance holders might consider themselves lucky after the UK Government announced that train companies will be allowed to hike up train fares. Consequently rail unions have warned that some rail fares could rise by over 10% in 2013.

As a result of this proposed hike rail commuters could see the price of season tickets hit as much as £5,000 in some areas of the country.

As many as 20,000 jobs are said to be at risk in the rail industry due to cost-cutting proposals that will impact station staff, guards, catering and ticket offices.

Trade union lobbyists are looking to increase demands that the railways are returned to public ownership to help control spiralling costs and secure jobs. The unions believe that rail privatisation has resulted in extremely high fares (reportedly the highest in Europe) in-spite of taxpayers paying subsidies to the industry.

Commenting on behalf of the TSSA union, Manuel Cortes stated:

“Justine Greening seems determined to prove her predecessor Philip Hammond right and turn the railways into a rich man’s toy. It’s a complete nonsense to say fares have to rise above inflation every year to pay for new rail projects.”

Mr Cortes added that “air travellers don’t pay higher taxes to get new runways built and motorists certainly don’t pay more for new roads. Why should rail passengers be singled out to pay for new lines?”

He went on to say that what rail companies are doing to commuters is little more than daylight robbery.

Source: http://union-news.co.uk/2012/08/rail-price-hike-means-commuters-face-5k-fare-increase/