How is the income from train tickets distributed?

Question

I don't understand where the money from my train ticket cost goes once I have purchased it.

If I buy a ticket from, say, London to Brighton, then I could travel either by Southern Trains, or by First Capital Connect, or a combination of the two, or South West, Central or Southeastern. There is no way anyone can tell which one I travelled on, so who determines which company gets my money?

When I buy a ticket at a ticket machine, or at a kiosk, normally you don't specify who you're travelling with (though sometimes you do). Which makes it quite hard for me to understand how the profits get split.

Surely, it can't be a case of a train company 'buys' the rights to all profits on a route, as more than one train company can use the same line. And the profits can't be split either?

Can someone help, because I'm confused.

Answer 1

you are going to be a bit more confused, as the lunch time news announced a price rise in January..Sorry Mate

Answer 2

I'll use London to Glasgow as an example. The railway uses a system called ORCATS to allocate revenue to the train companies. So from london you have GNER from KX-Glas. First Hull Trains Kings X-Hull via Doncaster. FCC from KX to Peterborough. Virgin from Doncaster/york - Edinburgh. Northern from Darlington via Durham to Newcastle, Morpeth and Alnmouth and First Scotrail from Edin - Glas. AND virgin run from Euston to Glasgow Depending on the amount of trains ran in comparison with the total the TOC's receive a proportion of the money depending on stops of the train, time of day etc. BUT you can buy ticket eg FCC only or SCotrail or GNER only. In these cases the TOC concerned would get all the money. which is why they fon't allow you to interchange train companies with those tickets... This is really just the basics of it but hope it helps. Any more info. just ask...