By Kelly Eve

Last updated at 15:52, Friday, 30 July 2010

Rail fares from Cumbria have come under fire once again after a passenger discovered it would cost him less to travel from Glasgow to London than if he was to leave from Carlisle.

Chartered surveyor John Kukuc searched the Virgin Trains’ website for fares in October, when he plans a visit to the capital.

Using the site’s “Best Fare Finder” tracker, Mr Kukuc discovered he could get a £17.50 advanced single fare from Glasgow to London Euston on October 8.

When he searched for a fare from Carlisle he discovered an advanced single ticket would cost £20, for a journey on the same train.

Mr Kukuc also questioned the suitability of the site’s “Best Fare Finder” service for Cumbrian passengers, saying it does not give local people the option of searching for the best deals from county stations.

Virgin Trains said the Best Fare Finder is a tracking service which highlights to potential passengers the best deals picked up by travellers booking journeys from the most popular stations along the West Coast Main Line.

Mr Kukuc said: “When you go onto the Tickets and Offers section of the website and onto the Best Fare Finder you can’t select a Cumbrian option.

“I found I could buy a ticket from Glasgow to London for £17.50 and when I searched to try and get Carlisle to London, the cheapest I could find was a £20 fare on the same train. Some people would just buy the ticket from Glasgow and take the cheapest option.”

He said he also feared that data collected from website sales could have an adverse effect on Cumbrian stations in the future.

He said: “If more people [from Cumbria] bought the cheapest options like this from Glasgow it could mean any future evaluation of sales would see that people aren’t buying tickets from Cumbrian stations and so could contribute to any argument to skip stops in the county.

“The train line goes right through Cumbria, it is a large area, and it is so important that it stops here for residents and businesses.”

A Virgin Trains spokesman refuted those fears, saying the website tracked the best ticket deals to show passengers wishing to travel what else had been available.

Complex computer programming systems are also used to set cheap fare ticket quotas on trains using the line, the spokesman said.

“There is a quota for the number of advanced tickets on any given train based on how busy the train is expected to be. Once they have been sold out then the price will go up to the next available bracket,” he added.

“There is a significant computer programming system which predicts what the demand is going to be on given trains and from what stations.

“The actual price of a ticket is not based on distance. The quotas try to encourage people to use trains that are less busy at those stations. Other offers will be available from different stations.”

He also warned that passengers could be asked to pay full walk-on fares if they were found by inspectors to be boarding a train at any station other than the one the ticket was valid from.

Meanwhile, Carlisle MP John Stevenson, one of two new joint chairmen of the West Coast Main Line all-party parliamentary group at Westminster, wants to hold talks with the man in charge of developing a new national high-speed rail service.

Mr Stevenson wants to meet Sir Brian Briscoe, who is the chairman of High Speed Two, the Government-backed organisation developing plans for the route.

Initial thoughts are to develop the route between London and Birmingham with options to extend further north in the future.

Mr Stevenson, as part of his new role, was briefed this week on the main issues.

He said: “There are two key areas for Cumbria coming up. One is the franchise on the line, which is coming up for renewal in 2012 . Secondly, is the high-speed rail route and the impact that could have.

“I’m hoping for a meeting with Sir Brian Briscoe. It is critical that we’re on the radar for that. It is the main line and there are suggestions it should go north. If it does come up here, we want it to have a station in Carlisle.”

First published at 14:14, Friday, 30 July 2010
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk