Should GBR sell tickets for open access operators?

[61653 HTAFC]

Open Access operators exist (for the most part, I'd omit Lumo from this) because of gaps not filled by the franchised* operators. If they're such a pain in the proverbial for the likes of LNER management (which is basically a bit of GBR in a red jacket) the answer is right there. Run more than a single token daily trip to Hull, and there'd be no need for Hull Trains.
It'll be interesting to see how Grand Central's West Riding services cope with increased competition from LNER's services from the other side of the Broadway Centre, but if Halifax and (via connections) Huddersfield/Dewsbury lose their London trains as a result, that doesn't strike me as a good thing for passengers.

*= Or "managed contracts", or DOR, or whatever other arrangements exist for the "main" operations.

As for the topic at hand with regard to ticketing, does the average person on the Clapham omnibus have any interest or knowledge about the intricacies of railway funding? Probably not. Should they be required to have such knowledge because they want to take a train to Eaglescliffe? Also probably not. Things should be kept as simple as possible for the average user, and one shouldn't be required to purchase tickets for Open Access separately just because some bean counters have a bee in their bonnet about an outdated revenue-sharing system.

 

[stevieinselby]

Yes, it should mean that. OAOs should pay their full costs and should be required to stand on their own two feet in terms of fares and retail, and not gain revenue via the likes of ORCATS from the state operation. Post nationalisation they are not a valued part of the network - they are abstractive and wasteful of paths with their short trains - in essence they are the enemy, not to be co-operated with. Even if the state operator didn't want the paths they reduce resilience by filling them.

While I agree with your general assessment of Lumo and Grand Central as parasites, I'm not sure it's helpful for a state operator to (a) allow open access operators, and allocate them licences and paths, and (2) consider open access operators as "the enemy". Either we accept that they are part of a national network and that the opportunities we have granted them can contribute to that, or we don't allow them at all. If the existence of a particular open access service is deleterious to the system then we shouldn't have it.

With a single-fare-priced system there's no real benefit of such validity anyway. Typically OAOs are cheaper (they wouldn't compete otherwise as their service offering is always strongly inferior, in Lumo's case both in terms of on-board accommodation and in terms of frequency)

For people travelling to London, sure. But HT and GC also provide local journeys around Yorkshire and the North East, and while they aren't the main operator on those routes, they often provide a much higher standard than the regular Northern services.

If somebody buys a full price ticket from Doncaster to London, it may be that they value the flexibility to get on the first train that comes along rather than because they want the slightly higher standard of onboard accommodation of LNER over HT or GC. The more restrictive tickets are, the less appealing train travel is to the public.

My most common rail journey is a day return using a TOC in one direction and an OOA in the other – at the moment, I can just rock up at the station and by a return ticket that covers me for both trains. If I had to buy separate tickets for outward and return legs then that would (A) be less convenient, and (ii) cost more. No thanks.

How about through ticketing? If I buy a Southampton to Hull ticket would I be forced to change at Leeds or York despite there being a direct train on the departure board at KX? And how many people are going to get that wrong?

Exactly. As well as people travelling on flexible tickets, Hull Trains now offers through tickets on HT & Connections fares ... does this proposal mean that that would cease, and I would be back to having to buy separate tickets for each leg of the journey when travelling beyond Kings Cross?

I don't disagree in principle that OAO specific fares should only be available through their own retail channels/ agreements, but if I were to walk into the ticket office at Brighton and say "a ticket to Hull please" then I'd want to be able to buy a ticket that would be valid on the HT service. Not be sold a ticket to London and be told to buy a ticket elsewhere for the leg to Hull, or be given something that I can't use on the direct service I see at Kings Cross. Being sold a split ticket Brighton to London and London to Hull would be fine, but I'd want to be buying it from a single machine/ person in Brighton, or on the same (probably GBR) website.

