FGW First class service

[TEW]

As far as I am aware, (I am open to correction) Advance tickets are not offered on any journey where a Network Southeast card applies.

You can get Advance tickets London-Oxford.

 

[alastair]

As far as I am aware, (I am open to correction) Advance tickets are not offered on any journey where a Network Southeast card applies.

Now, you could argue that NSE cards should not be valid on trips to Worcester, but that appears to be a historical accident.

I suppose that ATOC could get rid of the NSE cards for journeys past Oxford, and introduce Advance tickets on this line instead...

Actually I think SWT do offer advances widely to Bournemouth,Exeter ect. however totally agree with your main point,surely it goes back to the days of Thames Trains,as they ran to Worcester so the Network Card area was extended there just as Bedwyn is the boundary on the B&H line?

 

[Goatboy]

You can get Advance tickets London-Oxford.

Which completely destroys the argument that Advance tickets are not offered on the Cotswold Line because of all the people getting on at Oxford..

 

[TEW]

It does somewhat, the Cotswold Line services do offer AP between London and Oxford as well, just not onwards to the Cotswolds. Sometimes it is possible to save money by splitting at Oxford, using AP London-Oxford and walk up fares beyond, but not needing to change at Oxford.

 

[SephenWorceste]

Jimm,

> Do you have a Network Card?

No, I was not aware they covered the Cotswold Line. Thank you. I will look at that for my next trip.

> that £40 comes down to £26.75 or £29.70 with a Travelcard - but those prices don't suit your purposes

Sorry I am at a loss with this part of your post. Why would a cheaper fare not suit my purpose? I like to save money (legally) on my rail travel.

> And what is it going to cost you to get to Birmingham? I'm assuming you don't own a magic carpet. Go via Cheltenham by all means but that's rather a large chunk out of the day.

For me the difference between these departure points is marginal as all will involve some other transport. Worcester is closest but because of the quicker journey time from Birmingham to London that route is sometimes quicker overall and a cheaper option. To save money I would be quiet happily with the extra time taken via Cheltenham. I can always take a book.

Tew,

> splitting at Oxford, using AP London-Oxford and walk up fares beyond

I will try that. I have split before on other routes. Thank you.

Best wishes, Stephen.

 

[Goatboy]

Plus a return to Birmingham from Worcester is inexpensive at circa £9 anyway (Quite good considering a return to Malvern link, which is a trivial distance, is over a fiver!)

 

[Essexman]

I travel quite often from Essex to Ledbury. With a Network Card it's cheaper to book to Worcester then again to Ledbury. There are no advances but if there were first advance tickets I would use these. At weekends I often upgrade (especially on trains that are busy between Oxford & London) but there's always loads of room in first and even more in the week. If there was a first advance that wasn't too much more expensive than an off peak standard fare then I'd buy that.

 

[bnm]

As far as I am aware, (I am open to correction) Advance tickets are not offered on any journey where a Network Southeast card applies.

To add to the Oxford-London Advances already mentioned, SWT offer APs to some of their longer distance destinations such as Bournemouth, Weymouth and Exeter.

Southern also offer APs to some destinations that are in the Network Area, as do Chiltern, London Midland, Greater Anglia....

And for jimm. Some of the services on which APs are available between London and Oxford? Why it's those that are to/from the Cotswold Line.

 

[calc7]

London Midland offer Advances between Milton Keynes and London Euston.

 

[jimm]

Sure - weekends and off-peak times during the week (Note, I'm not suggesting Advance fares should be offered in the peak).

I'm not entirely sure why I need a reason beyond 'they just should' but we can extend it to 'Because every single other Intercity line offers them' if you want?

Tell you what - we could extend your logic to the rest of the network? Why not withdraw all Virgin's Advance fares and instead focus on running Pendo's empty to Milton Keynes and then stuffing them to the gunnels with London commuters from there? Because thats essentially what happens on the Cotswold line (if your theory on why Advances are not offered is true, personally I suspect its far more likely to be an oversight than it is to have been a calculated decision).

