Travelling cross-country has never been easy, but UK transport is, predictably, delayed in its arrival to the 21st century. Long journey times and sky-high train fares make travelling difficult, frustrating, and expensive.
With friends spread across the country, students feel this acutely, but not always equally, as regional differences in transport infrastructure inevitably rear their ugly heads. This might be north versus south, or urban versus rural, but the ramifications for friendships, social lives, and wallets remain burdensome.
The poor state of rail travel in the UK is well-known. However, it remains a key method of transport for students. Flights have limited luggage, burdensome security measures, and an outsized impact on the day. Coaches involve excessively long travel times, at almost double that of trains. Driving requires a car and a licence, and right now the waiting time for driving tests is prohibitively high. With all these hurdles, it seems that the railways are the only option that works for everyone. But just how and why is it so difficult to get around? How exactly does this impact students? And is this impact equally shared?
For this article, I conducted a survey on rail travel, asking students about their experiences and thoughts. 20 students responded, with details of the regions they travelled from, and how issues with trains had impacted their university and social lives. I also asked them how they would suggest improving this.
Higher fees, longer waits
The most striking concerns were the cost of journeys and the unpredictability of travel times. Firstly: the cost. 80% of respondents to the survey reported having been deterred from making a rail journey due to its price. Railcards do little to make journeys more affordable, with train fares in the UK at nearly four times the equivalent flight price. British commuters spend five times as much of their salary on rail fares as their European counterparts. Privatisation of the railways was supposed to bring greater competition and efficiency, but instead, average fares have increased by nearly 25% since the 1990s. A complex mess of many different profit-seeking companies are left charging different amounts at different times for different tickets. Fares are significantly cheaper if booked well in advance, but student plans are anything but organised, and opportunities are often last-minute. Outrageous fares charged for bookings within a month or fortnight present a serious limitation.
A second key area of concern is journey times and accessibility, which more than 50% of respondents reported as a deterrent to rail travel. A train from Edinburgh to London can take up to six hours (or longer, if delayed). The journey between Paris and Marseille is 100km longer, but at least three hours shorter. According to the Office of Rail and Roads, between April and June 2025, 31% of train services were delayed, creating unnecessary headaches when trying to get anywhere. Additionally, there was a sharp difference between different regional operators for punctuality. Avanti West Coast and TransPenine Express were the least punctual, with 42% and 30% of their services running late, respectively. The most punctual, with 93% of services running on time, were C2C (which serves East London and Essex) and Greater Anglia (which connects the East of England to London).
The UK also lags behind in investment into high-speed rail and other rail infrastructure . The UK has only one rail line with an operating speed of more than 125mph: HS1. Attempts to expand this were an unmitigated disaster in HS2. The project intended to create a high-speed link between London and the North. Instead, £81bn later, both the Leeds and Manchester sections have been dropped from the project. Now reaching only Birmingham, there is no clear indication on when it will be completed.
After 14 years, travel from the North to the South has not improved in any meaningful way. The north of England is left without the same transport links that connect London to Birmingham, the capital to the continent, and that criss-cross many other European countries. With the axing of key North-South services, it is now quicker to get from London to Brussels than to Hull.
This lack of investment and the regional divides it has exacerbated have very real effects on student life, both social and economic, during the vacations and term time. This was reflected in the results of the survey, where students were asked about which region of the UK they lived in, and how they rated the overall performance of the railways.
Regional vs London experiences: A tale of two trainlines
On the whole, students rated rail travel poorly, but there was a clear connection between the score given and the student’s home region. On a ten-point scale, students in London and the South-East rated the railways around two points higher on average than their peers elsewhere. Most respondents outside these regions gave scores around 3, while those in London and the South-East hovered around 5. The disparity in connectivity and reliability was borne out in this increased dissatisfaction. Still, travelling is easy for almost nobody – 85% of respondents considered the state of the railways to have negatively impacted their ability to meet up with people and access opportunities.
The over-representation of the South-East in Oxford admissions exacerbates regional divides in connectivity. According to the 2021 census, the population of London and the South-East made up 30% of the total population of England and Wales. However, students from both regions make up 50% of domestic students at Oxford. As a result, a majority of students are concentrated in a better-connected region. The gravitational pull to the South becomes social, as well as economic and cultural. London becomes the natural destination for meetups. However, the price and difficulty of the journey is not equally shared.
This was not just a north v south divide – those in rural areas struggled with poor connection, no matter where they were in the country. One respondent, from Devon, found it impossible to visit their friends in Norfolk. The price of the train rendered it impossible, and there was no coach alternative.
