I hold a senior railcard and live in rural Derbyshire. When I use the card on Virgin train I can get a return ticket to London from MAcclesfield on any train for £38.75. This is a big improvement on the senior railcard rate to London from Derby on Midland MAinline- that dicounted fare is £78.00. The problem is that there is ample car parking in Derby and not in MAcclesfield.
It would be helpful for rural travellers to have information about reliable and available parking at the station as well as accurate information about fares.

OOH! don't get me started on rail fares!! a couple of my friends are coming up to visit on the weekend and were told that a return journey from London would cost them £125!!!!!! This is rubbish, I've done this journey myself before and it cost £60 maximum.
Also, another ridiculous thing about rail fares - i once noticed that if i started a journey in Worcester, went to Reading, and then returned to Worcester, it cost £15.90 with a young persons rail card. However, if i started the journey in Reading, went to Worcester, and then returned to Reading, it cost £23. i was told that the difference in price was due to starting the journey in a different region, and the stations are run by different companies depending on where you're starting your journey - is this true? i've still no idea.
what i do know is that my friends visiting me this weekend have decided to drive, as it certainly won't cost them £125 in petrol to come to Bristol!
i used to live in France and the rail service over there was absolutely excellent. the fares made a lot more sense too. if you wanted a one-way ticket it cost, for example, £15; if you wanted a return ticket, it cost £30 - all standardised, nothing complicated. Trains arrive on time, a seat is allocated to you when you buy the ticket, their standard class looks like our first class.
Just seems to me that where public transport is concerned, the UK is still in the dark ages.....

Interestingly I needed to travel to Leeds from Doncaster. my appointment was at a hotel right next to the station. I know that Leeds can be a nightmare to drive around and parking is a farce. Instead of dreading the early morning crush getting into Doncaster, paying a hefty wack for parking and then paying out for a ticket at peak rate I decided to do part drive, part train. I got onto the motorway at an easy point where there is no trafic james, drove about 15 miles and go a train a Pontefract. The parking was free, I got straight on the train. Paid around £3ish for the ticket and was at my destination within 1/2 hour. The whole journey by car & Train was so quick. It was hassle free and delivered me up on time and in comfort. I was able to prepare for myself for my conference and know that I would have no issues with traffic on my return journey.

Had I travelled into Doncaster first it would have taken me 45 minutes and then another 45 minutes at least on the train. The whole think took less that an hour from house to cup of coffee in the hotel.

If trains were more accessable and sensibly priced as this one was the whole nation would be clamouring to use them. Sadly it is cheaper for me to drive to London than it is to take a train, so where is the incentive in that! Someone really needs to get to grips with what the word 'Service' means, then maybe they could get their heads around how to give us one.

I have just made a return trip from Kings Cross to Newcastle. On the way back I actually wanted to go to Stevenage - 30 miles short of Kings Cross. I discovered that the return train didn't stop at Stevenage but it did stop at Peterborough - about 50 miles shorter still.
I asked the ticket sales lady at Newcastle if I could get off at Peterborough and change to a train that wold stop at Stevenage. I was told I could but that I would have to pay for a ticket from Peterborough to Stevenage!!!
In the end I had to go to Kings Cross and still had to pay £10 for a single back to Stevenage!

I was so insensed by this I decided to contact Customer services. They confirmed that because I had booked in advance , my ticket was considered point to point so I couldn't get off earlier and change trains.

What a rip off!!!!

The simple answer is that yes, we are all being ripped off. This is due to the system of privatisation by franchises chosen by the COnservative governement and continued under Labour. A great deal of money that is being put into the railways ends up in the pockets of fat cat directors and shareholders. The complicated ticket structure is the result of a desire amongst the train operating companies to maximise their income and this leads to pricing by demand rather than distance. There is no intention of providing a 'service' as they just want to cram in as many paying passengers (sorry, customers!) as possible even if they are paying ludicrously low fares booked in advance. This is evidenced by GHreat Western removing buffets in order to put in even more seats.

The government will not act as it suits them to be able to blame the privatised rail companies, evenj though it is the Treasury who are actually responsible for the financial returns set in the franchise contracts. This is meant to ensure that the taxpayer shares in the future success of the company along with the shareholders, In practice, it means that the company will strip out all the costs they can by cutting staff (South West Trains have just announced they are closing nine travel centres) and services so that dividends and profits can remain high

Which have got it wrong! The national rail enquiries site is very often wrong. I bought a return from London to Edinburgh and first got a quote from NRES site. It was £40 more expensive than the GNER site from which it was quoting!
I have found that hiring a car for a weekend (all costs) is cheaper, so long as there's 2 of you.

I travel by train every workday from Rochdale to Manchester, not very far I grant you but painful nonetheless. My season ticket costs me £70.50 per month (although season ticket customers were given a 5% discount last month because there were so many complaints about delays).

Northern trains operate in the area and in the six months that I have been commuting to work by train (I drove in prior to that)I have probably been able to obtain a seat about 5 times. Every morning I have to endure someone's armpit or iPOD blaring next to my face. Whenever I have complained about the cramped conditions and my frankly unsafe trip to work, I am told that when I pay my fare, I am only guaranteed a 'place' on 'a' train for my journey and not necessarily a seat.

This tells me that they are fully aware that these rickety trains are over-packed people carriers that are unsafe and sometimes dangerous but that they are not prepared to pay to put on extra carriages for their passenger's comfort and safety.

There have been many occasions on my travels to work when we have reached the third station stop in Chadderton and those poor people aren't even allowed to get inside the train, let alone join in the mele for a space on it!! I have seen people faint and be sick, especially in the summer months. To be honest, even if I paid £7.50 per month it would be too much! Why don't they realise that people would probably be prepared to pay more if they knew their trip would be in relative comfort and safety?????