Major changes to SWR peak/off peak

[whole diary]

[Mark A]

More here:

https://www.southwesternrailway.com/train-tickets/smart-ticketing/changes-to-peak-times-and-tickets-on-some-routes

A quick take, SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) state this is driven by their need to fit with TFL^▸ (Transport for London)'s fares structure. Not sure how this gels with the fact that SWR as well as a mass-transit-style urban operation, also provides some or all of the train service for destinations outside London as far as Weymouth, Exeter, and, until recently, Bristol.

(On the subject of Bristol via SWR and Salisbury, while the 4-7pm peak time segment would have excluded the useful through train from Waterloo to Bristol at 19:20, the forthcoming timetable provides connections at 18:50 and I think 19:50 which is not such a good fit. BUT... it's possible that I've misunderstood their page on how this affects longer distance travel as some of the use cases there are... quite complicated...)

Mark

[IndustryInsider]

It says it only fares and restrictions from twelve stations are changing.  So no change to longer distance restrictions...unless I'm mis-reading it?

"There are 12 SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) stations that will be getting contactless pay as you go and therefore moving to the new fare structure and Peak time restrictions, these stations are:

    Ashford (Surrey)
    Datchet
    Egham
    Kempton Park
    Shepperton
    Staines
    Sunbury
    Sunnymeads
    Upper Halliford
    Virginia Water
    Windsor & Eton Riverside
    Wraysbury"

[Ralph Ayres]

IndustryInsider is correct that it only applies within the planned expanded contactless payg area but it still ends up with some pretty draconian peak times for longer journeys, eg the last off-peak train from Virginia Water if you're heading across London is around 1420, and the next off-peak train for such journeys is 5 hours later.  Within London the added convenience and flexibility of payg and automatic capping has broadly compensated for the removal of a few bargains, but as it spreads out I think the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) are going to need a bit of a rethink if they really want payg to take off.

[ChrisB]

My understanding is that the peak fares are only in the peak direction, so up in the morning & down in the evening.

On Chiltern, the off-peak travelcard (certainly from their contactless stations, I think from all stations) *is* going to be *valid* in that evening peak. Whether this applies to other TOVCs, you'd need to check.

[Mark A]

Thanks for this, think you're right. Reading that page, the words were starting to swim in front of my eyes.

Mark