29-30 May: No booking Advance tickets or reservations

[John @ home]

From 00.01 on Saturday 29 May until about 11.00 on Sunday 30 May it will not be possible to book Advance tickets or to make or amend seat or bicycle reservations or assistance for passengers. This will apply at stations, via call centres or over the internet for travel by any National Rail train company.

The East Coast announcement is here.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

From the Fares Manual Online "NewsRail Express":

NRS Reservation system unavailable

From 0001 on Saturday 29 May until 1100 on Sunday 30 May 2010, upgrade work will be carried out on the reservations system. During this time it will not be possible to make seat reservations, or to view or book Advance tickets at any station, or from travel agents or online.

During this time, customers may still buy Anytime and Off-Peak tickets where a seat reservation is not required, and timetable information will continue to be available. However, customers should be advised that if they want the best deal for their journey, they may wish to purchase their ticket at a different time.

Advice about this upgrade work and the effect on reservations has been placed on all train ticket web retailing sites, and on the National Rail Enquiries website.

Stations and customer services offices that use NRS for APRS bookings will need to advise customers using this service that it will be unavailable for journeys that involve more than one operator during this time. Therefore any such bookings for Sunday 30rd May will need to be made by 1800 on Friday 28 May.

Item submitted by ATOC

 

[D6975]

I hate to be too cynical, but does this mean that nothing will work properly for the week afterwards?? Experience from upgraded systems at my workplace indicate that there is a strong possibility.

If the new national rail timetable is anything to go by (they're using new compilation software) then it'll be a right c*ck up.

 

[bnm]

I hate to be too cynical, but does this mean that nothing will work properly for the week afterwards?? Experience from upgraded systems at my workplace indicate that there is a strong possibility.

If the new national rail timetable is anything to go by (they're using new compilation software) then it'll be a right c*ck up.

And if the the redesign of the NRES website is anything to go by then expect some teething problems.

 

[transportphoto]

Original Post 23 May 1553.

AHHH!

Will this mean that AP Tickets will not be available for collection from TVM's also during this period - if so I am stuck for 4 journeys after the date under one booking at Paddington.

~ I am not going to PAD again before the date of travel!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Any Ideas?

I need this info for Friday Night at the Latest Please!

 

[John @ home]

Any Ideas?

I don't know. I don't have the technical knowledge whether the FastTicket information is unavailable when the National Rail reservation system is down, or if the information is held separately. The silence suggests that nobody else here knows either.

The National Rail automated enquiry system doesn't help.

You asked: Can I collect a pre-booked ticket when the national reservations system is not working?

Lisa says: As it's not possible to buy your tickets with National Rail Enquiries, any queries about ticket bookings need to be made to the retailer that you purchased your tickets from. The retailer's name will be shown on the confirmation email, on your bank statement or on documentation that accompanied the tickets when they are delivered by post.

This is one of the few occasions when I would send an e-mail query to the company which sold you your ticket.

One thing may (or may not) help you. Even though you have specified Paddington as the collection point, you can actually collect it from any machine which has been enabled for remote ticket collection. To find the list, make a dummy purchase from the same company which sold you the original tickets.

 

[yorkie]

Original Post 23 May 1553.

AHHH!

Will this mean that AP Tickets will not be available for collection from TVM's also during this period - if so I am stuck for 4 journeys after the date under one booking at Paddington.

~ I am not going to PAD again before the date of travel!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Any Ideas?

I need this info for Friday Night at the Latest Please!

Collect it at any FastTicket (or similar) machine. You don't have to go to Paddington!

 

[gordonthemoron]

having worked in IT since the steam age, I fail to see why it takes 35 hours to do a systems upgrade. The longest I can recall is 14 hours during which we physically moved (90 miles in a van) the data and provided a load into a completely different system