Virgin Trains first class decline…

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Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 42 total)

  • VintageKrug
    Participant

    I always feel unwell on the pendolinos; the only advantage of F is the better ventilation, and middle seat which is not as affected by motion at the others.


    flyingdutchman
    Participant

    Thanks for the advice NTarrant and MichelAngelo, will make use of it.
    In meantime I found a single standard class for Saturday 06-02 for 22GBP.
    Will travel all the way with a smile on face and biscuits from Tesco’s BEST range !


    continentalclub
    Participant

    I couldn’t agree more that using the train operators’ own websites – and doing so for each section of a longer, multi-operator journey – can pay huge dividends.

    The franchised train operators, supposedly operating in competition, are all members of ATOC and only faintly promote the fact that each of their websites can sell tickets on all routes.

    This leaves sites like ‘the trainline’, which charges booking fees and card fees, and has no access to many of the fares which can only be bought from the operating company’s site direct, to fill the marketing space available for one-stop shops.

    So, if you’re travelling on any operator and want an advanced, discounted ticket, use their own website. If you want a flexible ticket, use any franchised operator’s site – such as Virgin’s, East Coast’s or First Great Western’s – and avoid the fees and charges levied by the likes of the trainline.

    Two tiny things relating to one of the posts above – Chiltern and London Midland are absolutely not ‘Open Access’ operators; they are full franchises. Only operators like Wrexham & Shropshire, Hull Trains and Grand Central are Open Access, notwithstanding the fact that, in some cases, their principal shareholders also hold other franchises.

    The other point is that Virgin Trains (actually, operationally, Stagecoach plc but with a Virgin shareholding that permits branding) haven’t invested billions at all. The Pendolino trains, by far the greatest non-infrastructure investment and which cost £480m, are owned by Angel Trains and simply leased to Virgin Trains.


    NTarrant
    Participant

    I agree with most that you say Continentalclub but TOC’s own websites are not always cheaper than anothers. I have on a number of occasions found that my favourite rail ticket site (www.fgwtickets.co.uk) has a better and cheaper range of fares than Virgin and certainly the old GNER and NEEC.

    I would say that in the case of East Midlands Trains, their site is nearly always cheaper. I have just booked for a trip to Nottingham for the week after and fgw was £1.00 more than EMT as was http://www.southernrailway.com.

    MichelAngelo suggests splitting other than via London, which is fine but you have to be aware that if you purchase a ticket from popular points to popular points, like Bournemouth – Reading you will pay more than if you purchased a ticket from lesser popular stations. For example, this does not work on the standard fare but on the First class fare Bournemouth to Reading anytime return is £119.00. But if you buy a First anytime return between Poole and Twyford it comes down to £106.80.

    The same applies on some season tickets and it depends on who sets the fares. A standard Monthly between Bournemouth and Reading is £445.10, but a Branksome to Twyford monthly ticket is £443.60. There are others!


    AMcWhirter
    Participant

    You are quite correct, continentalclub, about the train leasing companies. But all the media reports talk, rightly or wrongly, about Virgin acquiring the trains when, as you suggest, it should be the leasing firm instead.

    But the cost was more than twice as high than the amount you mentioned. I believe each Pendolino train set cost roughly £21 to £23 million pounds and Virgin required 53 sets so that gives a total of over £1 billion. In addition, Virgin operates a fleet of 21 Super Voyager diesel trains so that must also have cost a pretty penny.

    It’s also unclear how much Virgin pays the leasing company or how much it pays Network Rail for access. But the sums involved must be significant.

    As for open access operators I never did claim that Chiltern and London Midland fell into this category. I wrote that these firms “are not considered as open access operators.”


    continentalclub
    Participant

    That experience with GNER/NXEC is very interesting indeed, NTarrant. Since the final year of GNER operation and the launch of their new website (which is the platform subsequently used by NXEC and now East Coast) all Advance Purchase fares have been discounted by 10% on that site.

    That discount isn’t (or shouldn’t!) be available on any other site, so I’ll certainly start checking myself in future. That said, purchasing directly from the East Coast site does offer another benefit; namely the automatic tracking of spend for the purposes of qualifying for membership of their ‘escape’ loyalty programme.

    Meanwhile LondonCity is quite right; the £480m to which I referred relates to the finance raised to fund the purchase of the Pendolinos by Angel Trains, not (as it transpires) the actual cost – which I can’t seem to confirm from any source at the moment. I also can’t immediately find out who owns the remaining SuperVoyagers operated by VT – though it’s assuredly not VT themselves.

    An order has additionally been placed for four new 11-car Pendolinos and 33 sets of two-carriages to be inserted into the nine car trains which, together with the associated maintenance contract, is worth an estimated £1.5bn. Again, though, this is an Angel Trains investment, not Virgin’s, despite the media’s willingness to believe the latter’s spin.

    Back to tickets though, and this is the man you need to know:

    http://www.barrydoe.co.uk

    http://www.railmagazine.com/page_viewer.asp?page=About+Barry&pid=28


    NTarrant
    Participant

    Looks like we are both RAIL magazine subscribers ContinentalClub! I have been for a number of years now. Barry Doe is very good in what he finds, although I don’t agree with his view that there should only be single tickets and no returns, it does show he is a little out of touch with customer needs.

    I have not travelled up the East Coast since June but certainly then I purchased a cheaper 1st advance ticket from FGW than I could get through NX at the time.

