MT Week - Are Railcards worth the money?

I can probably count the number of times I’ve taken a train out of London since 2020 on one hand.

It’s not that I’m a train snob, it’s just that rail services in the UK are inefficient, (until recently) regularly affected by strikes, and incredibly expensive.

And the pricing makes absolutely no sense.

Take the service between London and Reading as an example. 

The fastest train takes just 23 minutes each way but it costs over £35 for an off peak return, no matter how far in advance you book.

The slow train, which takes around an hour and a half, is only a couple of pounds cheaper.

Meanwhile, the train from London to Birmingham, which takes somewhere between an hour and a bit to two hours depending on which service you get, has tickets that cost less than £7 each way.

And often you can find these just a few days before travel.

Get a Railcard you might say - but is a Railcard really worth the money? Well, it depends.