It has been a principle of the railways for a long time that you can go to any ticket retailer and buy any ticket for any journey (barring a few special offers). Withdrawing that would be a seriously retrograde step. Passengers don't give a damn (and certainly shouldn't need to know) whether they are travelling on a national rail service or an open access service. It would be an abuse of the monopoly position for GBR to prevent OOAs from being part of the national ticketing system, and would have a negative impact on passengers.

As for the topic at hand with regard to ticketing, does the average person on the Clapham omnibus have any interest or knowledge about the intricacies of railway funding? Probably not. Should they be required to have such knowledge because they want to take a train to Eaglescliffe? Also probably not. Things should be kept as simple as possible for the average user, and one shouldn't be required to purchase tickets for Open Access separately just because some bean counters have a bee in their bonnet about an outdated revenue-sharing system.

Quite. If the problem is that the current system is too generous to OOAs then look at how the revenue is shared again, look at how the fees for sales are charged, but don't penalise passengers who just want to have a one-stop shop where they can buy the best ticket for their journey without having to check a load of different OOAs.

 

[signed]

Do you feel BA should sell Ryanair tickets? If not, why is it different?

GBR's entire revenue setup could be much simpler if it didn't need to deal with selling tickets for organisations other than itself. And thus cheaper to operate.

BA is a single company, GBR isn't

Every train will ride on GBR tracks. GBR should offer tickets for every train on the network, even if that may come with a convenience fee of some kind

You can buy basically every ticket on every train in Switzerland on SBB, beit for SBB, the other Swiss railways, TGV, ICE, EuroCity, French TER services, Italian Regionale, Leman express and even bus services... Granted, no OA operations but I wouldn't expect any change if one would come there.

There is no reason why GBR retailers couldn't sell tickets on every operator of the country. Ideally, they would also sell through, guaranteed connection, tickets on cross-channel services.

Current retailers do sell Heathrow Express tickets despite it being a privately owned operation. And there is no way that would stop with GBR.

 

[Trainbike46]

GBR should sell tickets for all UK rail operators, including OAOs.

I do however agree that certain OAOs should probably not have their access agreements extended beyond the current end date. While there here though, it wouldn't be in passengers interest to exclude them.

 

[redreni]

While I agree with your general assessment of Lumo and Grand Central as parasites, I'm not sure it's helpful for a state operator to (a) allow open access operators, and allocate them licences and paths, and (2) consider open access operators as "the enemy". Either we accept that they are part of a national network and that the opportunities we have granted them can contribute to that, or we don't allow them at all. If the existence of a particular open access service is deleterious to the system then we shouldn't have it.

For people travelling to London, sure. But HT and GC also provide local journeys around Yorkshire and the North East, and while they aren't the main operator on those routes, they often provide a much higher standard than the regular Northern services.

Yeah, this is what I don't get. I had to get from York to Hartlepool recently and it struck me that what places like Sunderland or Hartlepool need isn't necessarily infrequent, direct intercity services to London slotted into whatever ECML paths are available, it's the ability to go anywhere at all within 40 or 50 miles other than Middlesborough or (occasionally) Newcastle. Maybe I'm just grumpy because what should have been a quick and easy connection at Thornaby turned into an hour and a bit wait in a godforsaken place where the only shop I could find was a distant petrol station kiosk. But it did expose the lack of resilience and reliable transport links locally and regionally - it really is very stark if you're used to navigating the South East by train. I can't help but think simplified service patterns with regular service to a sensible interchange point on the ECML would serve passengers better.

If somebody buys a full price ticket from Doncaster to London, it may be that they value the flexibility to get on the first train that comes along rather than because they want the slightly higher standard of onboard accommodation of LNER over HT or GC. The more restrictive tickets are, the less appealing train travel is to the public.

But you only get flexibility with walk-up tickets. If you want a walk-up ticket, it's advantageous in this case to buy it when you walk up. Just go to the ticket office and ask for a ticket for the next train, and if that train happens to be run by an open access operator, they will sell you the cheaper, TOC-restricted ticket. What could be more flexible than that? I guess the counterargument to that is disruption - not buying the ticket ahead of time may reduce the TOCs' liability to compensate you for delays. But I doubt the kind of passenger we're talking about appreciates that.

