I think it's more that nobody has ever tried to order / expressed a wish for 26m vehicles in a six, eight or ten car set, so no technical solution has ever been required. The issue is that as nobody has asked for it before if just a small handful of units had the full cost of developing it it wouldn't be worthwhile.
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Expansion of LNER 70-min flex trial area ("Simpler Fares")
- Thread starter LW84
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Anything is possible if you've got enough money, I suppose.
Conceptually possible if you are smoking very powerful weed, perhaps.
Egg Centric
Established Member
Why is this? 395s (mummy and daddy 80xs) are 6 car sets, what changed in the next generation? Is it a technical or legal limitation?
Clarence Yard has previously stated that it's down to the way the equipment is arranged.
Isn’t that just how Lumo West Coast works?
andy33gmail
Member
Not really. In the future they'll have the capability to run much longer trains than today. They also don't use unusual routes except to enable the very contrived station calls they make (Larbert, Greenfaulds and Whifflet).
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Just noticed there has been further tweaking of the "trial". 70 Minute Flex fares are no longer precisely £20 uplift. This evening it appears there are some with smaller uplifts between £15 and £18 and one that's £22 uplift, unless this is just an artifact of some quota issues.
I guess this can be used to avoid the anomalies whereby the cheapest way to get on a given train is to book the one an hour before/after.
I guess this can be used to avoid the anomalies whereby the cheapest way to get on a given train is to book the one an hour before/after.
So in order to correct some of the inconsistencies of this "simplification" of not knowing what any given fare will be, they've had to further "simplify" the system by varying the amount you have to pay for the flex.
That's transparent and passenger friendly then.
These people must be on mind bending drugs.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
To be fair I don't think people find it a problem that the non flex->rebookable->refundable uplifts on Premier Inn are a bit random. The issue remains the lack of affordable walk up fares and the lack of a cap provided by them, though it's still my observation that most fares haven't gone up much if at all and there is (as wasn't promised
) still a traditional peak/off peak split, just without the off peak walk up tickets.To be fair I don't think people find it a problem that the non flex->rebookable->refundable uplifts on Premier Inn are a bit random. The issue remains the lack of affordable walk up fares and the lack of a cap provided by them, though it's still my observation that most fares haven't gone up much if at all and there is (as wasn't promised
I do, I haven't stayed at Premier Inn for donkeys.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I stay at them a lot and just compare the prices when booking to see which level I want to choose (though I'd only choose non-flex if doing a same day booking so there'd be no chance of me not going).
Kite159
Veteran Member
Similar with Travelodge with the premiums charged between the fixed rate & flexible rates (plus that middle of the road pointless £12 change rate). I've seen the difference vary between £5 to £15 in the same city with hotels not that far apart.
Anyhow no surprise that the flex premium changes, as like you said sometimes it can be cheaper to buy a Flex single between London & Newcastle/Edinburgh for the slower trains than it is to buy a standard advance for a fast train
Failed Unit
Established Member
Be interesting to look back a find out which post we predicted this would happen. Still waiting for them to extend the trial to more stations as they work out where we are booking to instead so we can continue to get off-peak fares.
Kite159
Veteran Member
Or extending as far south to the York area to knock out those pesky split tickets (especially on the fast trains)
Paul Kelly
Verified Rep - BR Fares
I wrote a blog post about the removal of walk-up fares, or more specifically what's being lost with it:
https://blog.brfares.com/2026/09/03/walkup-fares-a-deceptively-simple-product/
I felt that something that's really been missing is an analysis of what it is that's so good about walk-up fares, trying to separate it out from complaints about price increases. The conclusion I came to is that simpler fares are so-called because they're simpler for the TOC - because they force the passenger to take the risk of his/her uncertainty.
https://blog.brfares.com/2026/09/03/walkup-fares-a-deceptively-simple-product/
I felt that something that's really been missing is an analysis of what it is that's so good about walk-up fares, trying to separate it out from complaints about price increases. The conclusion I came to is that simpler fares are so-called because they're simpler for the TOC - because they force the passenger to take the risk of his/her uncertainty.
BRX
Established Member
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- 20 Oct 2008
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- 4,515
This is very well written.
The difficulty is communicating all these arguments in an easy to understand way, to regular passengers, because most of them aren't starting from a point of understanding how things currently work, or exactly how they are changing. To them the fares system is already baffling.
This unfortunately makes it easy for LNER & others to sell the concept of "simplification". Not just to passengers but to decision makers. I tried to raise this with my MP last year and after a while gave up. It was clear she just didn't really understand what I was on about and simply became an intermediary between my complaints and a series of standardided and somewhat disingenuous replies from the office of the rail minister.
voyagerdude220
Established Member
- Joined
- 13 Oct 2005
- Messages
- 4,275
Hmm..
Surprisingly (to me) tomorrow morning's 05:40 London Kings Cross to Leeds is offering £12 Advance singles.. (Anytime Single £160.60)
Unsurprisingly (to me) the same train's cheapest Advance single from London Kings Cross to Wakefield Westgate is £88.70..
Edit: Even tonight's 21:10 Leeds to London Kings Cross is only £12 Advance single.
Yes the UK Rail network is often critiqued for how ridiculously complicated and expensive it can be at times, but ironically Advance tickets say 20-30 years ago weren't as widespread as they are now and the cheapest fares certainly weren't available on the day of travel, bookable only around 2-3 hours before departure.
My understanding is that there's some kind of long-standing arrangement where tickets to Leeds are accepted at Wakefield, including for advances. I know no details about it, other than I saw some hint about something like this recently.
voyagerdude220
Established Member
- Joined
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Weren't TOCs told a while ago not to penalise pax "caught" trying to get off early with Advance tickets?
Unless they were attempting to avoid a higher fare. Quite sure you wouldn't get away with it here..!
D1537
Established Member
You would do at the ungated Doncaster (£72.70) though...
Indeed, if you were going to Wakefield all you'd have to do is buy a single DON-WKF (£7.10) to do the gateline. Zero chance of any issues and £19 in total.
Kite159
Veteran Member
Are those £12 tickets on two less popular trains (would be interesting to see what the typical loading of end to end passengers are) solely so they can advertise "Tickets from £12" on various adverts (until the ASA pulls them up on it for being misleading)
alistairlees
Established Member
- Joined
- 29 Dec 2016
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- 4,405
The advertising rules are qite obnerous and these fares will be advertised as being specifically for those two trains only.
D1537
Established Member
I've no experience of the southbound train but I was on the 05:40 KGX-Leeds a few months ago and at a guess I reckon there was probably 50-60 people on it when it left KGX.
Don't really see the issue with this? There's nothing wrong with offering advance fares per se, and it seems like they're being offered on unpopular trains just so that the fare can be used in marketing.
It's slightly frustrating that those advance fares aren't available at as low prices from / to Stevenage. If LNER are going to pick up northbound and set down southbound only there, it would be nice to then not have higher fares than King's Cross.