Three cross-border rail services and a Scottish route offer poor “value for money” or slower services when compared to driving, according to a new survey.
Passengers buying a return ticket from London’s King’s Cross to Edinburgh face an additional cost over driving for train travel of £150.
The study said two journeys to English cities from Scotland are almost an hour slower than if they had been made by car.
They include Glasgow to Leeds, which is 54 minutes slower than by car and and Glasgow to York at 44 minutes.
The London to Edinburgh return ticket came second in the poll carried out by Kwit Fit Insurance, behind an additional cost over driving of a London to Newcastle round trip of £159.
London to Leeds was third with a two-way trip costing £133.
The survey was revealed as passengers using Virgin’s West Coast Main Line continue to suffer from disruption caused by the recent flooding. The operator is running a coach service to and from Carlisle as repairs which could take several weeks on a damaged railway bridge are completed.
The new survey found that even when train travel does save time, some rail lines appear to offer worse value than others.
Taking the ScotRail service between Glasgow to Aberdeen costs passengers an extra £33 to save only 12 minutes.
Train trips between Cardiff and London are just 22 minutes quicker than by road at an additional £67.
Rail fares rose by an aver age of 1.1 per cent at the start of the year.
However, motorists are continuing to enjoy the benefits of the oil price falls.
Stewart Barnet of Kwik Fit Insurance Services said: “Though the price rise this year is one of the lowest in the last decade, this offers scant consolation to travellers who forked out huge amounts to get home over the holiday period and may continue to do so into 2016.”
A spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group, representing train companies and Network Rail, said: “There are great deals out there for train passengers and people are voting with their feet – the number of rail journeys has more than doubled in the last 20 years.”
Source: Kwik-Fit insurance services
http://www.kwik-fitinsurance.co.uk/hub/data-and-research/trains-vs-car
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