Forgotten your railcard? That will be £440 extra, please

East Midlands trains have announced a new Penalty Fares regime:  anyone found on a train without a valid ticket (and that means the right railcard to go with it too) will be charged DOUBLE the full walk-up fare to the next stop.

For passengers making a mistake on a London-Sheffield train that runs fast London-Leicester, that could be a very expensive mistake. Up to FIFTY times the original fare.

Example: a family of two adults and two children travelling to Sheffield on a fast-to-Leicester train from St Pancras. They travel on specific-train tickets bought with a Friends and Family railcard.

The tickets alone will get them through the barriers at St Pancras, so it is quite possible that the first they know of losing (or forgetting) their Railcard is when their ticket is inspected on the train between St Pancras and Leicester.

No railcard means their tickets are invalid. Under the new Penalty Fares regime, it seems that they will be charged £378 immediately (2 x Adult single, 2 x child single London-Leicester - doubled). That will cover them to the next stop at Leicester. Their cheapest option would be to get off at Leicester and buy a replacement railcard, AND new tickets Leicester-Sheffield (because their existing tickets were only valid on the train they have just got off). This will cost them at least another £62 (£36 off-peak singles plus £26 for a replacement railcard). If they chose to stay on the train it would cost £64 for fares Leicester-Sheffield, but they wouldn't need to buy a replacement card).

So - the minimum penalty for losing or forgetting a railcard looks like being £440 (£378 on the train + £36 for fares at Leicester + £26 for a new railcard). This is the penalty for not being able to produce a £26 railcard which is registered on a database to them personally. For a journey that might only have cost them £8.50* in the first place. That's a fine of more than 50 times the fare, or rather more than many families will budget for their summer holiday. Or 75 hours' work at Minimum Wage.

What a brilliant way of encouraging families to travel by train!


Notes

*£8.50 fare offered by trainline and EMT sites at 0906 04/12/09 for travel on 0955 from St Pancras on 14/01/10 made up of two adults at £3.30 and two children at £0.95 after Friend & Family railcard discounts

For a student or Senior Citizen being discovered without their railcard, the penalty would be £153: Double the London-Leicester  single fare of £63, plus £27 from Leicester to Sheffield. They might save £6 on the Leicester-Sheffield section if travelling "off-peak".