This morning on the tube I read the headline on a Metro someone was reading. It was about how expensive train travel is, again. But that wasn’t what really annoyed me. What annoyed me was the quote ‘Trains are a rich man’s toy,’ which had come out of Transport Secretary Philip Hammond’s mouth.
It probably isn’t that surprising that as a blogger who blogs about trains and is also female, it grated. And obviously, I’m not happy about fares being high, or Boris Johnson asking me to pay more for a trip on the tube soon, to cover costs of upgrading London’s Underground network.
But rather than pointing out that fares are expensive, it would be good if Hammond could bring them down and champion the fact that we have the cheapest advanced fares in Europe, upgrades to first class on weekends cost £15 and travelling by train is convenient, comfortable and enjoyable. Perhaps he could come up with a fund for disadvantaged people to get reduced fares. And acknowledge that many women travel by train every day. Literally thousands of us.