RAIL commuting is now up to 7.5 times more expensive than in Europe after an “outrageous” 4.9 per cent price hike came into force in England and Wales yesterday.

Public transport campaigners said passengers were being “punished” with cancellations at some of their highest levels for 10 years and shareholder dividends tripling to £410 million in the last financial year.

Rail fares have risen by 28 per cent more than wages since 2010, TUC analysis has found, with the cost of seasonal commuter tickets in Britain as a proportion of average wages now up to 7.5 times higher compared to similar distance journeys in France, Germany, Belgium and Ireland.

A monthly London-Brighton seasonal ticket now costs £565 — 15 per cent of national average wages — while its equivalent for Etampes-Paris costs just €86.40 — 2 per cent of average French earnings.

The same tickets for London-Chelmsford and Liverpool-Manchester cost £478 and £261 — 12 and 7 per cent of average earnings respectively.

Private train firms are meanwhile “creaming off excessive payments” to shareholders, said the TUC, with the three companies that lease the vast majority of rolling train stock to franchise operators tripling annual dividends to shareholders in 2022/23.

The Office of Rail and Road says total dividends payments for the rolling stock companies, formed after rail privatisation in 1993, are up by 109 per cent since 2017/18.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “Working people need reliable and affordable journeys to work.

“But rail commuters pay some of the highest fares in Europe. And they get delayed, overcrowded and routinely cancelled trains in return.

“Privatisation is the problem. We waste billions of pounds lining the pockets of shareholders instead of investing in our railways.

“It is time to bring rail services back into public ownership. It would mean lower ticket prices and higher investment so that services improve.”

TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust added: “It’s as though the government is unable to see further than the demands of the profiteering rail companies who will again be the only winners.”

Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said: “Since coming to power in 2010 the Tories have hiked fares by almost twice as much as wages and now passengers are being asked to pay more for less.”

Rail Minister Huw Merriman has said the government had attempted to “split the balance between the UK taxpayer and the fare payer” in relation to fare rises.