Mauldeth Road to London St Pancras

[Starmill]

I'm trying to book some advance tickets for any Saturday in Feb next year, probably in two legs:

Manchester Stns <> Sheffield

Sheffield <> London Terminals

But EMT's website is not making my life easy. I have a 16-25 Railcard and the 08:27 from Sheffield for example would be good I cannot for the life of me find any fares in the £9.25/£9.90 bands (According to this page: http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=SHF&dest=STP&rlc=YNG) in February, although I can see these on sale in January. What's going on? Also, they don't seem to go below £12.55 before 10:30 - even on a Saturday. Is that just the way it is and I'll have to pay it? That fare isn't listed, but I recognise that the fare rises may have caused discrepancy.

This is such a faff, but reason dictates that I shelve the whole lot and book pendolino tickets, but I want a ride on a 222!

Anyone still bother with this? Can anyone advise on the use of EMTs bloody annoying booking system?

Thanks!

PS I'll probably just buy an off peak day return for Mauldeth Road to Manchester CTLZ from the guard.

 

[telstarbox]

Have you tried specifying 'via Chesterfield' when you search, and/or using EMT's site?

 

[Lrd]

They may not be released yet or already fully booked (although unlikely).

 

[Starmill]

Have you tried specifying 'via Chesterfield' when you search, and/or using EMT's site?

I am using EMT's site...

but thanks for the suggestion Tried "Via Chesterfield" but comes up same

I was thinking that too. Do EMT release the more expensive tickets first and then the cheaper ones later on? Or is it generally all at the same time? I spent almost all of November trying to book these, and the advances were not for sale until a couple of weeks ago, but they're all 14-16 each way...

 

[snail]

Is this in the school holidays? It's possible there are no tickets in the lowest band because they are expecting a reasonable demand on that day. If you leave it too long the tickets you have seen may sell out.

Are TOCs are obliged to sell tickets at every price for every journey?

 

[telstarbox]

Are TOCs are obliged to sell tickets at every price for every journey?

In short, no - TOCs are free to offer Advances as they see fit. For example, XC don't release any of the lowest tier of Advance fares at certain times of the week.

 

[Starmill]

Is this in the school holidays? It's possible there are no tickets in the lowest band because they are expecting a reasonable demand on that day. If you leave it too long the tickets you have seen may sell out.

Are TOCs are obliged to sell tickets at every price for every journey?

Thank's for the suggestion but no, that's not the problem.

The fares I am willing to pay (£12.55 out and £9.90 return - but I don't know why there are no £9.90s out until after 10:30, which is really annoying as its a Saturday) are available on every Saturday in January, subject to some of them being a little bit higher. On 2, 9, 16 and 23 of Feb - and the 2nd of March, the cheapest ones available seem to be £16.50 and £14.50 - which I just don't get.

 

[snail]

Looks exactly to me like the 'problem' I set out, disregarding the school holidays speculation. If EMT are expecting more demand in February and March they may decide not to sell the lowest band tickets at all. The same goes for January tickets before 1030.

Or do you have different information?

The Booking horizon dates on NRE are showing as 2 March for Saturdays so I wouldn't expect cheaper tickets to be released if other AP tickets are now on sale.

 

[Searle]

Attachment from the East Coast website, it might also be applicable to EMT. Might explain why you can't get any cheap fares for weekends in February

 

[snail]

Advance fares on East Coast have no correlation with EMT tickets. There are probably engineering works planned but not finalised on the EC line so weekends haven't been released.

EMT are a week ahead of EC with their Monday-Friday tickets. XC are selling tickets to March 10, so by your argument all three TOCs should have seats available.

 

[Searle]

Ah ok, might be, was just a suggestion! :P

 

[bb21]

Weekend trains can get very busy on EMT, especially early mornings and late evenings, and I have also observed a lack of cheap Advance fares for travel on Saturdays and Sundays, especially in First Class despite the service being inferior to that of weekdays.

I would say snap up anything you can find as EMT are not known to release cheaper Advances after the more expensive ones.

 

[Starmill]

Weekend trains can get very busy on EMT, especially early mornings and late evenings, and I have also observed a lack of cheap Advance fares for travel on Saturdays and Sundays, especially in First Class despite the service being inferior to that of weekdays.

I would say snap up anything you can find as EMT are not known to release cheaper Advances after the more expensive ones.

Gracias!

I'm surprised they are that much busier per seat than Virgin that they feel the need to offer higher fares of this magnitude. If this is the situation with frequency then it might be cheaper if I lived in Sheffield to use Virgin and get some TPE advances to Manchester!

I don't know the region well, and I was only going for a ride on a 222 - are they much shorter or something? I seem to recall a ridiculous situation a few years back where some had 4 and others 9! Is there anywhere other than Sheffield in the catchment area for these services which makes them busier than Manchester does? At any rate, I decided to ditch them. I can get two advance singles with Virgin for £16.50 which is better than what they were offering, and was going to buy them this afternoon (for £1.50!!!!!) with my £15 voucher which was issued by.... oh yeah... EMT!


Who's laughing NOW? Hm!
(Well, clearly not me. Piccadilly wouldn't sell me any tickets apparently due to a "National Fault with the seat reservation system". Any threads on this?)

 

[bb21]

The 222/0's have been reorganised into 5-car (007-023, 3.5 standard coaches each) and 7-car (001-006, 4 standard coaches each) units. The 222/1's that came from Hull Trains still have 4-cars (101-104, 2.5 standard coaches each), however they are used on double-set diagrams where possible.

Sundays due to reduced frequency the trains are very busy, which even I was surprised by in the last few weeks. I occasionally ditch EMT as LM, VT and even East Coast can often be cheaper at weekends.

Saturday mornings until around lunchtime and from about dinner time onwards see lots of people going into and out of London these days. The last couple of trains northbound can quite often be wedged.