Regular travellers over the past 30 years or more will be familiar with the “Tunnel Tax”, the absurdly high fare for cross-boundary journeys between West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester through Standedge Tunnel.
It’s not a new thing. A former councillor on West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council (abolished 1986!) recalls raising it as an issue.
It leads to some perverse travel decisions, such as passengers driving past Marsden station and over the moors to Greenfield to take advantage of the lower fares. Certainly not sensible, especially not in winter.
SMART is not satisfied that people within the railway industry are content, even eager, to put this into the box marked “too difficult”.