Hmm, now that is interesting.
Northern Rail have a flash sale.Tickets from 10p Now.
Is for advance tickets during September - selected journeys and on their own trains only, but a great opportunity. website
In case you didn't know the Stagecoach run East Midland Trains has been replaced by EMR (East Midland Rail). Before anyone gets excited the new company is run by Abellio, a company proven to be pretty useless at running trains and buses. While they have pledged to increase levels of service they have no plans to replace the ancient HST units in time for the new disability legislation that comes in on 01st Jan 2020. If the Department for Transport weren't just apologists for the failings of the rail industry they would slap a hefty fine on them. On the plus side they have pledged to quickly remove the pathetic 153 class which consist of a single carriage. No doubt their first ptiority will be the fairly pointless application of a new livery. Why these companies are so obsessed with that is beyond me.
On the ticket side, Stagecoach used to charge slightly extra for tickets bought from other TOCs but that seems to be gone now. They have a complete monopoly on services running North of Bedford from St Pancreatitis so the advance fares remain expensive compared to other lines. The cheapest I could see for Oct 26th between Loughborough and London was twelve pound or so with a railcard.
Abellio is of course a subsidiary of Dutch State Railways and, whilst not being an apologist for them, the lack of any decision to replace HSTs is squarely the responsibility of the D(a)fT who cancelled electrification of the route without coming up with an alternative plan.
All I say is that the 40 year old Mk 3 coaches ride as well as ever and if you bag a Chiltern loco-hauled train you get much the same layout with the same comfy seats that match the windows, good mix of tables and face to back, and lots of legroom, as you remember from all those years ago.
I'm a regular passenger and it's very common for people to get on at MYB and ask where the second class is.
The main problems with the HSTs is the lack of a disabled toilet and the slam doors where you have to open the window to get out. Scotrail have effectively reconstructed some HSTs to address this. the trouble is they've made them too short. The old ones are comfy enough, possibly more comfortable than the newer units.
I was on one of those Chiltern diesel trains a month or two ago and was surprised how effective it was.
I was on a Pacer today!@?! Doors didn’t open on all (2 !) cars at two stops, ah life in a northern town.
... though there was a cock-up with accessing the tickets once purchased. I got an error message from the machine at Sheffield station, saying that "due to a technical issue, the terminal is unable to issue the tickets" and referring me to the train company's website.
When I tried to access help at Northern, I was told that any problems with printing the tickets should be referred to the TOC responsible for the station where the ticket machine was situated.
So back to Sheffield station, where I was eventually informed that the machine couldn't print the tickets because "there's no such fare as 10p". Which raises the questions, 1) why does the machine care what the fare is? (Just print the sodding tickets.), and 2) why didn't Northern know about this before instigating their Flash Sale? and not to mention 3) why is their own website so unhelpful?
So I had to go to the (human) ticket salesperson, who was doubtless delighted to have to print out all my 10p tickets, and I hope East Midlands Railway charged Northern an appropriate fee for the service.
This is the trouble with rail privatisation. The TOCs are supposedly private companies but are reliant on the government. I'm not proposing the idea that they should run the track maintenance either. Railtrack was a disaster and were only interested in flogging off land.
I've had loads of grief getting pre-ordered tickets. It's usually been that the ticket machine doesn't recognise the card. I try and avoid it now ordering in advance printed tickets by first class post which TFW Rail do for free. I'm guessing with these 10p tickets you were ordering too late for that option.
KSnap! Exactly the same thing just happened to me at Harrogate, I put it down to it being at bank holiday and likely to be an IT dept thing. I’ll try again and then ask a human hopefully one who works for Northern Fail aka the TOC I bought the bloody things off as they run Harrogate- I say run but they couldn’t run a Tap never mind a whelk stall.
Virgin Trains are no more. Having given up the ECML franchise and kept out of this franchise due to their involvement with Stagecoach, the fast trains from Euston are now to be run by Avanti West Coast. Avanti is a collusion between First Group and Italian Railways. No doubt their first task will not have anything to do with improving the service but will be plastering the trains with their stupid branding. In a move to increase competition with the hypothetical HS2 (shurely shome mishtake?) Avanti will also be running the trains on this line in the unlikely event that it ever gets completed.