My most common rail journey is a day return using a TOC in one direction and an OOA in the other – at the moment, I can just rock up at the station and by a return ticket that covers me for both trains. If I had to buy separate tickets for outward and return legs then that would (A) be less convenient, and (ii) cost more. No thanks.

Yes, if single leg pricing hasn't been implemented then a return ticket route Any Permitted might make sense, I agree. Hasn't single leg pricing been introduced on nearly all the relevant flows, though?

Exactly. As well as people travelling on flexible tickets, Hull Trains now offers through tickets on HT & Connections fares ... does this proposal mean that that would cease, and I would be back to having to buy separate tickets for each leg of the journey when travelling beyond Kings Cross?

It has been a principle of the railways for a long time that you can go to any ticket retailer and buy any ticket for any journey (barring a few special offers). Withdrawing that would be a seriously retrograde step. Passengers don't give a damn (and certainly shouldn't need to know) whether they are travelling on a national rail service or an open access service.

Agreed.

It would be an abuse of the monopoly position for GBR to prevent OOAs from being part of the national ticketing system, and would have a negative impact on passengers.

I don't think I share your interpretation of who's abusing who, but I agree the passenger shouldn't be caught in the middle either way. Ideally I'd like Open Access binned off, as I say, but I do have to acknowledge that would add to the headache the creation of GBR will in any event give rise to about what to do with TOC-restricted tickets and fares. It's hardly good news for the passenger if the cheaper TOC-restricted fares just disappear.

 

[158756]

Yeah, this is what I don't get. I had to get from York to Hartlepool recently and it struck me that what places like Sunderland or Hartlepool need isn't necessarily infrequent, direct intercity services to London slotted into whatever ECML paths are available, it's the ability to go anywhere at all within 40 or 50 miles other than Middlesborough or (occasionally) Newcastle. Maybe I'm just grumpy because what should have been a quick and easy connection at Thornaby turned into an hour and a bit wait in a godforsaken place where the only shop I could find was a distant petrol station kiosk. But it did expose the lack of resilience and reliable transport links locally and regionally - it really is very stark if you're used to navigating the South East by train. I can't help but think simplified service patterns with regular service to a sensible interchange point on the ECML would serve passengers better.

The local services in the North East definitely need to be improved. But Grand Central is not the reason Hartlepool has no service to Darlington or York or wherever. The state-run railway is just not interested in offering such a service. The open access service fills a gap where the DfT falls short. Similarly for Hull, if the DfT and LNER deigned to provide more than one train per day there would not be much need for Hull Trains. But they don't. And it is indisputable that needing to change trains is massively off putting to the average punter. For long distance journeys where everyone books in advance the service being infrequent isn't that relevant since you can only use the one train you booked weeks ago anyway. Even for a more regional journey like Hartlepool-York the railway is pushing people towards advance booking now - the anytime return not using GC is £69 - how many people are buying that on the day?

 

[cactustwirly]

Do you feel BA should sell Ryanair tickets? If not, why is it different?

GBR's entire revenue setup could be much simpler if it didn't need to deal with selling tickets for organisations other than itself. And thus cheaper to operate.

BA sells you American Airlines, Finnair and Qatar Airlines tickets on their website.
This is despite the fact Transatlantic routes to JFK etc are their biggest revenue routes

 

[stevieinselby]

But you only get flexibility with walk-up tickets. If you want a walk-up ticket, it's advantageous in this case to buy it when you walk up. Just go to the ticket office and ask for a ticket for the next train, and if that train happens to be run by an open access operator, they will sell you the cheaper, TOC-restricted ticket. What could be more flexible than that? I guess the counterargument to that is disruption - not buying the ticket ahead of time may reduce the TOCs' liability to compensate you for delays. But I doubt the kind of passenger we're talking about appreciates that.