Ah, that old Chestnut. The assumption that every decision a TOC makes is inherently the right decision otherwise they'd not have made it. Nice logical fallacy there. If that was true we'd never see a single error made in any aspect of the industry. Oh if only that were true.

Who needs Advances? How about people making long distance journeys on Intercity trains?

Nobody would book an advance fare for a short hop anyway.

When at weekends? There's a world of difference between loads in the middle of Saturday on a Turbo compared with the three HSTs into London on Saturday mornings and the 16.21 to 18.21 sequence back and then the trains towards London from lunchtime until early evening on Sunday, especially between - broken record time - Oxford and London...

Because every other intercity line offers them... define InterCity. This is just as much, if not more, a commuter route than an InterCity route nowadays, certainly out to Moreton-in-Marsh - and it wasn't exactly front-rank in the past, was it?. If Virgin did withdraw advances, then it would also rapidly have to withdraw trains from the Birmingham and Manchester runs as well, because without them their 20-minute interval service would be even emptier than it is now at some points in the day.

London commuters from Milton Keynes have other options. There is no equivalent of a 110mph Class 350 service between Oxford and London, at a cheaper fare than Virgin, just the FGW fasts, many of which are Cotswold trains, and the stoppers, which aren't even advertised as going to London... to prevent tourists getting on them.

There are no advances because it's an oversight - don't make me laugh. FGW has a sophisticated yield management system but just forgot to apply it to a key route! Maybe it's because it's a very profitable route and they like it that way and the passengers just keep on coming. And there will likely be even more soon when 190 extra parking spaces open at Hanborough some time in May.

Who needs Advances? Well, until BR started taking an interest in the idea of Apexes and yield management generally in the mid to late 1980s no-one could get one anyway. If the maths didn't stack up for the operators, they wouldn't offer them - Virgin has got plenty of stick over loadings in the peak and the insanely high fares at those times but has clearly done its sums before going down that route.

I'd agree no-one would buy an advance for a short trip - no need here with all the bargains to be had one way and another - but the empty seats that you seem so exercised about are west of Oxford, not on the complete journey trains make to and from London. How do you propose to get round that conundrum? It's not like there is a massive local traffic flow between Oxfordshire and Worcestershire anyway.

Which completely destroys the argument that Advance tickets are not offered on the Cotswold Line because of all the people getting on at Oxford..

No it doesn't - I pointed out previously that FGW is in competition between Oxford and London with two M40 coach operators that both offer what are effectively walk-up services - indeed both are more frequent than many bus routes in the city of Oxford. FGW offers advances to take on the coaches. Yet again it's about yield management being used to fill seats - the off-peak Cotswold service isn't even a regular hourly interval, while the Oxford fasts are half-hourly, so many trains start empty at Oxford and terminate there and don't have a chunk of the seating capacity already used up by passengers to/from places further west on the Cotswold trains.

Yes bnm, they even offer some on Cotswold trains (I never said they didn't) - in small quantities. And fine if you want to be tied to those trains and pay more much of time by buying two advance singles than a flexible Network Card return fare - no wonder TOCs won't promote it.

Sorry I am at a loss with this part of your post. Why would a cheaper fare not suit my purpose?

Your purpose appeared to be to show that Cotswold Line fares were a rip-off compared with those from Birmingham, where, at a rough guess, there are more than 2,000 seats per hour, and likely more than that, to fill between Virgin and Chiltern's services. Is it any wonder they offer advances at low prices? Whereas FGW is running one train per hour, of 500 seats, or 580, to handle all the traffic west of Oxford and to/from Oxford (and a lone 250-seat Turbo a lot of the time on a Saturday). Plus one train starting/ending at Oxford - usually a not very InterCity pair of Turbos at the weekend.

 

[Flamingo]

I stand corrected. I don't remember seeing any on FGW, I must look more closely next time.