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Haha! It was the restriction on which fares could be used that only allowed I think open to be used that I was referring to and you are right, that wasn’t entirely clear! I can’t remember exactly what ended up being allowed and what was pulled but just remember thinking, just a minute so the...

I predict with no science revenue will be down by about 40 per cent for SWR to about 20 elsewhere in the SE

As I suspected. It’s SWR that is going to be the biggest loser here. It’s whole catchment has changed its patterns more than anywhere else and it’s population in its outer area must be getting older now in any case because it’s too bloody expensive for most people to move out to. Even the metro...

It means making things simple for a new world. As somebody who spends thousands a year on the product, I would love it to be as simple as, Long and Medium Distance Advance - available until half the train is sold out. Probably the cheapest fares go up from where they are now except on the...

Maybe too clever for their own good? I would really appreciate the industry taking this moment to flatten and simplify fares. It should not be about the offers. It should be about the basic, predictable and simple offer. I don’t mind a bit of demand pricing in advance fares so they go up...

And every post of mine above agrees there should be peak fares. Although things might have got weird. If current peak fares are putting people off we might have a situation where peak trains are not the busy ones through over-disincentivising people to use them in the new world. Does that mean...

Yeah but open fares were never intended to be day return fares were there. That was the egregious slight of hand that took place after privatisation that has plagued the railways ever since. As I say, the chicken is now roosting. Companies will tell people to go virtual for early meetings a lot...

With what qualifying criteria? If available to everybody, is that not just pointless admin cost and should just be the ‘fare’. I could get on board with a National Rail loyalty scheme, where you get the discount on all fares once you have hit x spending per month or something like that. At the...

I hate to say this as I use it but I would bin the Network Railcard as part of moving things around. I am not sure why it has even been offered, the off peak fare should be the off peak fare and only the South East has them. It seems to be a card available with the only qualifying requirement...

Sorry - I do mean raise some Advance fares and off peak fares by a modest amount to bring Anytime/peak fares down. The books do need to balance to some extent. How much of that balancing can come from better spreading of load across available capacity is I suspect the difficult to answer...

Why commuter stock in the north??? That has been chronically underinvested in for years. There are also massive pockets of severe road congestion where decent rail alternatives could make inroads in modal shift. I suspect the fresh air problem will be concentrated in areas like Surrey that...

Do you assume everything said before midday on April 1st is an April Fools? I sort of got that bit, I just don’t find the article remotely surprising. Now if I had posted that Northern has learned how to clean a train…. 1648806103 I am suggesting the opposite.

That is maths that can definitely be worked through. It is not the Armageddon scenario lots of people have been predicting. I would love to know what GWRs peak numbers are. I suspect some of that off peak usage is usage that is purposely avoiding the peak but would prefer to travel in the peak...

deleted 1648804546 Why? There is a real risk here that everybody has been sat around saying how bad it is going to be and it will be nothing of the sort in terms of numbers, just in terms of changes in usage patterns. Everybody I know with a job is back on the trains very regularly. People are...

As I have said for years, raise some advance fares, add a bit on to off-peak fares and massively reduce peak fares. Let’s also stop calling them Anytime fares when they are open fares rebranded - and never originally intended for that purpose. That nonsense was introduced with privatisation...

Some of them are very busy. I only just got on my Herne Hill to (currently curtailed) at Blackfriars the other day. Then a load of us had to go and try and squeeze on to the next northbound Thameslink through the core. The whole thing added 15 minutes to my journey as well because my original...

https://www.railjournal.com/news/british-passenger-rail-numbers-reach-80-of-pre-covid-levels/ I find the speed of this rebound to be astonishing. Bearing in mind about 1 in 15 of the population has Covid, that might well be the missing 20%. Lots of things flow from this, such as, 1. What is...

That’s because we are run by a horrible, talentless, power centralising Government that uses every opportunity they can to make their grubby little points. Hence instead of creating a structure to sort out the mess they created in the first place with the sort of humble pie that requires, they...

I would guess the lack of seat back tables and WiFi is now an even bigger issue. Some people are probably choosing to work from home rather than train plus office as 2 hours dead time on the train is a pain. The seats are awful but would be better with a spacer. The DfT should never be allowed...

Then get them in! I remember when Merseyrail did that and it transformed the experience and attitude. I have been drunk many times on northern and TPE trains, many many times. I have never thrown my drink or bodily fluid over seats or upset other passengers thinking the train is mine. There is...