Great Western Coffee Shop

I have received this in my inbox:


Can anyone here help with info?

For the outbound leg, via Newport? Can't find a through fare... but...

Anytime day single Christchurch - Newport £68.50 for the two.

Then, Newport to Wrexham, a direct train, £85 for the two, or £127.50 in 1st: but, not sure if TfW's restaurant service is up and running yet.

https://tfw.wales/ways-to-travel/rail/ticket-types/first-class (https://tfw.wales/ways-to-travel/rail/ticket-types/first-class)

Leaving Christchurch at 7:12 gets them into Wrexham just after two, having connected with the loco-and-carriages train. (Well, it's a GWR connection, so, nearly an hour's wait at Newport.)

Mark

In "National Rail Enquiries Mode" that will cost £249.10 each, Sir ... via London between Christchurch and Wrexham, then Wrexham to Norwich NOT via London.  Both off peak tickets, £102.70 and £146.40.   Outbound avoiding London and the £102.70 will cost £137.40 instead.

I've come up with £153.30 each plus cross London fares.  £54 Christchurch to London, £46.20 return Marylebone to Wrexham, £30.50 Liverpool Street to Colchester and £22.60 Colchester to Norwich.

I understand that £300 (or £230 including a two together railcard purchase) is too high a fare, and that the guests have decided to drop Wrexham from their agenda, and just travel direct by National Express Coach from Poole to Norwich.

In some ways, disappointing news (for them, I'm sure) but should we be looking at a wider picture and acknowledge this as a reduction in overall travel, to be commended for the future of the environment?

The example involves two people who find that their commonplace real world travel needs can't be met by the railway, partly because of its peculiar ticketing system, pricing and service patterns being a mismatch with what many people need from it.

Think the environmental impact of travel is bound up in this too - but society addresses that by ensuring the wide availability of affordable flexible and quality low-carbon public transport and designing cities etc in a way that reduces the need for people to travel as part of their daily lives rather than, well... *stares at a map of Bristol*.

Mark

I've just been playing around -- there are around 16 billion possibilities for people to go from one station to another via a third and I have just taken some randomly from our comparator page.   Each again would be an interesting pricing challenge and if we looked at them all would keep the Coffee Shop going until the world ran out of coffee!

From Swaythling to Swinderby via Swindon
From Chingford to Chinley via Chippenham
From Melksham to Melton via Melton Mowbray
From Troon to Trowbridge via Truro
From Westbury to Westcliff via Westcombe Park