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Post by chrish on Sept 7, 2009 20:00:12 GMT
I was looking at train fares from London to Rochdale on saturday. To my amazement, the cheapest fare one way was £46.50 on virgin trains. £46.50 in first. £82 in standard would you believe? I've come across that sort of thing before! There were some reasonably-priced tickets from Exeter to Rochdale and back this coming Saturday but I don't fancy the rush for the only suitable train after the match. I'll content myself with an FA Cup trip to Taunton instead and a nice little advance purchase ticket which will get me as far as Stoke on the day of the Macclesfield game. I think I'll have to make do with a fixture nearer to London this weekend. I don't really want to put another 500 miles on the car especially as I'm driving down to the south of France the weekend afterwards. Advance purchase tickets. That's another horrible modern day curse concocted by these evil souless Dick Turpin revenue management types who want to limit the number of people who pay a fair amount for their tickets to a bare minimum. Talking of which. I was looking for a single on the Eurotunnel for next week's road trip and the cheapest single was £82. But I choose a short period return instead and got a return for £44!! I won't be using the return journey but its still half the price. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2009 20:09:08 GMT
Advance purchase tickets. That's another horrible modern day curse concocted by these evil souless Dick Turpin revenue management types who want to limit the number of people who pay a fair amount for their tickets to a bare minimum. To be honest, I've almost given up on advance purchase tickets, certainly on the Cross Country route. You always know when they're in particularly short supply (eg any time near Christmas or bank holidays) because you get bombarded with emails from the Trainline telling you about all the wonderful deals. Are they taking the..... Mind you, for the last two seasons anyway, buying a Network Card for the Waterloo line certainly paid dividends. |
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Post by yorkgull on Sept 7, 2009 21:04:43 GMT
Dick Turpin? Was the York link deliberate Mr Hayes, you cheeky bugger?
As a former revenue manager for a bus company masquerading as a train company I would argue that I encouraged more people to travel by having a cheaper price available... But then I would say that!
Although having worked for two rail companies who handed back the keys at the first sign of any financial trouble, I think the blame firmly lies with the idiots at the Department for Transport who sign up for these unachieveable contracts with no disincentive to failure. That and a policy of actively encouraging price rises to pay ridiculous franchise premiums.
Best tip I can give you is these companies normally manage their trains around a hub, so for CrossCountry Birmingham. Buying several tickets can often work out much cheaper. Or for a special event look at buying tickets for a station further than you need to travel, you may find it's cheaper. I'm all for getting one over CrossCountry - the guy who did my equivalent job there is a cock of the highest order.
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Post by chrish on Sept 7, 2009 21:05:46 GMT
Advance purchase tickets. That's another horrible modern day curse concocted by these evil souless Dick Turpin revenue management types who want to limit the number of people who pay a fair amount for their tickets to a bare minimum. To be honest, I've almost given up on advance purchase tickets, certainly on the Cross Country route. You always know when they're in particularly short supply (eg any time near Christmas or bank holidays) because you get bombarded with emails from the Trainline telling you about all the wonderful deals. Are they taking the..... Mind you, for the last two seasons anyway, buying a Network Card for the Waterloo line certainly paid dividends. That's another line that could do with upgrading so you don't get the bottle neck of the single line. It would be a nice alternative to the current monopoly Great Western enjoy. I heard a rumour a while back that South West Trains would run a better service from Waterloo once they took ownership of the 5 extra platforms vacated by my lot but its still boarded up. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2009 21:35:37 GMT
Best tip I can give you is these companies normally manage their trains around a hub, so for CrossCountry Birmingham. Buying several tickets can often work out much cheaper. Or for a special event look at buying tickets for a station further than you need to travel, you may find it's cheaper. I'm all for getting one over CrossCountry - the guy who did my equivalent job there is a cock of the highest order. Yes, that's a good tip and it's always worth playing around with combinations rather than settling immediately for the A-to-B price. For journeys to the north, I've often bought several tickets to/from stations such as Temple Meads, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Derby, etc (although even this approach has been difficult over the last year or two). For the record regarding Macclesfield on 26 September, it's cheap singles to/from Stoke and a day return from Stoke to Macclesfield (which you should be able to buy at almost any station). Indeed - if you can't get a cheap ticket all the way - getting within the range of a day return for the last part of the journey is another suggestion. |
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Sept 7, 2009 21:48:46 GMT
The pricing mechanisms of the rail companies never fail to astound me.