    I am not sure now how I started using FGWtickets but it was in the days before the trainline started charging booking fees etc.


    VintageKrug
    Participant

    To parody an earlier post on this forum:

    “continentalclub and NTarrant you deserve each other, perhaps you should marry?” 🙂 🙂

    However, I feel certain you are both happy without being thrust down the aisle, on a Pendolino or otherwise.

    This amusing Ad springs to mind:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1-nf9VlcCA 😉


    NTarrant
    Participant

    Thanks VK that really is a good one. I should add quickly that I don’t own an anorak!


    Bunnahabhain
    Participant

    So what better opportunity Nigel to get an anorak and check out http://www.seat61.com – the rival to BT’s http://www.seatplans.com for trains (and ships!!).

    If anyone has any reason why Nigel and Continental Club should not be joined in holy forum matrimony… – no don’t bother!!


    continentalclub
    Participant

    Our guilty secret is out, NTarrant! VK: jealousy is most unedifying ;-).

    One of the things I like about ‘Rail’ is that the magazine’s editor, Nigel Haigh, publicly disagrees with Barry Doe about the single fares proposal. So do I, as it happens.

    Haigh proposes a zoned approach to ticketing and fares, and lobbies for the directly-operated East Coast to pioneer (or at least trial) such a system.

    Unfortunately, I’m not convinced by that approach either, as it assumes either equal demand and supply between all stations, or linearly increasing demand towards the principal hub, and no competition. Unfortunately, the East Coast suffers from significant capacity pinch-points at varying places along the route, high-points of demand between points that do not include the principal hub, and a time-advantage swing towards air for London-originating flows North of Newcastle.

    The current, frustrating fares and ticketing regime is at least partly a result of a decades-old lack of will to provide network and rolling stock capacity that, even today, would cost a fraction of ‘High Speed’ and yet deliver significant time-savings and reliability improvements to the existing main trunk routes – thereby allowing more radical simplification of fares and ticketing.

    Right, must dash. I can’t find my notebook, although I think it might be in the pocket of Lord Anthony anorak…..


    NTarrant
    Participant

    Does this mean ContinentalClub that we will have to meet secretly at the end of platform 9 at Clapham Junction??

    I agree that the zonal approach is not the way either, the problem is that in BR days they cast aside the mileage system for a market based approach and the base fares changed. I think that there should be a return to basics. This anytime and off peak means very little to most people. For example how is it that I can catch the 0530 Havant to Victoria train and get off at Gatwick with an off peak return (not day) but need an anytime if I go to Victoria. People just don’t understand it!

    What they should do I think is a return to a base mileage system where the unrestricted tickets, lets call them “ordinary”, are easy to understand, a single is a single and a return is say 15% less than two singles. A day return could then be say 25% less except for off peak tickets (people understand off peak day returns not period returns) which the discount could vary. After that whatever advance purchase tickets you like.

    Like you say they have the opportunity to test a new ticket system on East Coast. Frankly, Passenger Focus are a waste of time, run by academics who hardly ever travel by train and don’t have a clue.

    Now Seat61 Jim, what a site that is, I have only had a brief look at some of the things it has to offer. Certainly the section on Caledonian Sleepers is fantastic, whoever has put this together has done a better job of showing what it is like than Scotrail with acurate pictures.

    I also looked at New Zealand and was amazed at how much work had gone into descriptions of the main journeys and again very accurate pictures. Lots of tips, even down to the shuttles that can take you to/from the station at Christchurch and up to date prices.

    Can’t wait to look at the other countries and report back.


    SimonRowberry
    Participant

    Can anyone shed any light on what has happened to the Virgin advance purchase tickets in F? The same for CrossCountry (my local operator now that Virgin lost the franchise through Leamington Spa)?

    Only a year or two ago, one could buy very cheap F advance purchase tickets from L Spa to, for example, Manchester. These no longer seem to exist at all. I’m going to Tunbridge Wells in a couple of weeks, from Bham. I got a relatively cheap one-way from New Street to Euston (around GBP 40 in F), but there were no advanced purchase F tickets available from CrossCountry for the return (direct to L Spa, rather than B’ham), via Reading.

    I went from New Street to Milton Keynes the other week. Over GBP 150 for a return on Virgin in F (the journey’s about an hour each way) – crazy prices and, as others have said above, very little catering.

    Mind you, Virgin’s F product is still better than CrossCountry’s, where the catering consists of no alcohol, unlimited tea/coffee/juice, a newspaper and, if you’re lucky, a microwaved bacon roll.

    Simon


    NTarrant
    Participant

    Hi Simon, There are still advance tickets in F on Virgin, although if you are talking peak times then there is not a lot of chance. Cross Country have been ripping off customers by changing time restrictions and adding them so people either travel at different times or are forced to pay more. It is a while since I travelled Cross Country, probably not long after Arriva took over, there was no advance in F then.

    T Wells to Birmingham via Reading is a bit of a journey which is why the journey planners won’t send you that way, changing at Tonbridge, Redhill and Reading is too much for the average punter.

    Nigel


    MarcusUK
    Participant

    Virgin’s Flying Club, now offer miles when booking Virgin Trains, after a link up.

    Most of the Virgin Airlines around the world are now linked up, with one Mega Airline on the cards they tell me as current strategy end of the year.

    Still Virgin would be the best service in the UK, but like all else in travel, there is a notable decline on board catering.

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