GWR Evening Day Returns, Exeter area trial.

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are trialling Evening Day Returns on journeys between two stations in the area bounded by Okehampton, Barnstaple, Exmouth, Newton Abbot, Paignton and Exeter St Davids/Exeter Central. The trial runs from 31st May - 12th December 2026.

These Evening Day Returns are valid on journeys arriving after 1800, with return the same day.

Usual Railcard discounts apply. Valid on all operators. Break of journey allowed.

An example fare:

Exeter St Davids - Barnstaple £8.60, saving £2.10 over the Off Peak Day Return.

[Richard Fairhurst]

Devon did of course have an evening ticket until 2018, as did Oxford:

https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=20804.0

[ChrisB]

The are efforts afoot to try & get them to reinstate the Oxford ticket too....

[Mark A]

I'm raising a glass to the... glasses we raised on a train, travelling on what might have been the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)'s best value rover ticket at the time... it was called something like the 'Cambrian Coast evening day ranger', covered Aberystwyth to Pwllheli, valid after... it was either 5:30 pm or six, and cost either sixty pence or seventy-five. (This was ~1979, mind...).

Four of these tickets enabled a sunny summer evening run from Aber as far as Morfa Mawddach, for four, on a (pleasantly) fragrant and characterful series of diesel trains with a view out of the front - and a brief pause in the evening light at the former junction station while the train that had taken us there crossed the river and freed up the southbound service to collect us.

Mark

[Clan Line]

We have the railways to thank for the introduction of a "universal" common time across Britain - but we now seem to be going backwards again.

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) is introducing an "evening" ticket which starts at 1800.............but SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) already have  an "evening" ticket which starts at 1200.  Perhaps the new fangled Great British Railways will be able to agree to a common nationwide time at which the "evening" is deemed to start !

[grahame]

We have the railways to thank for the introduction of a "universal" common time across Britain - but we now seem to be going backwards again.

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) is introducing an "evening" ticket which starts at 1800.............but SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) already have  an "evening" ticket which starts at 1200.  Perhaps the new fangled Great British Railways will be able to agree to a common nationwide time at which the "evening" is deemed to start !

An online look tells us:

Evenings begins when the sun is low on the horizon, following dusk and twilight, and often concludes when it is time to go to bed

Logic, then, is for evening tickets to be available for journeys completed less than 120 minutes before sunset, which is a defined, published, respected time for every place across the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and is updated thoroughly in multiple places. since "time to go to bed" is typically when you get home, the return should be through to end of service, and perhaps extended to the first service in the morning.

[stuving]

We have the railways to thank for the introduction of a "universal" common time across Britain - but we now seem to be going backwards again.

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) is introducing an "evening" ticket which starts at 1800.............but SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) already have  an "evening" ticket which starts at 1200.  Perhaps the new fangled Great British Railways will be able to agree to a common nationwide time at which the "evening" is deemed to start !

I doubt anyone would say their evening out starts at 12:00. It must be more like the earliest start needed for an evening out - most likely in London, for SWR. It took me a while to twig I could use one of these for a Lunch and afternoon trip to Reading. Obviously for longer journeys it will be more limited to a proper evening out - but then they are not sold for beyond Basingstoke (and not all get super off-peak either)!

[ChrisB]

Evenings start at 1700.....that's the etiquette time for saying "Good Evening", rather than "Good Afternoon" or "Good Day"

[Clan Line]

We have the railways to thank for the introduction of a "universal" common time across Britain - but we now seem to be going backwards again.

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) is introducing an "evening" ticket which starts at 1800.............but SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) already have  an "evening" ticket which starts at 1200.  Perhaps the new fangled Great British Railways will be able to agree to a common nationwide time at which the "evening" is deemed to start !

An online look tells us:

Evenings begins when the sun is low on the horizon, following dusk and twilight, and often concludes when it is time to go to bed

Logic, then, is for evening tickets to be available for journeys completed less than 120 minutes before sunset,

Today, sunset is 15 mins later in Penzance that it is at Paddington - this could require good mathematical skills to work out which train to get 

[grahame]

Today, sunset is 15 mins later in Penzance that it is at Paddington - this could require good mathematical skills to work out which train to get 

Not really - the data is easily to hand and accessible to the general public - and so to the booking engines too

Try (for PNZ and FFD):
https://www.passenger.chat/sunset.html?where=FFD&day=70
https://www.passenger.chat/sunset.html?where=PNZ&day=70

Change to any 3 letter code. ... "day" is the number of days forward.  Leave off the parameters and it defaults to today and (of course) to Melksham.

But my suggestion that this should be the standard was made tongue in cheek!

[Clan Line]

But my suggestion that this should be the standard was made tongue in cheek!

Really ?? 

[bobm]

Next, we will be able to learn moon rise, set and possibly latest phase here and the times of high tide at Dawlish.   

[grahame]

Next, we will be able to learn moon rise, set and possibly latest phase here and the times of high tide at Dawlish.   

Tidal times are important in timetabling, though perhaps not for fares. From WikiPedia on the Staplehurst accident, 9 June 1865:

at 3:13 pm. The South Eastern Railway Folkestone to London boat train derailed while crossing a viaduct where a length of track had been removed during engineering works, killing ten passengers and injuring forty.

and

The track would be removed when no train was due. However, on 9 June the foreman, John or Henry Benge, had misread his timetable as to the schedule that day of the tidal boat train, which ran at a different time depending on the tide in the English Channel

[Richard Fairhurst]

In the case of Exeter and Oxford it's easy.

Evensong starts at 6.05pm* at Oxford's cathedral, and 5.30pm at Exeter's. Allow half an hour to walk from station to cathedral. So the Exeter evening returns should begin with the latest service that gets you in for 5pm, and the Oxford ones for 5.35pm.