You might want to reserve a seat on the train you expect to travel on, but to be able to catch a different train if needed.
Buying a ticket when you arrive at the station puts you at risk of just missing a train if there's a bit of a queue, easier to buy it beforehand and know you don't have to worry.

Yes, if single leg pricing hasn't been implemented then a return ticket route Any Permitted might make sense, I agree. Hasn't single leg pricing been introduced on nearly all the relevant flows, though?

There are some flows where day return tickets are available on LNER services, eg York to Northallerton, Leeds to Doncaster – and where presumably LNER are the ones setting the fares, because there seem to be TOC-specific day return tickets available for the other operators (TransPennine and Northern respectively).

And I will continue to argue against single-leg pricing, especially for local journeys!

 

[eldomtom2]

BA sells you American Airlines, Finnair and Qatar Airlines tickets on their website.
This is despite the fact Transatlantic routes to JFK etc are their biggest revenue routes

Well that's because they're all part of the Oneworld airline alliance.

 

[mike57]

Take our local operator, Hull Trains. LNER and their predecessors right back into BR days have pretty much offered a token through service, usually at the ends of the day, which rules out connection from for example the Yorkshire Coast Line.

Hull Trains provide connectivity from the East Riding and Selby into London, so I have a choice, Hull trains, competetive prices, and advance firsts that are within my budget for leisure travel, or change at Doncaster from a local service onto to an overcrowded LNER service and because of fare structure First class gets expensive, and 2nd class on 800's is a miserable experience, so all other things being equal Hull Trains start as favourite.

This really brings me to the point, GBR is a nationalised entity, subsidised by the taxpayer, to provide a service. I dont have a problem with subsidies or nationalisation, even if I am unable to take advantage of them, but if my taxes are subsidising something, and I dont know what the subsidy/fare box ratio is with railways nationally, then I expect it to work for me and deliver best value when/if I do use it. So when I want to travel from Hull to London by train I am going to be presented with a series of options, departure times etc. I decide if I need an open ticket or advances. Either way I would expect the GBR ticket sales operation to offer the best price to get to London at the time I want with my preferred ticket type.

If that means using OA services then GBR SHOULD offer the tickets, because mine and everyone elses taxes are helping support GBR, and given the level of subsidy I expect it to be passenger focused.

If GBR was able to stand on its own feet and run as a business, possibly even paying profits back into the exchequer with no subsidy, then I would NOT expect it to offer a competitors tickets.

If I have to buy an open ticket its probably work related, then I want to use any service, given that I am paying a hefty premium for an open ticket, when I get back to Kings Cross after a day in some factory I want to get the first train home (Because after a day crawling around in the back of a dirty control panel, the best view of London is from the train as it pulls out of Kings Cross). Hull Trains and GBR can argue over the pickings from open tickets. Surely given the drop in business travel, open ticket sales must be declining anyway for long distance journeys, and revenue from Advance tickets is easy to apportion.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Take our local operator, Hull Trains. LNER and their predecessors right back into BR days have pretty much offered a token through service, usually at the ends of the day, which rules out connection from for example the Yorkshire Coast Line.

Hull Trains provide connectivity from the East Riding and Selby into London, so I have a choice, Hull trains, competetive prices, and advance firsts that are within my budget for leisure travel, or change at Doncaster from a local service onto to an overcrowded LNER service and because of fare structure First class gets expensive, and 2nd class on 800's is a miserable experience, so all other things being equal Hull Trains start as favourite.

This really brings me to the point, GBR is a nationalised entity, subsidised by the taxpayer, to provide a service. I dont have a problem with subsidies or nationalisation, even if I am unable to take advantage of them, but if my taxes are subsidising something, and I dont know what the subsidy/fare box ratio is with railways nationally, then I expect it to work for me and deliver best value when/if I do use it. So when I want to travel from Hull to London by train I am going to be presented with a series of options, departure times etc. I decide if I need an open ticket or advances. Either way I would expect the GBR ticket sales operation to offer the best price to get to London at the time I want with my preferred ticket type.

