RAIL FARE RISES POINT TO MORE FUTURE PAIN.

Today is 'inflation day' with the publication of the estimated rate of inflation for the 12 months to the end of July 2012. The 'Consumer Price Index' or CPI rose by 2.6% and the 'Retail Price Index' or RPI rose by 3.2%.

The Government has recently changed how these numbers are used and most state benefits and other payments are linked to CPI while charges to users are linked to the RPI. Historically, CPI has usually been lower than RPI, meaning that the government wins hands down most of the time.

These latest figures are also used to determine the rise in rail fares to be implemented next January. In England, the figures mean that fares will rise by an average of 6.2%, this being in line with a formula of RPI+3%. How such an increase can be justified at a time of economic crisis escapes me.

When I was a child, our railway stations were clean and bright, always open and staffed by friendly people who were on hand to help in any way that they could; fares were also afffordable. Today, our stations are mostly dirty and dingey places, frequently lacking staff even in the ticket office, and looking for help with luggage or in any other way is a hopeless task. This shocking fall in service has, nonetheless, been accompanied by a vast increase in prices, to such an extent that many people undoubtedly find train travel unaffordable.

The government tells us that the increased fares are necessary in order to fund badly needed investment across the rail network, though were this occurring is a mystery to me. If such investment actually is needed, why has it not been made over the recent decades rather than suddenly being needed now ? Is driving people off of the railways through huge prices rises really the course to follow ? Why is it that so many places remain unconnected by the rail network and the car is still the only realistic mode of transport for so many journeys ?

The sad truth to all of this is that successive governments have made a total mess of our economy over so many years that the position is now all-but irretrievable. They've robbed us blind with a range of taxes and other charges and borrowed until their eyes watered, while squandering every last farthing on bolstering up their own images and egos. A 6.2% increase for rail fares is simply another insignificant shot in correcting the balance and there's much, much more pain and misery to come yet.