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Post by capitalgull on Sept 7, 2009 22:04:07 GMT
The pricing mechanisms of the rail companies never fail to astound me. GOING FURTHER OFF TOPIC WARNING! And neither does the penalty fares scheme they run - I mistakenly boarded a train to Walton-on-Thames after the cricket at the Oval a couple of weeks ago, instead of a Shepperton one (they are almost equidistant from Vauxhall) and I was assessed a £20 penalty for 'travel beyond validity'....my ticket return to London was £9.80; the same return from Walton is £7.20....beyond validity or not? Of course I appealed the decision, since the penalty fares operative had written out an incorrect penalty ticket (stating on it I had boarded at Surbiton, not Vauxhall, even though I informed him of that), and that I had paid more than enough for a ticket to cover me for that length of journey, but of course they bog you down in rail-speak and you fail with your appeal. Now waiting for a common sense reply to a mail I sent to the Chief Executive of South West Trains, but I doubt I'll ever get such a reply despite their promises under the customers' charter. All they wanted was an extra £20 from a passenger who had a ticket to a station a couple of miles along the road. They make me mad; it's not the £20 - I can afford that - it's the bloody principle of COMMON SENSE! |
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Post by chrish on Sept 7, 2009 23:07:19 GMT
Dick Turpin? Was the York link deliberate Mr Hayes, you cheeky bugger? As a former revenue manager for a bus company masquerading as a train company I would argue that I encouraged more people to travel by having a cheaper price available... But then I would say that! Although having worked for two rail companies who handed back the keys at the first sign of any financial trouble, I think the blame firmly lies with the idiots at the Department for Transport who sign up for these unachieveable contracts with no disincentive to failure. That and a policy of actively encouraging price rises to pay ridiculous franchise premiums. Best tip I can give you is these companies normally manage their trains around a hub, so for CrossCountry Birmingham. Buying several tickets can often work out much cheaper. Or for a special event look at buying tickets for a station further than you need to travel, you may find it's cheaper. I'm all for getting one over CrossCountry - the guy who did my equivalent job there is a cock of the highest order. Dick Turpin. Of course it wasn't deliberate you big fruit  The franchise premiums are as ridiculous as London Midland trains not having enough drivers who volunteered to drive trains on a Sunday. I understand fully why you flew from Leeds-Bradford to Exeter recently. It needs to be sorted once and for all. At the end of the day it's always the customers who end putting up with severe disruption, loss of service and paying a premium price for the pleasure. I guess Hull Trains and Grand Central differ slightly because they are open access companies rather than franchises. But this special advance priority price advertising, then charge the earth for the poor sods who really need to travel isn't good enough. If you go to any SNCF, Deutsche Bahn, NS, SNCB, RENFE, SBB, or FS station to buy a ticket you will always get a consistent ticket price and there are always decent discounts available by buying a pass. But it's a proper service over there which forms part of the whole infrastructure of the country. I mean if those work shy, siesta loving Spaniards at RENFE can run a high speed network, surely us Brits who were once the pioneers of railway development can do much better than the current shambles. Sorry for taking this off topic but it seems we've all been having fun on the trains recently, apart from the shameless Mr Charles trying to weasel his way out of blatant fare dodging. Just joking Andy;) I have the same frustration with Traffic Wardens. Back on Topic. So are Farsley Celtic (or maybe one day FC Leeds) actually dead and buried or not? Or have they found new backers? |
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Mark L
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Post by Mark L on Sept 8, 2009 11:12:08 GMT
