Poll: The 2008 Fare Strike

[whole diary]

[John R]

A dodgy one of course. But there was such a scrum when I got to the barrier that I couldn't be bothered to go through the bother of showing it. So I put my crisp new 16% off annual season ticket through the gate instead. Others at work put theirs in their season ticket wallets, and the staff knowingly let them through.
Result - I didn't break the law but I helped publicise the cause (well would have done had it been shown, but they had much more interesting footage). Result: everyone a winner (except for FGW^▸ (First Great Western).)     

[vacman]

A dodgy one of course. But there was such a scrum when I got to the barrier that I couldn't be bothered to go through the bother of showing it. So I put my crisp new 16% off annual season ticket through the gate instead. Others at work put theirs in their season ticket wallets, and the staff knowingly let them through.
Result - I didn't break the law but I helped publicise the cause (well would have done had it been shown, but they had much more interesting footage). Result: everyone a winner (except for FGW^▸ (First Great Western).)     

Thats what all but two people did, they all travelled with valid tickets aswell. Sorry MTLS^▸ (More Train Less Strain) but what have you gained??? NOTHING!!! MTLS have not changed anything at all!

[John R]

Publicity is all about getting the issue you are concerned about in the public eye, whether it be press or media. Does Greenpeace chase Japanese whale hunters because they seriously expect to stop them? No, but because they want to highlight the issue to the world. Do people in towns demanding bypasses block the traffic for a morning because they want to hold up the traffic. No, because they want to show everyone how fed up they are, and get those that make the decisions to sit up and understand that there is a seriously p***ed off group of people.

It's the same here. The only objective of the Fare Strike was to raise public (and political) awareness of how strongly your customers feel about the level of service they receive. My local weekly paper has a full page devoted to the subject this weekend, and the daily in Bristol gave it extensive coverage, as did Points West and ITV News. So it succeeded in its objective.

[vacman]

Publicity is all about getting the issue you are concerned about in the public eye, whether it be press or media. Does Greenpeace chase Japanese whale hunters because they seriously expect to stop them? No, but because they want to highlight the issue to the world. Do people in towns demanding bypasses block the traffic for a morning because they want to hold up the traffic. No, because they want to show everyone how fed up they are, and get those that make the decisions to sit up and understand that there is a seriously p***ed off group of people.

It's the same here. The only objective of the Fare Strike was to raise public (and political) awareness of how strongly your customers feel about the level of service they receive. My local weekly paper has a full page devoted to the subject this weekend, and the daily in Bristol gave it extensive coverage, as did Points West and ITV News. So it succeeded in its objective.

One thing that MTLS^▸ (More Train Less Strain) achieved was barrier staff being verbaly abused and assaulted for DOING THEIR JOB!! This years fare strike was forgotten about by lunch time and it made it onto the news but noone really cared, I counted quite a few people refrain from taking the tickets from the numpties outside the stations, and at the end of the day MTLS were supposedly "withholding paying their fare" , which only  a few people actually did, yes it made it to the news but it's old news, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are not in the top 10 of most crowded trains in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), Cross Countrys walk on fares are more expensive than FGW for the same distances. Mr Ambrose, a tip, take up politics or gardening.

[John R]

Publicity is all about getting the issue you are concerned about in the public eye, whether it be press or media. Does Greenpeace chase Japanese whale hunters because they seriously expect to stop them? No, but because they want to highlight the issue to the world. Do people in towns demanding bypasses block the traffic for a morning because they want to hold up the traffic. No, because they want to show everyone how fed up they are, and get those that make the decisions to sit up and understand that there is a seriously p***ed off group of people.

It's the same here. The only objective of the Fare Strike was to raise public (and political) awareness of how strongly your customers feel about the level of service they receive. My local weekly paper has a full page devoted to the subject this weekend, and the daily in Bristol gave it extensive coverage, as did Points West and ITV News. So it succeeded in its objective.

