YOU recently (June 7) published my letter on the iniquity of the penalising train ticket purchases made at short notice by charging very high prices for them. Virgin Trains, amongst others, shortly thereafter announced that it would make some advance prices available on the day of travel, after sustained dissatisfaction from passengers such as that expressed in your columns.
This is a welcome start but it is only a start. The system of train ticket pricing has become ludicrously complex. The lack of decent fares at short notice is unreasonable. A single ticket costing almost as much as a return similarly lacks moral justification.
Penalising those who do not book online by denying them the best prices is effectively a form of penalising the poor, the elderly or others who lack the ability to use the internet at will. What is needed now by Virgin and all train companies is a root and branch reform of ticket pricing so that it is straightforward, transparent, predictable, consistent and fair.
Christopher Ruane,
1 Ridgepark Drive, Lanark.
WHY can passengers on ScotRail not buy off-peak tickets from any station within Falkirk District (except Polmont), to Gleneagles?
If travelling from any other station – for example, Larbert or Falkirk Grahamston – the only ticket available is the Anytime Day Return which costs £15.50 from Larbert, while one can travel off-peak to Perth from Larbert for only £12.70.
The only time ScotRail replied to my inquiry it blamed the problem as "probably a carry-over from the previous franchise holder" and would likely be rectified in May 2017.
James Kelly,
4 Charles Drive, Larbert.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
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We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
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