As a (former) Thames Valley commuter I was going to say Delay repay seemed a bit of a retrograde step. But it seems a railway with no passengers is much more reliable - for the first time in at least the last 5 years there is no current season ticket discount for punctuality or reliability for the commuter services.

They say a problem shared is a problem solved! If this is the wrong place to post apologies!

Before COVID I went to London essentially every working day. At the beginning of the crisis in March I did a changeover of my season ticket to the ?Isle of Wight? special (Ryde St. John?s to Ryde Esplanade) until it?s existing expiry of 20th Dec. This was rational as it maximised my refund (essentially unlocking a c ?10.50 daily refund.) also, because at that stage no one knew how long this would go on for, it had the added benefit of ensuring the 2019 price Id locked in could be ?retrieved? at the point I did a possible changeover back to the ?proper? season ticket.

The dilemma is do I renew that Isle of Wight season ticket. I know I won?t be going back until March at the earliest. IF rail fares were going up on Jan 1st it felt prudent to purchase the Isle of Wight ticket again because the 2020 season ticket renewal is maintained. I doubt very highly I will ever go back anything like as frequently as I once did. But the curious loophole here is that (despite being desperately unpopular at a ticket office!) were changeovers to be unlimited - I think they are - I could legitimately toggle back and forth between London season ticket and Isle of Wight and thereby unlock rail travel at the marginal daily difference of c. ?11 per day, on the days I wanted to go to the office. Given the full rail fare is ?35-40 I?d only have to go to London c. 15 days before I made back the initial outlay of c. ?180. Plus any travel (ega lesiure trip to London off peak) benefits from the gold card discount.

The spanner in the works now is I don?t think I?m under the pressure I thought I was to purchase my ticket to Ryde again. However, because of the engineering works in Q1 2021 on the island, is it possible unless I renew now I will not be able to obtain the ticket I desire?!

2020 has been bananas enough, without 2021 literally seeing banana trains everywhere!!!

Starting to thin services will be unexpected but still sad. It is a very odd feeling on weekday mornings watching the services hurtling towards Paddington, not being on them. In one sense it?s very reassuring they?re still running - things might return to normal. There?s a sense of the Railway Children about it - that they might get a message to London for me. But on the other hand when you see no passengers on the train it?s quite unnerving. My employers said I won?t be back until Apring 2021 earliest. If anyone has read the Alex cartoon this week in the Telegraph they will have enjoyed the ?ghost train? series

This could be an interesting series. I guess it all depends how much footage they got pre pandemic. A bit like the recent Ritz hotel documentary there won?t be a huge amount of interesting stories post March to record.

The alphabetical station game was fun. I had two original GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) routes

4 stations

Iver
Langley
Slough
Windsor and Eton Central

6 stations (possibly unbeatable)

Falmouth Docks
Falmouth town
Penmere
Penryn
Perranwall
Truro

I could get a couple of 4s and 5s from the Underground map, but alas the East Coast Main line is the winner with 8.

Alnmouth
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Dunbar
Edinburgh Waverley
Haymarket
Inverkeithing
Kirkcaldy
Leuchars

Slightly off topic but it was a delight to ride on the old trains over the August Bank Holiday. I managed to use my downgraded Gold Card between Ryde Esplanade and Ryde St Johns (and benefit from the Gold Card discount for onward travel to Shanklin!) Was a wonderful experience to ride a tube train after what is now 6 months since the daily commute to London was drastically cut!

Glad to see the end of the week of easing lockdown restrictions brings other forms of familiarity ie non working trains!

Nick - I discovered earlier in the week that it is financially beneficial to not simply cancel an existing gold card but convert it. By converting it to Ryde Esplanade to Ryde St. John’s. As that season ticket is only £188 pa you will get a bigger refund than simply cancelling. And, when normality returns you can simply then pay the difference back up to the regular product you have.

I found a solution - to the refund conundrum. I found a legacy Bignosemac post from 2012 on here. If you have a gold card, the trick is to do a ‘changeover’ to Ryde Esplanade to Ryde St Johns til renewal. By doing that now, I get the full credit refund of the differential, and so for the foreseeable weeks/ months, I only ‘lose’ 52p a day from £188 season ticket. And if I need to travel once on a train I have a gold card anyway.

When normality returns, I can then repay the difference to convert the ticket back to a regular gold card!

All credit to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) for a truly wonderful afternoon. Never thought a trip up and return from Slough to Paddington could be such fun! Managed a final bottle of Doom Bar from the buffet car on the way in, and had such fun explaining to bemused ‘regular’ passengers on the 18.22 return why there were so many cameras to see them off! A true delight to see Sir Kenneth Grange hurtle through slough having disembarked (and slammed for the final time) the door on the 90s BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) liveried power car. A fantastic way to send them off after 43 years!

PS the perk of doing all this on a standard Annual Season ticket was worth its weight in gold!

As a regular commuter to London from Maidenhead I’d echo many of the comments above. 95pc of the time we get a good service from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway). But the occasions when things go wrong are memorable because all too often the communication of the issues can let us down.

However - things do seem to be improving. Since January, I would note the improvement to the branch line connections by introducing a deliberate delay of  a couple of minutes - meaning I can change round to Furze Platt much more frequently.

Strategically though, GWR could make the ticketing system more digitised. I take the example of renewing my season ticket in December. I’m still using a paper ticket daily - no sign (promised since the Olympics!) of an oyster style digital card. My paper ticket wears out at least 3-4 times a year. Perhaps the e-card will come with Crossrail?? Anyway, due to the service challenges last year, I was entitled to two days refund and 10pc discount. I tried firstly Checking online - but such discounts can’t be applied there. I tried calling GWR but customer services couldn’t help.  So,  in order to obtain that cash refund, I had to go to Maidenhead and fill in a number of paper forms. I cannot understand why in 2019 those discounts couldn’t be given online, or over the phone, or failing all that at the Furze Platt ticket office!

An interesting commute this morning! Furze platt to maidenhead, maidenhead to Twyford, realise the reading SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) train is up the spout, change at twyford back to Slough, Slough to Windsor, Windsor to Waterloo! Will be an adventure coming home!!!

So conceivably even if the ‘middle bit’ weren’t ready, the Elizabeth line could use the 345s and ‘start’ next December into Paddington high level?

Does a short form service count towards the reliability metric for season ticket refunds? Presumably not, which would explain why it’s better for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to run more shortforms than half the ‘full service’ trains instead.