The price isn’t right for peak time train travel or spending a penny - Vladimir McTavish
I see in this week’s news that the annual rate of inflation has dropped to just under two per cent. I’ve never been clear as to how this is calculated. Whoever worked out this latest figure has clearly not travelled on a peak time ScotRail train in the past couple of weeks.
I had to get through to Glasgow on Wednesday afternoon for an early evening meeting. I got to the ticket machine at Waverley in time to get the off-peak fare, but just missed the 4.30 train. This meant I either had to wait until 6.30 or go to the ticket office to upgrade. I can’t remember the last time I was actually in a station ticket office, but it did make me feel very youthful. Despite holding a senior railcard, I was the youngest person in the queue by a country mile.
Anyway, once I had paid my supplement of £3.80, I was able to board the 4.45 train. My original ticket had cost £10.65. In other words, in the course of fifteen minutes, the cost of my journey had gone up by thirty-five per cent.
This obviously was not factored in this month’s headline inflation figures, although the retail price index does take the cost of transport into account, alongside other essentials such as food and drink, clothing and education costs.
I’m not sure they still operate the same system, but inflation used to be calculated on what was assumed to be a “typical” household’s shopping basket.
This was invariably a completely random assortment of stuff I never used like Oxo cubes, shoe polish and hair lacquer. Hardly a balanced diet.
Anyway, when my train pulled into Queen Street, I decided to pay a visit to the station toilet before getting on the Subway, only to find there was an entry charge of 50 pence.
“Hang on”, I thought, “the toilets in Edinburgh are free”. Or at least they were 50 minutes beforehand. How can something go from zero to 50 pence in under an hour and inflation still be 1.7 per cent?
Toilet charges are not included in the retail price index, although I would argue that a visit to the lavatory is undoubtedly essential. But half-a-quid to spend a penny? That really is taking the p***.