Tickets to Dunoon

[endecotp]

brfares.com lists fares to Dunoon, via the Gourock to Dunoon Calmac ferry, but the Scotrail ticket machine at Waverley doesn't want to sell them - it has Dunoon in the list of stations that it will auto-complete, but then says something like "no fares available". Does anyone know what the situation is for these through fares? Can ticket offices sell them? Are they cheaper / more expensive than buying separate tickets?

 

[joncombe]

I bought one about a month ago from the ScotRail website no problems but now I see the same as you. I did read Calmac wanted to wihdrawl all rail tickets which seems bizarre as this service is primarily designed for rail passengers I thought. There is a separate car ferry and Calmac timetable lists rail connections to/from Glasgow.

 

[hexagon789]

The through train & ferry tickets have been withdrawn.

Ergo, you now need separate train and ferry tickets.

From Calmac:

Please note - Rail & Sail tickets are not currently available for sale.

[/COLOR]

Journey planner | Connecting services

Find out about connecting services when travelling to and between CalMac ferry ports. Journeys often use more than one mode of transport,

www.calmac.co.uk

 

[snookertam]

A backward step. It’s like nobody wants any sort of integration of transport.

Ironically both ScotRail and Cal Mac are publicly owned….

 

[endecotp]

I feel a letter to Kevin Stewart coming on....

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 May 2023 ==

Would I be right in thinking that through rail - ferry tickets for Calmac have existed more or less forever? I understand that the "Cal" part of Calmac was owned by the Caledonian Railway, and the "Mac" part by the LMS.

 

[ian1944]

A few years ago I had the happy experience of going to Dunoon from Glasgow for nowt, courtesy of my Scottish bus pass and a McGill bus which used the ferry. That was integrated transport - it's ridiculous that such links are being removed.

 

[snookertam]

The impression I get is that the Scottish Govt are determined to get everyone using their cars.

 

[DelW]

It looks as though the same thing applies to the Wemyss Bay to Rothesay ferry as well, the NR journey planner shows the train and ferry times but "no fares available". The fares were there a few weeks ago. It seems a pointlessly retrograde step, most foot passengers using the ferry will want to combine it with a train ticket.

 

[AngusH]

I suspect this is related to some of the stuff in this thread:

Scottish Rail & Sail Rover tickets no longer valid on Calmac

https://www.scotrail.co.uk/tickets/combined-tickets-travel-passes/spirit-of-scotland Please note, from 25 April 2023, ferry travel is no longer included within the Spirit of Scotland, Highland Rover and Scottish Grand Tour passes. Any ferry travel should be purchased separately and directly...

www.railforums.co.uk

Which is talking about various Scotland wide rover tickets.

There seems to be some kind of new booking system for the ferries that either doesn't allow through ticketing or has some problem preventing it right now.

It seems that some kind of exchangeable ferry vouchers should be issued as part of the railway ticket, but maybe they aren't implemented yet or aren't working right. (I'm unsure what exactly though)

 

[endecotp]

I feel a letter to Kevin Stewart coming on....

I wrote the the transport minister encouraging him to bang some heads together and I've just received a reply:

Thank you for you correspondence regarding "Loss of through ticketting from Scotrail and Calmac"
dated 5th May 2023.
In answer to your question, the Former Minister for Transport was made aware of the issue in January
this year and called an urgent meeting to discuss. During that meeting it was discovered that there were
integration issues between both CalMac and ScotRail systems with both looking at potential solutions.
The Former Minister for Transport directed urgency to get this resolved with the caveat that it should not
add delay the Ar Turas project launch.
Due to the complexity of the programme, as scoped, it did not include any ticketing integration in its
initial launch but is factored under a later phase of the project. In an agreement between CalMac and
ScotRail to sustain the availability of selected Rail-Sail products sold by ScotRail, a manual workaround
has been implemented where CalMac ports on relevant routes will swap a ScotRail ticket for a valid
CalMac sailing ticket.
As you can imagine there are a number of challenges launching a complex system such as Ar Turas
meaning all current focus is to manage issues to stabilise the system. To enable this, a "Change
Freeze" period is advised by Independent Digital Assurance which CalMac are complying with.
Ar Turas is now live introducing a new ticketing and reservations software product. The product
includes Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that can help facilitate integration with third parties’
systems. However, there are a number of process, rules and commercial points to be resolved before
interoperability of tickets can be achieved. Transport Scotland, CalMac and ScotRail have agreed to
work towards introducing an integrated ticket as soon as the situation allows with a meeting planned for
later in the summer to discuss the way forward.
I thank you for your patience and understanding