Virgin was the only TOC in which I had any confidence at all, now there are none.
I saw a fair bit of the West Midlands/London North Western trains in the last three days and late running seems to be the norm.
Allegedly (BBC website) Virgin (51% Virgin (or the bankers Beardie is in hock to) / 49% Stagecoach (or the disgusting Souter siblings), were disqualified for not complying with pension rules. Beardie and the Souters are suing HMG (us the taxpayers) over it, so the lawyers win and we all lose.
What a way to bow out: Virgin Trains' final service from London to Manchester cut short due to a 'fault'.
I actually believe there is a fair amount of public support for taking the railways back into public ownership especially if it's achieved by just letting the existing franchises run out. The trouble is it's just one issue of many. The grief over guards operating the doors on trains is government inspired and the franchises offer little competition with the notable exception of London to Brum. The government don't want any more of this as the HS2 franchise has already been handed to the untested shower taking over from Virgin.
I've already cast my postal vote. I'll be in Wolverhampton on election day!
Trying to remain zipped on this one, but suffice it to say that 80% of problems on the railways are attributable to interference by civil servants and/or politicians, so sadly any further renationalisation could only make this worse.
Detailed explanation would require a long session and numerous pints...
Transport for London have taken over the Paddington to Reading line as of yesterday.From 2nd January you can get free travel to Reading using a Freedom pass for the over sixties.Probably not many on here can make use of this deal but I will be using it. Like Reading a lot and like reading a lot as well.Went down a couple of weeks ago and the cheapest fare from Ealing was about £18.
I assume this will only apply to the slow trains terminating at Reading. Another handy thing is that you can use the freedom pass on TFL services at any time.
Probably of lesser interest is that Sunday Winter services on the Cambrian Coast line will now be five trains in each direction per day instead of the pathetic and frankly useless one.
Indeed, and even then only the TfL Rail ones (the Purple trains) which take 55-58 minutes and only run half-hourly (4 an hour in peak). And perhaps more importantly for those with Freedom passes on the way back, don't have toilets!
I believe that the concession already applies, although general fares will not change until 2 Jan. but it does also include such exciting places as Slough and Maidenhead.
That's unbelievable! I thought that they will be running the new Crossrail units and if they don't have toilets then that's ridiculous.
The way I read it was that GWR will be running the faster trains to the likes of Oxford. Sadly half of the TFL trains seem to be going to Heathrow. I'm sure I went on one of the new Crossrail trains towards Liverpool Street but can't remember if I noticed a toilet.
This is unbelievable for the North,
Attachment 1902
Same trains, although the Liverpool Street ones are shorter until the tunnel opens, and indeed no toilets at all on board. Yet another decision by civil servants I am afraid - the official line is that average journey times will be about 20 minutes, which doesn't help those making longer journeys of up to 102 minutes. GWR run assorted fast and semi-fast services but the TfL ones are more or less all stations.
Now, now. Surely you have noticed the complete sh*g up on Northern and Trans-Pennine at present which is largely due to the botched introduction of new trains? Northern are getting 98 new 2-and 3-car trains, while TPE are getting 44 5-car trains. A long and sorry trail of errors, and far from all being the operators' fault, but the new trains are certainly happening. Slowly.
Indeed, why only the other day I was on a class 170, a new train, ........well new to the north of England.
I haven't seen any of the rumoured new 195s or 331s on Northern Fail and the TPE Novas are supposedly not due till next year this side of the Pennines. Not holding my breath.
Travelodge are having one of their sales, with 20% off for selected dates/venues for bookings until 01 Jan. The discount code is 2020.
Just grabbed one for £22 !
Stayed in Leeds for £20.99 last night.
If you're over 60 and your stay starts on a Sunday then you can get up to 3 nights with 25% off.
Enter OFFPEAK at the checkout. You will need to have a photo id when you check in to the hotel to prove the rate is valid for you.
In Liverpool for £18.74 per night as well!
The Northern Rail 10p ticket sale is back on again.