If that means using OA services then GBR SHOULD offer the tickets, because mine and everyone elses taxes are helping support GBR, and given the level of subsidy I expect it to be passenger focused.

If GBR was able to stand on its own feet and run as a business, possibly even paying profits back into the exchequer with no subsidy, then I would NOT expect it to offer a competitors tickets.

If I have to buy an open ticket its probably work related, then I want to use any service, given that I am paying a hefty premium for an open ticket, when I get back to Kings Cross after a day in some factory I want to get the first train home (Because after a day crawling around in the back of a dirty control panel, the best view of London is from the train as it pulls out of Kings Cross). Hull Trains and GBR can argue over the pickings from open tickets. Surely given the drop in business travel, open ticket sales must be declining anyway for long distance journeys, and revenue from Advance tickets is easy to apportion.

I think this is a really well worded piece, and I agree entirely.
And almost encouraging GBR to only offer their services, when it is a passenger-subsidised nationalised railway, is almost like trying to push GBR into a more commercial/corporate position that focuses solely on it's own revenue gains, rather than a public service. I cannot for the life of me figure why that would be considered to be a good thing.

 

[Tetchytyke]

And I will continue to argue against single-leg pricing, especially for local journeys!

Single leg pricing makes more sense, not less sense, for local journeys.

You're much more likely to be travelling a single leg on a short journey, e.g. train in bus out or lift in train out. Or even off-peak in and peak out or vice versa (yes, I know you can theoretically upgrade your off-peak ticket for travel in the peak, but that requires finding a ticket office which is a) open and b) prepared to do the excess for the relevant portion.

BA sells you American Airlines, Finnair and Qatar Airlines tickets on their website.
This is despite the fact Transatlantic routes to JFK etc are their biggest revenue routes

BA, American Airlines, and Finnair (and Iberia) are in a joint venture partnership for trans-Atlantic flights. Revenue is shared between all the partners in the venture.

Qatar shares common ownership with BA.

There's also the wider OneWorld airline alliance.

You don't see BA offer tickets on Virgin or Delta, or United.

That said, GBR retailers should continue to offer the full range of tickets, and that would include OA services. The commitment should, of course, go both ways, and OA operators should also continue to offer tickets for GBR services. And, whilst I'm at it, OA operators should no longer be allowed to opt out from acceptance of regional rovers.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jun 2025 ==

I had to get from York to Hartlepool recently and it struck me that what places like Sunderland or Hartlepool need isn't necessarily infrequent, direct intercity services to London slotted into whatever ECML paths are available, it's the ability to go anywhere at all within 40 or 50 miles other than Middlesborough or (occasionally) Newcastle.

There used to be 1tp2h direct from the Durham Coast to York via Middlesbrough, combining with 1tp2h TPE from Middlesbrough to Manchester to operate hourly Middlesbrough to Yorl. This service pattern changed when TPE went to hourly and, overall, it's fair to say that the benefit of an hourly train from Middlesbrough to Leeds and Manchester was and is more than the benefit of a direct 2-hourly train from Hartlepool to York.

Similar with Hartlepool to Darlington, there used to be a more frequent service but it wasn't particularly well used and so it whittled down to a parliamentary service on a Sunday.

Transport in that part of the North East is extremely poor though. You can't even take a direct bus from Hartlepool to Darlington now.

 

[aron2smith]

Either GBR sells all tickets (as it works now) or Open Access Routes are nationalised and incorporated into the system. We either want one system or we don't and that includes tickets. If open access prevents simple tickets from occurring, open access will have to go! Also fed up with the comparison to flying, trains could have many many advantages over airports if the basics were gotten right.

 

[redreni]

Single leg pricing makes more sense, not less sense, for local journeys.

