Great Western Coffee Shop

Some time ago there was a major hoo-ha about the first ^1000+ fare on the UK rail network. That was from deepest darkest Cornwall, to the equally deep and dark far north of Scotland. CrossCountry, who set the fare, bowed to negative publicity and reduced the fare by over 40%. Bringing it down to a price below the 7 Day 1st Class ALR.

Now, thanks to other fares experts elsewhere, I've been made aware of another eye-watering 1st Class fare, which is also from the Coffee Shop area. And this time not to/from the extremities of the rail network, but from Bath to a station south of the Central Belt of Scotland:

Bath Spa - Fairlie (route +Any Permitted) 1st Class Anytime Return comes in at an astronomical ^1206. Yes, ^1206. All that this fare offers you over and above the All Line Rover (7 Day 1st Class - ^680) is the ability to use a service from Euston before 10am. So that's an extra ^526 just for a cooked breakfast with Virgin.  :o

For balance, there is a Not London fare at a much more reasonable ^361 for the 1st Class Return. But that makes even more of a mockery of the ^1206 fare. Is it really justifiable for the premium to travel via London being ^845.  :o :o

And this time round it's not CrossCountry who set this crackpot fare. It's Virgin.

I hope no one has ever bought (or been sold) this ticket. If that has happened then all I can say is... easy money Beardie.  ::) ::) ::)

Folks elsewhere have forwarded this 'fares gen' to the national press. Expect to see some coverage in the papers in the coming days. At the very least I expect Barry Doe will be mentioning it in coming weeks....

You can make big savings if you split at Chippenham.

Chippenham to Fairlie is just ^600 for an FOR.

So, you could argue that's ^606 for Bath Spa to Chippenham.....  ;D

The station was formerly called Fairlie High

Curiously, the National Rail website wouldn't quote a return fare from Chippenham via London for me...but it did give ^600 for a 1st return from Melksham via London.  ::)

Bizzrrely you can get a 7 day first class all line rover ticket for ^680, maybe not a lot of people know this ticket is available or that the train companies don't want people to know

Virgin have very quickly corrected this anomaly. The 1st Class Anytime Return Any Permitted fare from Bath Spa - Fairlie is now ^633.

But of course it's an all line rover and not an all services rover.   If you have other train travel to do in the week, it might still be worth getting the rover - as long as you're happy that the earliest you can leave Euston is the 10:30, which gets you to Fairlie at 16:37.

I do also find it interesting that there's one National Rail service that the All Line Rover isn't valid on - in my view it means that the ticket is misnamed these days and should be called the almost-all line rover.

Its not valid on Hex or Connect between Hayes and Heathrow due to BAA not being full members of ATOC and the only reason 'priv' tickets are accepted in because its done on a reciprical basis. Hex's line is that they have requested to become full members in the past but has been refused due to the small insular nature of their operation.

The reason other open access operators accept it is due to them being owned by companies that are full members of ATOC i.e First with Hull Trains and Arriva with Grand Central.

Grand Central accepted All Line Rovers before their acquisition by Arriva, when they were owned by a private equity company.

It just strikes me as ironic that the one (group) of stations connected to the National Rail Network where more visitors to the UK will arrive than any other won't accept the All Line Rover - mind you, if they've any sense they'll have bought an 8 day First Class BritRail Pass at 335 Euros (about 400 pounds), which is valid on HEX, and is valid on ALL other trains on the national network too, rather than spending 680 pounds for one day less on an All Line Rover.   I'm not actually sure what the extra money (over one and a half times the price) of the all line rover buys - can anyone tell me?

P.S. But I thought that Island Line was an ATOC member / accepted All Line Rovers.  Funny how the memory plays tricks  ;)