Chester-le-Track to cease trading.

[SaveECRewards]

Sometimes it's difficult to tell which is the official site - www.virgintrainseastcoast.com or www.virgintrainseastcoast.uk ?

It's unfortunate an independent retail business is closing, but the demand for ticket offices is dwindling and their dodgy online business would never make up the numbers to keep the business afloat. At least they did some good by keeping the ticket offices open a lot longer than they would have been if they hadn't came around.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Bargoed has recently closed too, though I have no insight as to why they were part of the local taxi firm.

"internet sales" is maybe an easy public consumption soundbite I've heard plenty of businesses over the years blame the external factor that they seemingly can't do anything about that puts them in a realtively good light. It's then transpired that there are other real underlying reasons. All businesses have different factors affecting them, there sales now are probably far in excess of what they were doing in 2000 not withstanding internet completion.

 

[43096]

What I really hated about the domain squatting was that they never had anything useful on the domains once you got there. It was always just the internet equivalent of drawing a giant tag over an information poster, leaving you to go back out google to find the correct variation of the domain you were looking for. Obviously they felt like it worked for them, but overall I'd say it's probably actively stopped me from ever visiting Chester-le-Street let alone using what I assumed was a pretty sketchy operation.

Sorry to hear there was actually a decent business attached

I took an instant dislike to them once their cyber squatting came to light some time ago. Certainly didn't do anything for trust in their operation. Sorry for the staff affected, but not really any sympathy for a business with dubious ethics going to the wall.

 

[AY1975]

The Chester-le-Track website (www.chester-le-track.co.uk) already appears to have been deleted. The nationalrail.com site is still there, and still says it's owned and operated by Chester-le-Track, but it remains to be seen whether that one carries on after 31st March. I see from the Facebook page that one of their regular customers gave them a thank-you cake only a few days ago.

At least Eaglescliffe ticket office has been saved, as Northern will be taking it in-house from 1st April. There is a separate thread on Eaglescliffe at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/eaglescliffe-station-ticket-office-saved.162084/

 

[WelshBluebird]

The Chester-le-Track website (www.chester-le-track.co.uk) already appears to have been deleted.

Still seems to be fine for me?

 

[AY1975]

Still seems to be fine for me?

I tried accessing it via Chrome, but I still got "403 - Forbidden: Access is denied.
You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied."

I then tried accessing the site on my smartphone using Wi-Fi, but got exactly the same, but when I tried to access the site using mobile data, sure enough it worked. I can only assume that it's an interface problem between our system and theirs.

 

[Jonny]

When do the ticket machines come in?

 

[Deafdoggie]

I never liked them due to their cypersquatting policy, and very happy it has come back to bite them. They didn't do anything with the domains, just held them in the hope of flogging them for a profit, and then had the cheek to say they weren't cybersquatters! At least they used the nationalrail one (even if trying to pose as them to the unwary) but they have every station name registered and will not release them for community use, or even sell at a reasonable fee. Their business clearly has a lot of money tied up in domain names, which if they hadn't could have kept them going on the ticket sales much longer. Dodgy outfit, never gave them my money.

 

[AY1975]

Sometimes it's difficult to tell which is the official site - www.virgintrainseastcoast.com or www.virgintrainseastcoast.uk ?

The latter appears to be a spoof site, made to look like a typical TOC website from the early days of rail privatisation (and the early days of the Web as we know it today) in the late 1990s.

 

[ainsworth74]

The latter appears to be a spoof site, made to look like a typical TOC website from the early days of rail privatisation (and the early days of the Web as we know it today) in the late 1990s.

That's the joke

 

[43096]

I never liked them due to their cypersquatting policy, and very happy it has come back to bite them. They didn't do anything with the domains, just held them in the hope of flogging them for a profit, and then had the cheek to say they weren't cybersquatters! At least they used the nationalrail one (even if trying to pose as them to the unwary) but they have every station name registered and will not release them for community use, or even sell at a reasonable fee. Their business clearly has a lot of money tied up in domain names, which if they hadn't could have kept them going on the ticket sales much longer. Dodgy outfit, never gave them my money.

Fully agreed.

Always detested their dubious ethical behaviour - good riddance.

 

[whhistle]

The company can try to take the squatter to court, but often it's easier and cheaper to cough up, hence why it's profitable.

I'm certain Microsoft did this with someone.
But then I know they gave a chap called "Mike Rowe" a whole load of free goodies in the early 2000s for his domain name.

Much easier for the TOC to just register a new address, no matter how long or silly.
Same with Twitter handles - @VTWC / @VTEC or @VirginTrainsWC / @VirginTrainsEC would have been much better than the two fairly different ones. Then re-register @VirginTrains and squat that themselves pointing visitors to each of the other feeds.

Midland Mainline, the company which runs trains from London to the East Midlands, came to an arrangement with Mr Nelson, and rents the site www.midlandmainline from him

That's strange as it's now owned by Stagecoach. Says it was registered in 1999 by them.
centraltrains.com is for sale - $2095
centraltrains.co.uk however is registered by a domain squatter.
I'm sure the guy is a nice bloke but the more I read, the more I see he knows what he's doing with web names and such. 1996 was fairly early to register names too - they cost a lot back then.

I'm a bit surprised the ROG doesn't take old names in house for X amount of years.
But then I don't understand why old names, such as londonmidland.com don't forward to a page saying they're no longer in business, the new company is X, instead of simply forwarding to the new company. A bit clearer doing it the former.

 

[Jonny]

While it was a bit of a shock to find out some of the supposed cyber-squatting allegations, I am wondering if the reluctance to release domains to community groups was due to concerns about 'passing off' (similar to trademark violations)?

As an aside, with them providing my local railway ticket office I had very little choice (given that I don't have a mobile data plan). They were always professional and courteous.

 

[Jonny]

Which begs the question, sorry if this is slightly OT, but does anyone know what the official rationale is behind one call (per direction) every two hours off-peak?

 

[Gareth Marston]

Which begs the question, sorry if this is slightly OT, but does anyone know what the official rationale is behind one call (per direction) every two hours off-peak?

Given the number of staff that have lost jobs versus the service and footfall at Chester Le Street its pretty clear that they were trying to compete at a more national level for business rather than concentrate on local markets.

 

[takno]

While it was a bit of a shock to find out some of the supposed cyber-squatting allegations, I am wondering if the reluctance to release domains to community groups was due to concerns about 'passing off' (similar to trademark violations)?

As an aside, with them providing my local railway ticket office I had very little choice (given that I don't have a mobile data plan). They were always professional and courteous.

They bought domains they had no reason for owning whatsoever, and spent the better part of 20 years selling tickets off them. Given how small and geographically focused their physical operations are, almost everybody who has heard of them has done so through their dodgy domains, and probably hates them for the confusion and petty inconvenience they caused

 

[Clip]

Real shame, and it will be older people that suffer the most I guess, AFAIK this will leave only Bishop Trains at Bishop Auckland as an independent ticket office in the area.

I was up there the other day and i see they have converted the model shop into some craft ale bar - didnt go in as had a lift waiting but good use of that space really

 

[Scotty]

I tried accessing it via Chrome, but I still got "403 - Forbidden: Access is denied.
You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied."

I then tried accessing the site on my smartphone using Wi-Fi, but got exactly the same, but when I tried to access the site using mobile data, sure enough it worked. I can only assume that it's an interface problem between our system and theirs.

Sounds like a problem with your Internet...