Lost Networking

Am I the only person who thinks that a day out in London from the home counties using South West Trains has become extortionately expensive? It's not so long ago that a one day off-peak travel card from my area could be bought for around £8 and was usable on any train departing after 10am. Now it costs £14 for the same journey, though admittedly it would be a little cheaper after midday. Gone are the discounts that the Network rail card used to provide midweek as the minimum fare has been set at almost the price of the travelcard.

I wouldn't mind but for the fact that if I lived a short distance up the road I could travel anywhere I liked in Greater London for a day with an Oyster card for around £6 - £7, depending on which zone I started from and there are no silly super off- peak restrictions there. It would be tempting to jump in the car and do just that, but sadly the price of parking at the stations a few miles away is just as daft as my train fare.

You would think that government would impose some sanity on the situation to relieve congestion on local roads. If I spend the day in London shopping I am merely filling up an otherwise half empty train carriage. If I travel to somewhere like Bluewater or Lakeside round the M25 I'm adding to an already heavily congested motorway. In fact I didn't want to go shopping this week, but I might have spent a day being a tourist in central London. If I couldn't arrive until after midday at a sensible price there was little point.

I could of course buy a Network card just to use on Saturdays, but I probably wouldn't use it enough to justify its cost. It’s a pity though that South West Trains doesn't take into consideration the fact that a significant proportion of its customers have days off midweek rather than weekends and also that many are holidaying at home this year. This seems to be an opportunity lost to fill all those empty seats.