First Great Western "1st Class as Standard"

[455driver]

Your location would suggest you don't travel on FGW services very much. I do, four, five and sometimes six days a week. And outside the weekday peaks, there simply isn't the demand for first class travel on most services to justify current levels of provision. Even in the peaks, plenty of trains have empty seats in first.

There is 1st class demand up to Paddington during the morning peak and out again in the evening, there is very little in the opposite direction at the times..

Today I watched an HST heading off to Hereford from my local station. There were all of two passengers occupying two first class coaches with almost 100 seats.

Was standard class full to bursting?
If not I fail to understand the relevance!

It may be the case on some other services that there is sufficient demand to fill those coaches but from all the huffing and puffing elsewhere on this forum about the future availability of first advances on FGW, I suspect that if you were to limit the supply of those - which are already carefully quota-managed anyway - there would still be more than adequate capacity for people willing to pay the full whack for first class, even at the busiest times.

Nobody knows that, if the TOC can charge somebody who would normally travel standard to upgrade then that is extra money for zero extra outlay, IE all profit which the TOC will lose out on if the tickets are not available!

 

[jimm]

There is 1st class demand up to Paddington during the morning peak and out again in the evening, there is very little in the opposite direction at the times..


Was standard class full to bursting?
If not I fail to understand the relevance!


Nobody knows that, if the TOC can charge somebody who would normally travel standard to upgrade then that is extra money for zero extra outlay, IE all profit which the TOC will lose out on if the tickets are not available!

Point 1: You don't say... who'd have thought the peak flow was like that. And I see plenty of HSTs at those times, going in the peak flow direction with seats available - and often lots of seat available.

Point 2: No, but if I am to believe goatboy in particular, people are just gagging to travel first class on FGW, at all times of the day and night, in all directions, on a cheap fare, in order to escape the horrors of standard class.

Point 3. The aspect I was actually driving at from the post I quoted was this:

From what other posters have mentioned, there doesn‘t seem to be an over supply of first class provision, and that there is seems to be well loaded already.

That there are not that many services out there where FGW will be unable to acccommodate all those paying full-whack first class fares. FGW say (see my post 55 above) that "no first class carriages were regularly more than 70 per cent full". First advances and weekend first will remain available at quieter times. And the amount of 'extra' revenue actually earned by TOCs from first advances is questionable, given some of the examples noted in this thread http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=94636

To quote one of them

I also think First Advance tickets on GA at £13 have devalued First Class travel especially at weekends when loading of 95% in 1st is not uncommon.

which doesn't sound much like the premium travel experience goatboy expects to find in first class.

 

[455driver]

FGW say (see my post 55 above) that "no first class carriages were regularly more than 70 per cent full".

Maybe they need to catch the 0718 off Taunton (0553 off Plymouth), that one normally has a few vacant 1st class seats and is certainly more than 70% full!