Best tip I can give you is these companies normally manage their trains around a hub, so for CrossCountry Birmingham. Buying several tickets can often work out much cheaper. Or for a special event look at buying tickets for a station further than you need to travel, you may find it's cheaper. I'm all for getting one over CrossCountry - the guy who did my equivalent job there is a cock of the highest order. Yes, that's a good tip and it's always worth playing around with combinations rather than settling immediately for the A-to-B price. For journeys to the north, I've often bought several tickets to/from stations such as Temple Meads, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Derby, etc (although even this approach has been difficult over the last year or two). For the record regarding Macclesfield on 26 September, it's cheap singles to/from Stoke and a day return from Stoke to Macclesfield (which you should be able to buy at almost any station). Indeed - if you can't get a cheap ticket all the way - getting within the range of a day return for the last part of the journey is another suggestion. I truly despair. What a shambles when you have to root around searching for the cheapest fare like that. Is it a service or a game??? I went to Reading festival last week and on-line it was impossible to work out the cheapest fares... I get to the station and the guy saved me £15 on what I could fathom as being the cheapest. I don't want to have to learn all the tricks of the trade to get from A to B, I want a transparent system. I can cope with the odd delay but I don't want to feel like I might be being ripped off for not being savvy enough... to be fair, even when I've got the cheapest fare I usually do anyway. The prices quoted to get back to the Bay from here are pathetically disproportionate to what you get. Paying for a car and burning petrol's much cheaper when there's two of you it pains me to say. |
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Post by yorkgull on Sept 8, 2009 21:22:08 GMT
I truly despair. What a shambles when you have to root around searching for the cheapest fare like that. Is it a service or a game??? It's neither - it's a business. Since privatisation all these companies are responsible to their shareholders to ensure a return on their investment. Re-nationalisation? Discuss... |
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Post by yorkgull on Sept 8, 2009 21:45:09 GMT
I understand fully why you flew from Leeds-Bradford to Exeter recently. It needs to be sorted once and for all. At the end of the day it's always the customers who end putting up with severe disruption, loss of service and paying a premium price for the pleasure. I guess Hull Trains and Grand Central differ slightly because they are open access companies rather than franchises. But this special advance priority price advertising, then charge the earth for the poor sods who really need to travel isn't good enough. If you go to any SNCF, Deutsche Bahn, NS, SNCB, RENFE, SBB, or FS station to buy a ticket you will always get a consistent ticket price and there are always decent discounts available by buying a pass. But it's a proper service over there which forms part of the whole infrastructure of the country. I mean if those work shy, siesta loving Spaniards at RENFE can run a high speed network, surely us Brits who were once the pioneers of railway development can do much better than the current shambles. It was Manchester to Exeter and price was not the driver - I can fly at 1730 on a Friday and back at 0640 on a Monday and do near enough a full day's work on both days. Your point about Hull Trains and Grand Central is fair - but they are working on a different cost model as their access charges to Network Rail are considerably smaller than any franchisee, so they are able to charge a cheaper price. In fact your current employer has benefitted from paying a very cheap price for the pleasure of running under the English Channel - they'll be a rude awakening next year when those access prices shoot up and the tunnel is open to competition. A company about to hand back it's franchise made £560m in revenue last year but had a profit margin of 4%. Gives you an idea of the costs involved - the two biggest costs being franchise premiums & track access - i.e. 'hiring' the tracks to run the trains on. (Dave - this is in the public domain so you won't get into trouble for me quoting numbers) And while I agree that there is a massive amount to learn from Europe their railways are in the main heavily subsidised by government. While we continue to live in a society where low taxation is an expectation there will always be something more pressing to spend our cash on. Like unjust wars. And that is another thread entirely. |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Sept 10, 2009 20:50:18 GMT
Things were just so much better in the days Of Bristish Rail, taken from the programme timbo put up for the 1951 Bournemouth game.  |
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