Yes, it's a bloody disgrace frankly. A white elephant for the convenience of the few at the cost of everyone else. As I've said before, far better to invest the colossal spend on improving existing infrastructure.

On the subject of fares - Inverness - Thurso (4 hours of beautiful, scenic train travel each way) £12.40 advance return, all trains, no peak times, at worst £24.90 bought on the day return.

Compare with any given journey in England. I couldn't even travel the 45 minutes to Bristol for that price down here at "peak" times.

So fares are certainly not linked in any way to mileage, fuel costs, etc. They're demand-led, which means that commuters on popular lines, especially in the South-East are going to be continually shafted because the train companies can get away with charging so much. Fares will never be reasonable while the trains are run by privately-owned, shareholder- and profit-led companies. HS2 will really just be this taken to the next level.