One thing that MTLS^▸ (More Train Less Strain) achieved was barrier staff being verbaly abused and assaulted for DOING THEIR JOB!! This years fare strike was forgotten about by lunch time and it made it onto the news but noone really cared, I counted quite a few people refrain from taking the tickets from the numpties outside the stations, and at the end of the day MTLS were supposedly "withholding paying their fare" , which only  a few people actually did, yes it made it to the news but it's old news, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are not in the top 10 of most crowded trains in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), Cross Countrys walk on fares are more expensive than FGW for the same distances. Mr Ambrose, a tip, take up politics or gardening.

How do you make that out?
Bristol to London: 118 miles, 1hr 44min = 68mph. Peak walk on ^137 = 58p per mile, off peak ^49 21p per mile.
Bristol to Birm: 92 miles, 1 hr 26 mins = 64mph. Peak walk on ^66 = 36p per mile, off peak ^39.70 21p per mile.

Both services half hourly. I make the FGW service 60% dearer in the peak for a broadly similar service in terms of speed and frequency.   

[vacman]

try off peak, Penzance Paddington saver (valid on all but one train) ^75, Penzance - Birmingham saver (roughly the same distance) ^109, there are many more! both fares are for returns.

[Timmer]

try off peak, Penzance Paddington saver (valid on all but one train) ^75, Penzance - Birmingham saver (roughly the same distance) ^109, there are many more! both fares are for returns.

The Penzance to Paddington saver at ^75 is pretty good value for a walk up ticket as opposed to a Bristol to London saver at ^49 which IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion) is poor value. I say this about all rail companies not just FGW^▸ (First Great Western), that yes you offer great deals on advance booked tickets for those who can book in advance but the price you get charged now for tickets bought on the day on IC^▸ (Inter City) services in particular is pretty poor since supersavers were abolished.

So much for regulation of rail fares under privatisation and thus ensuring good value walk up fares.

Keeping in line with the thread of this post...Fares were one of the reason why MTLS^▸ (More Train Less Strain) held the fare strike last week.

[John R]

I suspect the passenger flows from Bristol to London and Birmingham are somewhat more than from Penzance to same destinations.

What's the difference in peak fares from Penzance? ^257 to Paddington or ^109 to Birmingham. Similar distance. I think you'll find that most people complaining are grumbling about the peak fares, which have become extortionate from Bristol to London. Off peak fares, (whilst not disagreeing with Timmer) don't seem to have attracted the same concern. People feel ripped off, especially when you consider that uniquely amongst the "Inter-City" franchises, the service is slower than 25 years ago.   

[Jim]

try off peak, Penzance Paddington saver (valid on all but one train) ^75, Penzance - Birmingham saver (roughly the same distance) ^109, there are many more! both fares are for returns.

The Penzance to Paddington saver at ^75 is pretty good value for a walk up ticket as opposed to a Bristol to London saver at ^49 which IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion) is poor value. I say this about all rail companies not just FGW^▸ (First Great Western), that yes you offer great deals on advance booked tickets for those who can book in advance but the price you get charged now for tickets bought on the day on IC^▸ (Inter City) services in particular is pretty poor since supersavers were abolished.

So much for regulation of rail fares under privatisation and thus ensuring good value walk up fares.

Keeping in line with the thread of this post...Fares were one of the reason why MTLS^▸ (More Train Less Strain) held the fare strike last week.

Bristol-London is ^42.

[Mookiemoo]

I suspect the passenger flows from Bristol to London and Birmingham are somewhat more than from Penzance to same destinations.

What's the difference in peak fares from Penzance? ^257 to Paddington or ^109 to Birmingham. Similar distance. I think you'll find that most people complaining are grumbling about the peak fares, which have become extortionate from Bristol to London. Off peak fares, (whilst not disagreeing with Timmer) don't seem to have attracted the same concern. People feel ripped off, especially when you consider that uniquely amongst the "Inter-City" franchises, the service is slower than 25 years ago.   

