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22711
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All across the Great Western territory / Fare's Fair / Re: Asking for fares advice? Please read.
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on: June 07, 2016, 23:55:24
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Southwest Trains offer cheap day returns, ( sometimes) which have to be bought by midnight the day before travel.
however, my nearest station doesn't have ticket machines, so I have to drive to another station to collect the ticket, and then board at my local station.
If you buy tickets ahead of time, the rules require them to be in your possession before you commence your journey. Order sufficient time in advance, and you can have them posted to you. Otherwise, collect them during a previous train journey or (yes) make a special trip. Them's the rules, but at times discression / can prevail. If you're making a short local hop and changing to a main line train, it's likely discression would be shown if you had a printout of your order - travelling (for example) from Dean to Waterloo with a change at Salisbury. But you cannot (and really should not) rely on that. |
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22713
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / News, Help and Assistance / Re: Cancellation map - what it's showing
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on: June 07, 2016, 23:16:38
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I maybe imagining it, but did cancellations used to be a different colour line? Now all the same colour, blue.
Would be better if cancellations were a different colour.
About 95% of the time cancellations were read and changes were blue (and at one time formation changes were a lighter blue). However, getting up from 95% to 99.9% proved illusive, and it was felt better to supply a little less but accurate information rather than more information but sometimes wrong. |
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22715
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All across the Great Western territory / Fare's Fair / Looking for advice on fares, or answers to fare questions?
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on: June 07, 2016, 23:09:33
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Are you here to seek fares advise? There's a general introduction - a talk on bus and train fares I gave to the TransWilts Link meeting on 16th April 2016 - at http://atrebatia.info/faretalk.pdf . Although it's targetted at Wiltshire, much of the advice is valid right across the Great Western network. Have a read also of some of the threads on this board - they will give you lots of thoughts and may help answer many questions. We have a number of forum members who know quite a bit about fares, what's available, and how they can be used within the rules. What I've learned from them forms the basis of that introduction, and if you post questions here they'll be happy to help you too - if I know or can reseerch the answer easily. If posting a question, please provide as much background as you can. No need to answer everything but the more we know of these the better: Where you're starting and where you want to end up Dates of travel Times of day and how flexible you are with those Whether your plans may change If and when you're coming back The size of your party and any railcards held Please bear in mind that advise is given to the best of my / our ability, but we're not lawyers nor trained on ticketing, so you need to double-check if in doubt, and we can't be held responsible if we get it wrong. Mind you, if we do get in wrong in public, another member will usually post to tell us - making the end result pretty darned accurate! Penalty fares were recently extended to cover the whole Great Western network, and if you have an opportunity to buy a ticket before you join the train, you must do so or you may be asked to pay a penalty fare or be prosecuted. There aren't ticket machines at some of the smaller stations, and in that case it's OK to join the train without a ticket and pay the conductor. The same applies where the only means of payment at a station is credit or debit card, but you want to pay in cash. |
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22717
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Pieces of eight
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on: June 07, 2016, 22:38:37
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In fact - an eighth piece of eight. One each, please, for the first 24 hours - can you tell me the locations? 1. Guildford - Paul7755  2. Chippenham - Western Pathfinder with Chris from Nailsea  3. New York, World Trade Centre - Patch38  4. Manchester - Merthyr Imp  5. Plymouth - Marky7890  6. Ardwick - Merthyr Imp  7. Bromsgrove - Worcester Passenger  8. Swindon - Timmer  |
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22718
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All across the Great Western territory / Fare's Fair / Re: Asking for fares advice? Please read.
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on: June 07, 2016, 19:12:26
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Whilst going slightly off topic, albeit with reference to the thread title, may I suggest to people out there who are looking for fares advice, or who are in need of any form of help regarding travelling on the railways, especially in the GWR▸ region, that they continue to post their queries on this forum.
Whilst bignosemac was (is) always very helpful and accommodating, I would just like to point out we have many other forum members who are also very knowledgeable and informative (me not usually included) and will always offer you the best possible advice they/we can.
This thread has now become long enough to split onto two pages which in itself makes it less effective as a pinned "come here for advise" thread, and I'm going to take a look at re-jigging it to ensure the encouragement to ask remains as a strong message. Edit to add I have posted a new (sticky) topic with a top article mentioning new things like the penalty fare regime change ... it's at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=17140.0 and should be the thread people find first in future. |
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22719
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All across the Great Western territory / Fare's Fair / Re: Asking for fares advice? Please read.
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on: June 07, 2016, 16:55:03
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My "Thank You" - an email, but I want the thanks in public Dear [real name],
I'm going to re-iterate my thanks and sadness at your decison, Bignosemac, as you've done provided so much to the forum over the years. As well as the fares and other knowledge, you've brought a refeshing but different view of many aspects some of which we've haven't all agreed with - one of the strengths of the forum is the ability to disagree amiacably and learn each others viewpoint.
