[Anonymous]

[Bath_VIP]

The current thread on First winning the West Coast Main Line franchise has thrown up a few posts about competing services on the rail network. Rather than abet a thread drift, I thought I would start a new thread with my thoughts.

Last night I came back to Bath from London using the South West trains service from Waterloo for the first time ever instead of my usual FGW service from Paddington. The SW service takes 2.5 hours instead of 1.5 hours from Paddington and there are only 3 trains a day Vs every 1/2 hour from Paddington. To my surprise, the seat comfort in First class was just as good as FGW though there is no buffet or trolley service (which is odd). Also there are no charging points on board though this is not an issue with me as my laptop has a long life battery.

What surprised me greatly was the price difference. An anytime first class single on SW trains only is £59.60 compared to £126 for FGW First class and £84 for anytime standard class on FGW. It is possible to get advance fares on FGW cheaper than the SW anytime fare but frankly, the price difference is making me reevaluate my travel patterns especially given the similarity in onboard comfort in First class. I find working on a train highly productive so the longer journey times isn’t a big issue for me and the timings of the SW trains are convenient for my normal day trip patterns to London as well.

Given the enormous effort that seems to be expended on this forum on finding the best value flights, I wonder if we are putting in the same effort to evaluate competing options on the trains in the UK. As far as I am aware, the following major towns & cities offer competition on routes to & from London with direct trains by all operators listed.

Bristol, Bath, Exeter, Plymouth, Reading = FGW vs SW trains
Grantham, Hull(?) = (Hull trains Vs East Coast)
Glasgow, Edinburgh(?) = (East Coast Vs West Coast)
Bradford, Wakefield, York = (Grand Central Vs East Coast)
Birmingham = (Virgin, London Midland, Chiltern trains)
Southampton, Portsmouth (SW trains, Southern)
Heathrow = (Express, Connect)

Obviously, if you are prepared to make connections, then the options expand considerably. For example, I recently looked into a trip from London to Newcastle and considered connecting via Sunderland and catching the metro. After all, we are all happy to consider connections with the consequent longer journey times when flying if it offers better value for money.

I am sure there may be other routes where competition exists and I would be interested to hear forum members views on these options and any tips you may be able to share.

[AMcWhirter]

Hello Bath_VIP

Not sure whether or not you read the July issue. But most of these alternative TOCs were featured here:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/archive/2012/july-august-2012/special-reports/cut-the-cost-of…-rail-travel

[LuganoPirate]

I like the ticket splitting bit in the article. Some years ago a friend who would travel London – Manchester with Virgin in First would buy three tickets. London- Luton, Luton – Birmingham and B/ham – Manchester. Because of his timings the latter two would be off-peak and he would save about 50% and never got off the train. Just once he was told technically he should disembark at each station but he never did.

I don’t know if it’s still the case and I don’t know which intermediate stops there are on the way to Bath, but it’s maybe worth looking into.

Edit: For Luton read Milton Keynes.

[NTarrant]

There are many incidents where splitting tickets is much cheaper than the through fare. It is also worth looking at fares to stations beyond the start of the journey or start as sometimes it is cheaper or the restrictions are less strict.

There is the example of Bournemouth to Reading being £34.00 return on an off peak ticket but not valid before the 0945 train. However if you purchase a Bournemouth to Thatcham anytime return it will cost £34.00 and you can travel on any train.

The rules with splitting tickets are that the train must stop at the stations the tickets have been purchased to and from. There is no requirement that requires a passenger to get off and get back on again, that is staff being awkward.

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

A classic money saver from the south coast (Brighton, Lewes etc to those going to London).

A peak time travelcard is now approx £43 from Brighton.

An alternative (provided train stops at Clapham or Croydon) is to buy a ticket to Haslemere (route – Not London – clapham isn’t London) for £18.50ish and then a Travelcard zones 1& 2 from Clapham is £10/11 so quite a saving – Croydon is about £15 (but by the time you leave Croydon you might be off peak so less?). If you are actually going to Croydon, Clapham, Wimbledon etc the saving is bigger (I used to buy to Havant same ticket routing which is £15.

I also had the case of going to Farnham in peak from Brighton which was £50. I bought a ticket to Alton which is 2 stops further and this was £20. I got off at Farnham. Basically fares to London and the S.E.Catchment area (boundary arrpox Guildford/Farnham) are much more expensive than fares outside that area – but most allow travel via Clapham for example from the South Coast.

So sometimes cheaper to buy a ticket further than your destination. Another thing to watch is who sets the train fare. For example a Saver fare to Manchester from London (set by Virgin) can be much cheaper than the Saver fare to Sheffield (set by MML). However the Manchester fare allows you to get off at Sheffield so this can save money. If you can pick a small town between 2 mainlines which allows you to go either route – you can break your journey in between at your actual preferred town/city. Doesn’t always work but useful to know (I hope).

