Cotswold Line advance tickets

[whole diary]

[CobboldCamper]

Anyone know what's happening on the Cotswold Line in the New Year?  No advanced ticket availability and this message has been on the website for the last few weeks, with the end date getting further away

*Reservations aren’t open yet on the following dates:
from Monday 1 January through to Friday 2 March 2018 for services between London and Oxford/Worcester/Hereford

When I asked GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) they tell me its because Network Rail won't confirm the time table   Buy they're quite happy to sell full peak fares for those dates

[Richard Fairhurst]

That sounds a curious reason given that the timetable is posted on the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) website.

I wonder if it's because GWR aren't 100% confident what rolling stock they'll be using on the Cotswold Line in the New Year - the Adelantes are leaving at Christmas, but the IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) have barely run up and down the line yet, let alone been proven in revenue-earning service. We may be in for an uncomfortable few weeks of Turbotisation before the IETs bed in, and Turbos have limited capacity and no reservations.

[didcotdean]

If they were brave they could sell a few Advances without seat reservations. Unless maybe they think there could be too many 2-coach 165s.

[grahame]

... the Adelantes are leaving at Christmas ...

I've only used the Adalentes very rarely since a handful returned to FGW^▸ (First Great Western)/GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) - simply not on my line.  However, this a.m (having chickened out of last night's chaos) I was at Paddington early and caught the 07:15 Malvern service as far as Reading.

Passenger view - noticeably faster "away" than an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) / noticeably much noisier that an HST or an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train).   Good table layout in contrast to an HST, much more comfortable / softer seats than an IET.  And the opening doors seem to fly back at a much higher speed on an Adelante than on an IET.   I can understand "standard fleet" and that there have been reliability issues, but on the basis of this morning's run they're AOK for regional work and perhaps would have been preferable to turbos for Cardiff to Portsmouth?

[Richard Fairhurst]

They're terrific trains, a good fit for the Cotswold Line, and I'll miss them. Reliability was obviously a issue, and the tables do judder around given that they're not bolted to the wall. (Apparently this was a deliberate design decision with a "floating floor" insulated from the body structure to reduce vibration, but I'm not convinced it works.) But they're wonderfully comfortable, fast, and airy with big windows. They remind me of a modern evolution of the Class 156, their Washwood Heath predecessor.

The 125mph capability would be wasted on Cardiff-Portsmouth, though, I think: better suited for their 100mph cousins, the 175s.

[didcotdean]

I always quite liked them. Biggest drawback for me was the overhead luggage space, or relative lack of it, not for much more than a thin bag or coats.

[grahame]

They're terrific trains ...

The 125mph capability would be wasted on Cardiff-Portsmouth, though, I think: better suited for their 100mph cousins, the 175s.

You would have a riot from Cardiff - Portsmouth line passenger if you dropped that service to 3 carriages though, and from staff and the revenue protection team if you coupled two none-gangwayed sets together.   You could probably get away with telling the staff and RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector (or Retail Price Index, depending on the context)) they had to live with the issue of no connection if you went that way but a three  car into the foreseeable future / three car "next generation" would result in awkward questions in high places!

The other solution using 3 car 175s is to run not one but multiple services per hour.

[IanL]

"Six rail companies also failed to release advanced purchase tickets for the festive period 12 weeks ahead."  from BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) news

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42322086

[Timmer]

"Six rail companies also failed to release advanced purchase tickets for the festive period 12 weeks ahead."  from BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) news

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42322086

Surprised it’s taken this long for this story to appear on the forum. It was on the front page of The Daily Telegraph later appearing via other media outlets.

Been away from the Coffeeshop all day so haven’t had chance to post it up.

No point in fining Network Rail as taxpayers own the company! Shame they don’t get a say in how much Network Rail management earn.

[CobboldCamper]

So - three days (sic.) before the new timetable goes into effect, advance tickets on the Cotswold line have just been released - not that you'd know it from the website -https://www.gwr.com/plan-journey/tickets-railcards-and-season-tickets/booking-tickets-in-advance.  Good luck finding any discount from the walk on fares though.  "Book early to get our best deals" it says   - but if you can't cos network rail haven't confirmed the timetable then tough luck!

[grahame]

Good luck finding any discount from the walk on fares though.

That's logical.

Advance fares are a marketing tool designed to sell train travel to people who wouldn't otherwise travel by train, and to even out loadings from heavily (over)subscribed trains to later ones.   I would suggest that over the Christmas and New Year period, the vast majority of passengers won't be making go / no go decisions based on price, so there's little incentive for the train operator to discount - all they would be doing is providing a cheaper product that they could be selling at "full price" anyway.

There is a slight wrinkle of complexity here (of course there is - this is rail fares  ) in that income from advance tickets goes to the train operator upon whom your advance ticket is valid, rather than being shared between the various operators on a route.  So logic suggests that from Oxford to London (where Chiltern now compete) there may well be more advance tickets on offer at a small saving than from (say) Newbury, Swindon or Moreton-in-Marsh to London where virtually all of the farebox income is assigned to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).