Something of a co-incidence, when your bombshell was posted I was sitting in a seminar about looking after volunteers. We're all volunteer contributors on the Coffee Shop in what we do. We all get volunteering / campainging fatigue, or have other things going on in our lives which lead us to say "I can't do this any more". But these things almost inevitably pass.
So please I suggest that we treat your decision to not contribute further as being an indeterminate suspension from what you've been doing, rather than a grand farewell? You'll be fully welcome back if you choose - next week, next month, next year. Just let me or one of the admins know and we'll press the appropriate buttons within 24 hours.
The above is being posted as a public "thank you".
[snip] ...
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22721
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / Campaigns for new and improved services / Re: The general case for smaller scale investment in reinvigorated rail
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on: June 07, 2016, 06:53:22
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One of the problems with lots of smaller reopenings is that they feed more passengers onto the trunk routes which are struggling to cope with this year on year growth ...
Indeed. I was looking at two suggested line re-openings yesterday (just reading up on them) within the economic zone of interest to TransWilts and in both cases the primary traffic flows were connectional / carrying on to destinations well beyond the end of the line. Whether that extra traffic on the connecting services is a blessing (helping to cement their future and loading some of their lighter sections) or a curse (taking an already at-capacity service and shoving more onto it) is again a case by case study, and probably one without a clear black and white answer. As an example (and people have moved to look at other solutions too because of various concerns, and because of the good requirement under GRIP▸ to establish and choose between options), take the idea of opening a new station at Royal Wootton Bassett and serving it with the regional train service that passes through - that's the TransWilts, rather than stopping long distance expresses there. At first glance - "hey, great, more passengers to help justify the service". On a more detailed look - "are you going to add an explosive number of passengers for the first 7 minutes out of Swindon, then leave a relatively empty train all the way to Westbury / Warminster / Whereever"? Even more detail actually shows the busiest section of the TransWilts is Chippenham to Melksham so not quite such a big problem, by the way ... but there are overall better ideas! I'll gamble a guess that Portishead's main traffic will be to Bristol, and Tavistock's to Plymouth; Minehead's would be to Taunton so each of those has limited overspill. Padstow to Bodmin Parkway, Helston to Gwinear Road would be more like Newquay to Par where - as I understand it - most people transfer on to "the big train". |
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22722
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Journey by Journey / London to the Cotswolds / Re: New bus service from Bourton to Kingham
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on: June 07, 2016, 06:26:11
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The revised services are only alterations to timetables. However I was chatting at Kemble station to a driver from Pulhams Coaches, who operate all those services, and he said the X9 was being dropped. Mercifully not! The X9 is overall a well loaded service and Pulhams are making a real effort to continue it without subsidy. The new timetable reduces M-F frequency by about 25%, and Saturday by 50%, AIUI▸ with the intention of running with one fewer diagram (if that's what the bus people call it...) on weekdays and just one diagram on Saturday. Perhaps the driver meant to say "dropped in frequency", or he himself had misheard what he was told to that effect?? |
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22723
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All across the Great Western territory / Fare's Fair / Re: Exploiting Fare Anomalies
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on: June 06, 2016, 22:04:33
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You may start, or break and resume, a journey (in either direction in the case of a return ticket) at any intermediate station, as long as the ticket you hold is valid for the trains you want to use.
Doesn't say anything about starting the journey short on the return journey.
Yes it does. With snips "You may start a journey in either direction at any intermediate station" |
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22724
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Journey by Journey / London to Reading / Re: Class 387 coming to Thames Valley - ongoing discussion
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on: June 06, 2016, 21:38:35
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Purely historic reasons, and that it has a turn-back siding (albeit no use for anything longer than a 3 coach Turbo - AFAIK▸ )
I would refer "originally for historic reasons". The service terminating at Bedwyn may well have been due to the presence of the siding originally, but a distinctive traffic has built up and it's no longer just or purely history. London's where it is for purely historic reasons by the same argument. It's the first place where it was safe to cross the Thames up the estuary. |
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22725
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / Campaigns for new and improved services / The general case for smaller scale investment in reinvigorated rail
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on: June 06, 2016, 21:33:01
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From Christian WolmarRailways are all the rage. Passenger numbers are at their highest level since the 1920s and there is no sign that recent growth, which has seen total annual number of journeys double over the past 20 years, is slowing. There is a real commitment among politicians to rail, as demonstrated by the all-party support for the new high-speed line linking London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.
But it is not all plain sailing for the HS2▸ project. The cabinet secretary, Jeremy Heywood, is reviewing the project, reigniting doubts about whether spending £55bn on one scheme aimed mainly at business travellers in a hurry is the best strategy. There is an alternative. Around the country, dozens of campaign groups are pressing for the reopening of lines closed in the 1960s by the then chairman of British Railways, Richard Beeching.
continues
Edit to correct font / subj |
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