You're much more likely to be travelling a single leg on a short journey, e.g. train in bus out or lift in train out. Or even off-peak in and peak out or vice versa (yes, I know you can theoretically upgrade your off-peak ticket for travel in the peak, but that requires finding a ticket office which is a) open and b) prepared to do the excess for the relevant portion.


BA, American Airlines, and Finnair (and Iberia) are in a joint venture partnership for trans-Atlantic flights. Revenue is shared between all the partners in the venture.

Qatar shares common ownership with BA.

There's also the wider OneWorld airline alliance.

You don't see BA offer tickets on Virgin or Delta, or United.

That said, GBR retailers should continue to offer the full range of tickets, and that would include OA services. The commitment should, of course, go both ways, and OA operators should also continue to offer tickets for GBR services. And, whilst I'm at it, OA operators should no longer be allowed to opt out from acceptance of regional rovers.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jun 2025 ==


There used to be 1tp2h direct from the Durham Coast to York via Middlesbrough, combining with 1tp2h TPE from Middlesbrough to Manchester to operate hourly Middlesbrough to Yorl. This service pattern changed when TPE went to hourly and, overall, it's fair to say that the benefit of an hourly train from Middlesbrough to Leeds and Manchester was and is more than the benefit of a direct 2-hourly train from Hartlepool to York.

Similar with Hartlepool to Darlington, there used to be a more frequent service but it wasn't particularly well used and so it whittled down to a parliamentary service on a Sunday.

Transport in that part of the North East is extremely poor though. You can't even take a direct bus from Hartlepool to Darlington now.

Indeed, I'm not calling for direct services to a greater range of destinations, I'm calling for a reliable service to a greater range of destinations. It's not the requirement to change trains that's a problem, it's the headways which mean it's an hour wait if a train is cancelled or a connection fouled. So you can't rely on the service. It needs to be frequent enough that missing your connection is an annoyance but not a disaster.

It might help from a revenue perspective, too. I paid what I thought a fairly outrageous amount for a single from York to Hartlepool, but I did get 5% cashback on my Amex which, together with 100% delay repay, meant the railway ended up paying me to make the journey. But I would have preferred to get there on time and give the railway some revenue.

In my part of South East London, reliability and punctuality improved noticeably when we lost our direct Charing Cross service. Everyone wants a direct train but they also want a frequent and reliable service, which is best delivered by simplifying and minimising conflicting movements. Even for those who must now spend a few minutes changing trains, the reduction in delay minutes more than makes up for it.

 

[10-Car-Fan]

LNER/GBR keep harping on about simpler fares, removing OA fares from websites is the opposite of this.

Single-leg pricing and all these other initiatives are scams by these same people to charge passengers more and plug their massive black hole of money. It will kill the railway for the sake of an ideology. If you nationalise OAO, prices will only go up and up. They are the only thing keeping the ECML fares in check.

 

[Sonic1234]

GBR will want to sell these tickets, as it will earn them 5% commission.

It's not dissimilar to how you can buy a gift card for another shop in a supermarket.

 

[redreni]

GBR will want to sell these tickets, as it will earn them 5% commission.

It's not dissimilar to how you can buy a gift card for another shop in a supermarket.

They'd rather sell these tickets than no ticket.

I think the idea, though, is that their ticket offices in particular would sell a lot of extra route Any Permitted tickets if they didn't have to offer the cheaper TOC-restricted tickets, which would earn them 5% commission on a higher fare, plus most of the ORCATS split. Currently under impartial retailing rules they must offer the TOC-restricted ticket, for example, to any passenger who asks for a single ticket for immediate travel if the next departure they can get on happens to be run by an open access operator, because it is cheaper. LNER gets the overheads of being a proper train company with ticket offices and the open access operator abstracts its revenue for a 5% modest commission.

