My son travels to school daily by train from Totnes to Exeter. He turns 16 at the end of August, when he will cease to be eligible for a child fare. Unfortunately, because he has to travel to school at peak time on CrossCountry or First Great Western trains a young person’s Railcard (for which we would have to pay £30 a year) will not be valid.
At the moment he buys a weekly season ticket at £24, but this will double to £48 when he reaches 16, which we simply can’t afford. I have heard some areas offer something called a “scholar’s pass”, but this doesn’t seem to be available in Devon. Is there any way round this? The school says it has no schemes to help out with transport costs; nor does our local education authority.
I also wonder why the child rail fare age limit is still 15. Surely this is a hangover from when this was the school leaving age and only a minority stayed in education beyond that? Now that all youngsters must be in full-time education or training until 18, it seems nonsensical to treat 16-year-olds as if they are wage earners. Our son is halfway through his GCSEs, living at home, and won’t be earning a full-time wage any time soon. Surely affordable rail transport for youngsters would stop them all being driven to school? PB, Totnes, Devon
The young person’s 16-25 Railcard leaflet, which trumpets “a third off rail fares”, claims that you can use the card on “all standard Anytime” fares, which suggests this includes peak-time journeys. But the small print adds: “A £12 minimum fare applies for journeys starting- between 4.30am–10am Monday to Friday, excluding Advance fares.”
This minimum fare does not apply on public holidays or throughout July and August (clearly not helpful to youngsters using the train to get to and from school). An “Anytime return” from Totnes to Exeter is currently £11.60, so no discount would be available.
We spoke to the Rail Delivery Group, which administers the various national Railcards on behalf of the train operating companies, which said: “The 16-25 Railcard is designed to encourage more leisure travel by train rather than for commuting to work or school – season tickets already offer discounts for this purpose. Many local authorities have agreements in place with local train operators for reduced price season tickets for schoolchildren, so in this case perhaps the parent or school could consider approaching their local authority to see if anything is in place.”
We strongly suggest you do this before the end of term.
There are already schemes in city centres such as London which cover rail as well as buses, so why not rural areas too? We have to agree that a cut-off age of 15 for children’s fares seems positively Dickensian. Time for a rethink?
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