Thousands of rail customers hit with shock fare rise after error by major train operator

THOUSANDS of rail customers saw a shock increase to their prices this week after a major train line hiked fares unexpectedly.

South Western Railway increased prices on 522 routes in and out of London last week after a major glitch meant the fares did not rise in line with other rail fares in March, The Sun has learned.

The train operator, which transports around 220,000 passengers every day, raised the prices of the routes unexpectedly last week, leaving rail passengers shocked when their usual fare changed without warning.

The journeys affected were routes that included a trip on the Capital city’s underground network.

If you live outside London, you can usually buy a ticket into the city including a journey on the underground.

But a number of those routes did not increase correctly in price in March, when rail fares usually rise.

The Department for Transport confirmed rail fares would rise by an average of 4.9% on March 3 this year, in a huge blow for commuters.

Speaking to The Sun, one passenger who spotted their fare rise last week said: “My normal journey cost way more than usual, and I assumed it was a mistake.

“So it was really annoying when I emailed SWR and it said that was actually the right price, it had just been wrong for the rest of the year.

“I hadn’t factored it in so it’s just another added cost to get to work.”

In the email to the customer, SWR said: “There has recently been an increase in certain fares from some SWR stations to London where an Underground journey is included (Zone U1, Zone U12 etc).

“This is due to an anomaly in these fares following the fare increase in March this year, whereby some fares did not see the increase when they should have, and so remained unchanged at the original 2023 fare.

“As such, this price increase is belated and therefore the new price is correct.”

A spokesperson for SWR told The Sun: “Following the March changes we identified 522 of these prices that did not increase in line with other fares, which we are now rectifying.

“All 522 prices are for fares that interact with TfL and were missed due to a misalignment of timings within the industry system and we are correcting them. 

“The small number of customers using these fares have benefitted from the cheaper original price for this period, meaning no one has been left out of pocket.”

It is understood less than 1% of the total number of fares set by SWR were affected.

How can I save on train fares?

If you regularly travel the same routes, such as for your commute, it may be worth getting an annual season ticket.

National Rail says that if you’re making the same journey for three or more days a week, a seven-day season ticket is likely to save you money.

You can use National Rail’s free online calculator to help figure out your savings.

You can also save money by splitting your tickets up. Trainline usually does this for you, but another website you can use to split up your journey is Splitticketing.co.uk. 

You won’t need to change trains – split tickets are valid as long as the train calls at the station you buy the tickets for.

Getting a railcard can help reduce your fares by up to a third off every journey.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

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