Great Western Coffee Shop

Can someone be super helpful and explain or point me to information regarding off peak tickets to London. I have a meeting in London mid-morning and am trying to work out which tickets I can use.

I know that from my local station (in the Thames Valley) I can purchase an off peak return into London after 9:30am.

My meeting is due to finish at 2:30, meaning I can be back at Paddington by 3:30 safely.

But if my meeting overruns or I am delayed getting to Paddington for the return what trains can I use my return on ?

Whose services are you using?

Isn't Elizabeth Line touch-in time for off-peak different to Paddington barrier line? and is there an evening peak for the few non-IET GWR services still?

You can look up time restrictions using brfares.com (http://brfares.com) but it can be rather overwhelming. There's no real user-friendly alternative but if you plan various permutations of your journey on https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ (https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/) it will show when the off-peak ticket can be used and on which trains.
Or if you're starting at Reading or inwards of and don't have a Railcard, use contactless payg and look up fares/times at https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares/single-fare-finder (https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares/single-fare-finder).

Yes, BRFares only tells you which trains you can't get - which isn't the question.

But it seems that now the only trains valid with off-peak tickets are ones that use the relief lines from Paddington to at least Slough. The odd exceptions there were before seem to have gone now.

So, starting from timetable information, I think that means using just what's in timetable T10. The fast ones in timetable TS are all off limits. Or, based on CIS stopping patterns, if it stops at Ealing or Slough, and does not go past Didcot, it's OK - otherwise not.

Thanks for the information. It looks like a slow journey home it is.

After a day trip yesterday (1/3/23), when the return departure screens showed various trains barred to OP, I asked the TO at Reading for a ruling, as the Internet is vague and no leaflets are available (lazy management). The clerk was of course perfectly informed and said that all surface GWR departures from 1600 to 1915 inclusive are now barred to (London Area) OP tickets, only the Elizabeth Line being available.

The very occasional Elizabeth to Reading  (one has a long, standing, uncomfortable wait on the LL platform at Paddington) was very full, being comfortably used right up to Reading. Even with full access to the relief lines it still suffered signal checks!

How would one find this ticket validity out with booking offices closed and only an uninformative ticket machine available?

OTC

With great difficulty! But the situation has hardly changed since three years ago, except then this information was in the (printed) timetables and available on a leaflet. You may remember the last pre-covid timetable T10 was the only one that had red backgrounds to code peak-time trains not valid with off-peak tickets.

There are still a few GWR trains to Reading that are not listed in the restriction code. Some run on the relief lines so can only gain about 10 minutes on the Elizabethans. However, the last proper semi-fast (Main lines to Twyford) is also OK. These are:
16:56 to Maidenhead arr 17:40  and Reading arr 17:54
17:58 arr 18:44
18:50 arr 19:34
19:07 arr 19:35

You might prefer an Electrostar to Maidenhead and then change - it doesn't save any time, but has other advantages. And there is also ...
18:24 arr 19:14 the "Elizabethan Express"

The real sin is to not reintroduce the leaflets or printer timetables, no doubt arguing that we've all got used to on-line sources now. But this information isn't available on-line, at least not without far too much digging.

I did see that Reading now has a poster of peak times from there by destination, and very long it is too. But that's no help for return times - they aren't on it, and it's too big for your pocket!

There is a pdf file of T10 on the GWR website. Yet to check whether the associated trains are still pivked out in red

No - but whether that red flag coding was only there for December 2019, I can't be sure, as for some reason I was not so interested in timetables for a while after that ...

That was one source I was using; cross-checking with RTT and both lists of banned trains for the restriction code O9 on BRFares. As I said, far too much digging to reasonably expect a passenger to do.

This is that banned list from the restriction code text:

Here for all to see is a link to the pdf of the current timetable (I hope!)- file:///C:/Users/nebul/Downloads/T10%20train%20times%2011%20Dec%2022%20to%2020%20May%2023%20Updated%2001%20Dec%2022%20(2).pdf

There's nothing on there as far as I can see about any evening peak time restrictions on any of the trains listed, nor any warning that you might not be able to use an off-peak ticket on any other train to Reading on the return leg.

Most casual users would not know where to start to find this information - and frankly I would not either, beyond looking for a recent post on this forum on the subject and knowing that it's on the electronic signs at Paddington. While the electronic signs at Paddington might include the information, my guess is that the vast majority of passengers just look for the departure time, destination and whether the station they want to get to is in the list.

Now that most of the stopping trains between Paddington and Reading are Elizabeth Line - surely it's time to simplify matters and remove these restrictions from all GWR services? Heaven forbid, but it might make it easier and more attractive for the general public to use the the train!

Sorry folks, it appears that doesn't work.

Looks like you cannot simply download the pdf of the timetable either. Perhaps, like medieval bibles, they will print a copy and chain it in the waiting rooms at stations for us to use..........

Try this:

https://www.gwr.com/~/media/gwr/pdfs/plan-journey/timetables/2022/train-times-11-dec-22-to-20-may-23/t10-train-times-11-dec-22-to-20-may-23-updated-01-dec-22.pdf?la=en (https://www.gwr.com/~/media/gwr/pdfs/plan-journey/timetables/2022/train-times-11-dec-22-to-20-may-23/t10-train-times-11-dec-22-to-20-may-23-updated-01-dec-22.pdf?la=en)

(downloads the PDF immediately)

Timetable PDFs are all available, and currently the link to "train times" at the foot of every page leads to them in this page (https://www.gwr.com/travel-information/train-times) (though you need to expand the list). In the past I've struggled to get to that page from the obvious links, so the "site map" link at the very bottom of each page provides a back-up.

Timetable .pdfs are readily downloadable from the full GWR website. Likely to be easier on a tablet or lap top.

So how does the RPI know what is valid and what isn't? Why isn't the traveller privy to the same information?

From my experience the staff assume NO CDR's from 1600 to 1915.

The timetable is silent about this - when of far greater relevance than many footnotes.

Is there anyone from GWR reading this?

OTC

There may be information visible at Paddington - it's hard to say conclusively. For one thing, I've not needed to come back in peak time for a while now. For another, Paddington is rather big, so you'd need to look for a long time to convince yourself there was nothing of the kind. Asking for information might entail a long wait, and you'd probably get the same self-serving simplified rule as at Reading. And the gateline staff, of course, have a long and dishonourable record of refusing valid off-peak tickets.