[SimonS1]

LP – yes this is still true for walk on fares. There is even an iPhone app now (TicketySplit) that can work this out for you. However not exactly as described as the train has to call at the stations used and London to Manchester does not go through Luton (might work for Milton Keynes or Watford Jct).

There was an item in the paper about it a few weeks back that said the train operator cannot insist you physically get on and off the train and you can legitimately tell them to get stuffed if they try.

[AMcWhirter]

Hello TimFitzgerald

Not sure about the example you provided re London-Manchester allowing a stop in Sheffield.

When I checked the routing with thetrainline.com I was quoted £73 for an off-peak saver London-Sheffield-Manchester using EMT (MML no longer exists as a TOC) whereas the super off-peak EMT fare for London-Sheffield costs £67.50.

Would Virgin quote a special rate to Manchester via Sheffield when it doesn’t operate over this particular routing ? I doubt it.

[Bath_VIP]

LondonCity,

I don’t subscribe to BT so not aware of that article. Apologies for repeating things.

Interesting comments about money saving tricks. The ticket splitting trick doesn’t work on the Bath-London route as FGW seem to be aware of that. However, I accidentally discovered another trick which may not be well known.

Suppose you want to travel to london off peak (say 11am) but return at peak time. You could buy an off peak single out and peak single back. However, what you can do instead is buy an off peak return to a destination beyond London that is not in the SE area (not clear how SE is defined here). An example would be to buy an off peak return to Peterborough via London which is £97. What people don’t realise is that the connecting service can be a peak time service i.e. provided I leave Bath at an off peak time, I can use the 1730 train from Kings X with the off peak return ticket. Likewise on return from Peterborough, I can connect with a peak time train from Paddington to Bath.

Since nobody can prove you didn’t take the London-Peterborough stage, I can just use this ticket for a Bath-London return by leaving off peak and returning peak. Had I bought the relevant singles instead, it would have cost me £123.

Note, you cannot find this out on trainline, etc. I only found out when I was connecting with an off peak return from Grantham to Bath and found myself at Paddington at peak time. I wasn’t prepared to wait and went into the ticket office to pay the extra and was told I didn’t need to. It took some convincing but the guard on the train was happy with my ticket. I have repeated this trick since without a problem.

Has anyone else taken advantage of this?

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Hi London City

MML is the rail term for the line – EMT is just how they brand – main thing is they are the same time. Virgin set the fare to Manchester – it just so happens that you are allowed to go via Sheffield (which isn.t Virgin. whoever has the largest market share on a route normally gets to determine the fare. The Super Off peak has more restrictions than the Saver from Manchester so it will depend on the time you want to travel as to whether it is cheaper. It doesn’t always prove to be cheaper, but when I travel from London I have sometimes got this ticket and got off at Sheffield rather than a straight return to Sheffield (I even used it to Leicester once and got off there).

The full S.E Area is based on the old Network SouthEast (for the most part).

[LuganoPirate]

Thanks for jogging my memory again Simon. You’re right, it was Milton Keynes, not Luton. We were going to Newport Pagnell together when he told me on the Virgin train out of London. They offered a good breakfast as well I remember!

[NTarrant]

If you look on EMT website and enter London – Manchester they will offer Virgin, however if you click on the other routes link this will show other fares for EMT+Connections or via Chesterfield. These are fares offered by EMT with connections to TransPennine, they are cheaper than the Virgin or any premitted.

[AMcWhirter]

Hello NTarrant- It’s all clear now. I had thought that buying a saver ticket to Manchester via Sheffield would save me money (on my trips to Sheffield). But EMT’s £67.50 super off-peak saver fare (London St Pancras to Sheffield) cannot be beaten provided you meet its restrictions.

[Shearer]

Back to the Waterloo – Bath/Bristol/Exeter services, these are an anomalous throwback to Network SouthEast days, which survived privitisation.

As such, Exeter from Waterloo is classed as part of the Network Railcard zone, a railcard costing £28 a year, available to anyone and offering 1/3rd off railfares in the SouthEast, subject to minimum charging during the week.

Paddington to Exeter is classed as fully InterCity.

SouthWestTrains (SWT) operate the line from their Salisbury depot, whose staff take particular pride in the route (with its diesel trains, another anomaly compared to the rest of the SWT network).

If your annual Travelcard includes the words “Gold Card” (and any in the SouthEast should) then you can get a third off without minimum fare restrictions, and also benefit from cheap First Class upgrades.

Journey times are longer, but it’s a lovely journey with really great staff.

[Shearer]

Another little known fact about UK train tickets is the “routing allowances”.

So you can get a ticket from London to Manchester, via Sheffield, for the same price as a London – Manchester ticket.

NOTE that this does not apply to fixed ticket – like Advance Fares which stipulate a specific train.

There are some amazing routes you can do: London Liverpool Street to Edinburgh, via Cambridge for example (why you’d want to do that route is another question)!

I really dislike ATOC (Association of Train Operating Companies) who are self serving and facile, and this flexibility is another thing they hide.

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