Train fares rise 6% in new year (BBC News)
 

Britain's train companies are to raise regulated fares, including season tickets, by an average of 6% from the new year.

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Aw! What ever happened to that deflation we are apparently having?

This is a perfectly reasonable question, and one which every passenger is going to be demanding.

And the answer, not surprisingly is that this is what the franchising system requires. ORR based it's calculations on Gordon Brown's neverneverland growing economy, as well as a yearly passenger growth prediction. Since civil servants and politicians don't live in the real world, it never occurred to them that the good times wouldn't roll forever. Because they've benn trying to screw as much money out of taxpayers/passengers instead of running a public service, the house of cards is about to come tumbling down.

The TOCs are expected to pay ever increasing wodges of money to the treasury, based on a now out of date model of a prosperous economy. It's widely anticipated within the industry that due to shortfalls in income the next step will be that several TOCs will be soon be demanding to renegotiate their conditions, and will threaten to hand back the franchise if they don't get some big concessions. (Remember GNER ?)

From an economic sense things have just ticked along nicely since privitisation, and this is the first big 'challenge' to the current system. If you're an optimist you might hope that by the time this mess is sorted it will bring about a much more realistic franchising arrangement.

(Sadly I'm not, and I don't :( )

Totally agree with you FP.
We used to have the best "everything" in this country. To pay for that we used to make things, and sell them on to other countries, because what we built was "the best". Now, were we used to make these things, we sell furniture that you can have up to 4 years to pay for, and "crappy" beefburgers sold by people who are learning no skills at all. We dont offer our young generation any future unless they are sat in front of a computer screen.
You have hit the nail on the head when you say the, "the house of cards is about to come tumbling down". The problem is no one will have a soultion this time because the men in suits rule, and the lot of them have'nt got a clue.
We have been too many years living the "false" good life.
Sorry if I have gone off subject, but the rail franchise is a classic example of all that is wrong with our beautiful country, and we are all guilty of letting it happen.
Paul.