For survey respondents outside London, the concentration of Oxford students around the city was a large concern. Students described the expense and the unreliability of getting to the capital. This unreliability contributed to many also having to purchase accommodation, adding to the cost of train tickets that regularly stretch past £100. Few could manage to get there more than a few times over the vacation, with loneliness following. One respondent from the West Midlands struggled with “being a four hour train away to the function”, particularly when most of the people they knew lived in London. Over 40% of those who considered the railways to have negatively impacted their social lives mentioned London and the difficulty of getting there as a key impediment to seeing friends.
Those in the South-East and London lamented being deterred from visiting friends, especially those who lived in the North, because of the cost of trains. Journeys closer to them were cheaper, leaving fellow southerners the more natural choice for visits. However, due to the distribution of Oxford students across the UK, and the issues with rail connections outside of London, this was not an option open to many students outside the South-East. The 35 miles from central London to Sevenoaks can be covered in 23 minutes on the train, while the 40 miles between Middlesbrough and Newcastle takes an hour.
Meeting with an eye on the departures board
Fleeting meetings during the vac can also prove more stressful than during term. One respondent wrote of their difficulty in making “casual meetups happen”. With the amount of planning required, impromptu coffees, walks, or pub trips vanish. The stress of a trip is compounded by the knowledge that this may be the only time you see your friend for six weeks. Sudden delays can ruin meetups which have been long planned and anticipated, causing heartbreak and forcing students to try to find workarounds. During vacations, these feelings are the exact opposite of what students want after an already-exhausting term.
Friendship weren’t the only relationships strained and frustrated by poor connectivity. Romantic relationships and seeing family were also raised as areas of difficulty in the survey, both in vacations and termtime. One student wrote that it’s “too difficult to see my partner” during the vacation, and another in a long distance relationship highlighted how train delays further narrowed their already-limited time together.
Cost and difficulties in transport meant students missed out on seeing family during term. For those in the North, rural South-West, and other regions of the UK, journeys to Oxford can run above five hours, whether driving or using the train. An overnight stay is often required. The expense spirals, resulting in trips home or visits from family being rationed. Students spoke of missing birthdays and family support, while others could go home every weekend.
The fast-paced nature of term-time life clashed with the delays of the transport system. The closer to the time a booking is made, the more expensive the ticket, with drastic hikes in the week or fortnight before the journey. As a result, students could not enjoy unexpected opportunities with the support of their family. One respondent spoke of finding out the day before that they would be playing the lead role in a production, but the cost of transport and impossibility of finding a hotel meant none of their family could see them.
Solutions
Considering improvements, the survey responses followed two main paths. Namely, nationalisation or an increase in student ticket concessions. “Nationalisation”, “subsidisation”, and “public ownership” were terms that came up often. One response argued that nationalisation would lead to a joined-up system across the network, while another advocated for “total nationalisation” to, in their words, “undo Mrs Thatcher’s crap”. Nationalisation would bring UK rail in line with European countries like Italy, Spain, and Germany. According to a study by Action for Rail, commuters in these counties paid at least five times less for their rail fares.
The current government seems to agree that nationalisation is the path forward, promising the implementation of a public ownership programme under the umbrella of ‘Great British Railways’. This may be a longer-term solution that shifts the status quo. As it is, the legislation for public ownership has not passed, the transition will be slow, and any future investment into projects like HS2 will have to wait for years until nationalisation is completed. Considering the unpopularity and failures of the current system, a complete rehaul through nationalisation could offer a path to improvement. If properly implemented, it may be a worthwhile effort from the government. How long students will have to wait for such improvement to materialise, however, is impossible to know.
On a more incremental scale, there were proposals for increased ticket concessions, such as a “student specific railcard”. This would be far less invasive and difficult to organise, but how effective it would be is questionable. Railcards for 16-25 year olds already exist. If these aren’t student railcards, then what are?
Similarly, suggestions for a form of off-peak tickets for students with discounts at the beginning or end of term could work in reducing cost, in addition to having “more student concessions” generally. However, with so much variation in vacations across universities, such a solution seems impractical, and would not deal with isolation during vacations. Scotland has scrapped higher fares for peak travel times, an example which the rest of the UK could then follow. “Free bus travel” was also proposed, whcih would be useful at boosting local connectivity but doesn’t tackle the main structural issue.
Overall, the poor and unequal state of public transport across the country doesn’t just make friendships more difficult and costly during vacations. It also makes travelling home and participating in opportunities more difficult for those who live far from London. Even with the much-vaunted future implementation of the Great British Railways scheme, past precedent doesn’t inspire much hope. A government short on cash, and the cancellation of HS2’s northern section, make it unlikely that the demand for rail travel amongst younger generations will be met. Structural improvements tackling the higher fares and long journey times are therefore essential. But for now, it seems that poor connectivity will continue harming student friendships, relationships and opportunities, disrupting the inclusivity the student community strives for.
Image Credit: Uncle Alf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via
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