And that is i think the problem

Fares have gone up across he board BUT......

Almost every where else , journey times has gone down

In 2004 when I first did this insanity - a season cost about ^730 and took 2.01 hours

In 2008 it costs ^1130 and takes 2.17 hours

[Timmer]

Bristol-London is ^42.

Maybe it was a while back but its now ^49 for a Saver return. If you are not in a hurry you can save a few pounds by going to Waterloo at ^46.50 but its a much longer journey. If you are only going for the day and can't book in advance you can also buy a cheap day return Bristol-Waterloo for just ^33.20 and on weekends upgrade to First for an extra ^5 each way. The first class section on SWTs^▸ (South West Trains) 159s is quite good, better than it was on TPX and Scotrail 158s. 

One of the problems with the Bristol-Waterloo service is the lack of direct trains, particularly coming back in the evening with the direct train leaving at 19.20 and not getting into Bristol until 22.00. You can travel back on other SWT services with a change at Salisbury but that means changing onto a two carriage FGW^▸ (First Great Western) 158 between Salisbury-Bristol which is almost guaranteed to be very busy. Credit to SWT for adding another direct service leaving Waterloo in the morning returning from Bristol at lunchtime. They just need to add a further direct service leaving say around 5pm and you have a pretty good spread of direct trains to choose from during the day out of Waterloo.

[vacman]

I suspect the passenger flows from Bristol to London and Birmingham are somewhat more than from Penzance to same destinations.

What's the difference in peak fares from Penzance? ^257 to Paddington or ^109 to Birmingham. Similar distance. I think you'll find that most people complaining are grumbling about the peak fares, which have become extortionate from Bristol to London. Off peak fares, (whilst not disagreeing with Timmer) don't seem to have attracted the same concern. People feel ripped off, especially when you consider that uniquely amongst the "Inter-City" franchises, the service is slower than 25 years ago.   

The peak fare doesn't really come into it, as anywhere west of Newton Abbot only has one "up" peak train, the 0505 Pnz-Pad the "Golden Hind", and only one "down" peak service the 1703 off Pad, we're lucky really as most peak restrictions don't apply if your going to/from Cornwall! However, our real "peak" is july and August but off peak fares are still valid then!

[John R]

So maybe you'll understand the frustration for those of us for whom peak fares are indeed a reality. The focus of the MTLS^▸ (More Train Less Strain) protests is in the Bristol/Bath area, and it's those fares, services and overcrowding which is their concern, not the service and fare structure in the far west (and that's why I cited the Bristol to London fare structure and compared it with our regions's XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services and fares.) 

[vacman]

So maybe you'll understand the frustration for those of us for whom peak fares are indeed a reality. The focus of the MTLS^▸ (More Train Less Strain) protests is in the Bristol/Bath area, and it's those fares, services and overcrowding which is their concern, not the service and fare structure in the far west (and that's why I cited the Bristol to London fare structure and compared it with our regions's XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services and fares.) 

But it makes a change for the far south west to not have to suffer for the sake of Bristol and London, it's usually us that's forgotten about, remeber last year when Bristol area nicked all the units of our branches?? Thankfully common sense prevailed and it only lasted 3 days! Peak fares are a reality in terms of standard day returns which are on average double the cheap day fare! Good old supply and demand I suppose.

[Lee]

But it makes a change for the far south west to not have to suffer for the sake of Bristol and London, it's usually us that's forgotten about, remeber last year when Bristol area nicked all the units of our branches?? Thankfully common sense prevailed and it only lasted 3 days!

One of the reasons that it only lasted 3 days is because the issue was one of the very few that has ever united virtually every campaigning group in opposition to it.

Thats an indication of how difficult it is to get consensus, and the lack of coordination is something you will hear campaigners complain about regularly.

We are lucky at CANBER^▸ (Campaign Against the New Beeching Report) in that we have a collection of forward-thinking groups and individuals who want to work together. However, there are still issues that cause disagreement, sometimes markedly so.