Great Western Coffee Shop

I noticed at Paddington this evening a notice advising that the earliest departure for off peak tickets has been pushed back 45 mins from 0815 to 0900.

This seems a significant variation. Are there no restrictions on TOCS as to when off peak fares are valid, so that over time they can continue to be reduced?

Yes there is - I know that off-peak have to be valid weekdays after 1901 for example. I guess there is an AM limit too, but I don't know what it is. Arrivals before 1000 into LOndon for sure are peak, going out, I don't know, but 0900 would be within the limit, I suspect. So it's a commercial decision.

Looking at one flow, Swindon - London Terminals, Off Peak Return, with restriction code LC. It appears GWR have made this change to ticket issuing systems, but not bothered to tell National Rail Enquiries (NRE) or ensure they update their information (as of 8th September 2017).

NRE is the definitive source for ticket information. Tickets show the specific restriction code. Therefore the validity is as shown on NRE. Regardless of how many posters GWR may put up.

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/64148.aspx

Then there's GWR's 'Guide to Travelling With Us'  available from stations (I've just picked one up from Taunton). That tells intending passengers that Off Peak tickets are valid from Paddington after 0810.

Another fare increase by stealth  >:(

And?.....

Every company does it. Don't hear complaints other than rail.

I despair sometimes at your defence of the indefensible, ChrisB.

Just because it's done, doesn't mean it should be.

I'd be mightily pissed off if I brought this to the attention of the Customer Panel and got the response you've just given.  ::)

I can't easily find anything in the franchise agreement that restricts GWR's ability to change the classification of trains from off peak to peak.

So for Bristol passengers that's a 117% increase from £46.90 to £102.  Reasonable cause for complaint in my opinion, even if ChrisB doesn't agree.

Curiously the 0830 from BRI to PAD is off peak, but in the opposite direction is peak, even though intuitively the greater flow will be towards London. So how long before that gets restricted too?







 

Really???? Ever heard of 'shrinkflation' where companies make their products smaller but charge the same price? I'm sure if you went to consumer based forums there would be plenty ranting about that.

Are there any details online about this? What flows/restrictions it affects - are we just talking "out of Paddington", or across the GWR network in general? (As it happens, the GWR website appears to be unreachable right now...)

I'd be shocked if GWR bothered to put any information about the massive price hike by stealth online.

Previous form tells us that they think a poster or two, after the fact, is sufficient.

I doubt the posters even bother to say that tickets purchased before the price hike are still valid after 0810.

Not that that changes current validity until the definitive source, National Rail Enquiries, is updated.

Well hopefully this topic started by John R will prompt anyone at GWR who reads posts on this forum to ensure it's made more well known so their passengers don't get caught out.

It was the 'by stealth' I wasn't exactly defending, but referring to.

All sorts of companies do it, and very few get called on it. Toblerone I thonk was the last one? But washing powder/liquid has recently seen boxes/bottles shrink & I've yet to see any comment anywhere.

I agree with BNM about tickets purchased in advance of the change. They must remain valid. I'm not sure many though would have the courage to fight the non-mention on NRE's website of a change to a validity code. Frankly, they ought to set up a new code for new sales, then there could be no arguments. But how many even know that NRE's website is the arbiter of validities? (Mind you, where does it say this, BNM?)

This presumably came in at the September fares change point? (which would have been Sunday 3rd?)

However. If tickets purchased prior to the rise date are still valid, how other than posters do they announce the rise?
Any shop would simply change the price tag. Online, this will have happened with the fares no longer available being not shown since the rise and the new price is displayed. Ditto on TVMs. Presumably the same at ticket offices.

Similarly, no shop/airline gives advance notice of rises, prices simply change. So why do we expect rail to be different? Serious Q.

Definitive:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/46383.aspx

A change in the validity of a train ticket is a very different beast to price rises or shrinkflation (plenty of news and social media coverage) in shops.

There's actually been quite a lot of discussion about shrinkflation in the media.

As to the last question, with shops and airlines you usually have a choice as to where you take your custom, and indeed in most cases whether you even have to make the purchase/journey.  With rail you very rarely have a choice of supplier, and the railways are a public service, albeit in part privatised. So it does command a bit of a monopoly, and thus I believe is in a different position.

Looking at the full restriction code LC text on BRFares (dated 3 September 2017) it says:
   but the following long list of stations does not include Paddington.
   and that's all; note no catch-all restriction.

Down at the bottom, in the "unpublished restrictions" it says:

Those are the only items I can see for travel from Paddington applying today, among many for other cases.

Make of that what you will. AFAICS, the only train leaving PAD for SWI after 08:10 and not after 09:00 is the 08:30 to Bristol, for which Journey Planner does indeed not off offer an SVR to Swindon.

But little difference to airlines (mostly privatised, but not quite all)

Indeed, their prices can change from one hour to the next.

Usually every 15 mins, but not currently because of the Bristol Parkway closure.  The 0815, 0830 and 0845 are affected by this change.

To come back to ChrisB's point, I see there is a huge difference with airlines.  Rail journeys are typically used by millions of people going about their day to day lives, and many of those are essential journeys.  Most people will make at most a couple of scheduled flights a year for personal (i.e. not business use).   

A 09:29 restriction from Didcot actually means that the first direct fast train to London available on an off-peak return isn't until 10:03, which is also the first on which a Network card is valid.

However, at least at the moment, in the system off-peak day returns remain valid on the 09:16 and 09:29, restriction code P7.

A right recipe for confusion that one. One train timetabled excluded from off peak returns by being bang on the new restriction time. The earlier one a turbo starting from Oxford which I have never experienced being remotely full. Some off-peak tickets being valid, others not on the same train, ticketed from the same station.

Do you remember the actual wording of that notice? Or has someone else seen it? I suspect it might not mean what everyone has assumed.

Aha, well spotted.

So the new later cut-off time (seemingly 08.48 from Paddington) has been applied in the "Unpublished Restrictions" machine-readable section of the fare definition, as visible on BRFares; but not on the public-facing plain English version, as visible on nationalrail.co.uk.

That is nuts. Absolutely nuts. Publishing the restrictions on nr.co.uk was meant to make fares more transparent... it makes them less clear if the restrictions published on nr.co.uk aren't actually the ones being applied.

No, I don't. But looking online at booking engines it's clear that my interpretation is correct in that you used to be able to travel off peak at 0815 and now you have to wait until 0900.

As forecast by my crystal ball. In the long running thread about the new trains, someone remarked upon the great cost of these new units and enquired as to by how much fares would rise to recoup these costs.
An advocate of the new trains stated that there would be no increases beyond the usual inflation linked fare increases.

I stated that I expected a lot of "hidden" fare increases to pay for the very expensive DMUs. In particular I forecast tinkering with validity times of off peak tickets.
So the fare increases might be held to say 3% for regulated fares, but for some customers who need to travel at a certain time, the increase might in fact be 50% or more.

Or even +117%.

Indeed, 117% in some cases.
I expect more of this sort of thing. Not just altering the off peak times, but also timetable tweaks so as bring more popular trains into the peak.
If for example arrival into London before 10-00 is ruled peak, then any trains arriving just after 10-00 could be re timed to arrive just before 10-00. This of course is not a fare increase, but a demonstration of the splendid performance of the new trains. "An earlier arrival into London, in line with customer expectations"

Hmmmm - there are only so many paths/platforms available (longer trains, remember, so stacking is less likely) in a given 15min period.