Similarly online, when one considers the people who buy from LNER and select the open access train with the TOC-restricted fare because it's cheaper than the LNER train which requires the Any Permitted ticket, in the counterfactual scenario where LNER's website only showed their own trains, or showed all trains but didn't offer the TOC-restricted tickets and fares, it wouldn't require very many of those people to buy the Any Permitted ticket before LNER would be quids in.

 

[Trainbike46]

They'd rather sell these tickets than no ticket.

I think the idea, though, is that their ticket offices in particular would sell a lot of extra route Any Permitted tickets if they didn't have to offer the cheaper TOC-restricted tickets, which would earn them 5% commission on a higher fare, plus most of the ORCATS split. Currently under impartial retailing rules they must offer the TOC-restricted ticket, for example, to any passenger who asks for a single ticket for immediate travel if the next departure they can get on happens to be run by an open access operator, because it is cheaper. LNER gets the overheads of being a proper train company with ticket offices and the open access operator abstracts its revenue for a 5% commission.

I thought the commission was higher for tickets sold at ticket offices?

 

[redreni]

I thought the commission was higher for tickets sold at ticket offices?

It may well be. Post amended.

 

[Helvellyn]

If GBR doesn't sell everyone's tickets I can tell you will, and will probably do a massive advertising campaign telling everyone - Trainline.

Plus it's been mentioned how would it work for Transport for Wales, ScotRail, Merseyrail, etc. Will people using GBR.com (or whatever it is) be led to believe the only way to get to Southport from London is via Wigan (with a nice walk from North Western to Wallgate), or that to get from London to Hull you can use one direct GBR train a day otherwise change at York?

 

[miklcct]

Do you feel BA should sell Ryanair tickets? If not, why is it different?

GBR's entire revenue setup could be much simpler if it didn't need to deal with selling tickets for organisations other than itself. And thus cheaper to operate.

This is one of the reasons why I have been put off air travel on routes where rail is an alternative. The lack of flexible, interavailable tickets when I need them.

In China, there are certain busy air routes where interavailable, walk-up ticketing has been achieved at a standardised fare, where you can simply buy a ticket from a ticket machine and hop on the next flight with a space. The airlines do that to compete with high-speed rail, where the fare does not fluctuate.

If the trains become an aircraft-on-rail, I will then start flying.

 

[HSTEd]

If GBR doesn't sell everyone's tickets I can tell you will, and will probably do a massive advertising campaign telling everyone - Trainline.

Plus it's been mentioned how would it work for Transport for Wales, ScotRail, Merseyrail, etc. Will people using GBR.com (or whatever it is) be led to believe the only way to get to Southport from London is via Wigan (with a nice walk from North Western to Wallgate), or that to get from London to Hull you can use one direct GBR train a day otherwise change at York?

Well Merseyrail is functionally a self contained system, so its ticketing arrangements can, if necessary, be kept entirely separate.
The same with the Core Valley Lines operated by Transport for Wales.

And yes, I assume that if GBR is not selling tickets for open access operators, they would not show up on the ticketing system!

 

[signed]

Well Merseyrail is functionally a self contained system, so its ticketing arrangements can, if necessary, be kept entirely separate.

How would that work with TfL? They would have a very hard time not selling those, either as standalone or as cross-London.

I would just put a convenience fee of like 5£/basket (bit like RailEurope's way) if a OAO is used.

 

[HSTEd]

How would that work with TfL? They would have a very hard time not selling those, either as standalone or as cross-London.

I would just put a convenience fee of like 5£/basket (bit like RailEurope's way) if a OAO is used.

Well TfL presumably has some sort of agreement with Network Rail and would probably want to continue that agreement.
Indeed, I would suggest that that is a model for things like the Core Valley Lines.

The OAO are quite different, they are not functionally separate systems.

 

[renegademaster]

Scotrail, TfW, TfL, potentially other devolved operators etc are still going to exist, hopefully we'll continue to have integrated fares with them, so Rail Delivery Group is still going exist, i highly doubt allowing a few extra operators use the same system is going to be extraordinarily costly, whatever the cost is can be covered as part of their membership fee