Great Western Coffee Shop

It's not very well advertised, but if you have a Eurostar ticket, you can buy a special ticket (I believe it's a ticket to London International), which enables you to travel up to London at any time for the price of an off peak ticket. From Bristol I was quoted ^55 return, compared with a peak return of ^137.

Until such time as through ticketing in available, one to remember. I wonder how many have paid the full price because they don't know such a ticket exists?

When you buy a Eurostar ticket I believe they should advise about this ticket. Whether they do or not is another matter.

They don't have to advise about the ticket at all.

On SWT territory you have to show a valid Eurostar ticket to the ticket office before they will issue a ticket to London International CIV.

CIV is basically the International Conditions of Carriage and if your FGW or SWT or whatever train is late - it will allow you to get the next available train to the continent, rather than with advance purchase you would normally have to (E* are normally quite OK but this is worst case scenario) pay the open single to your destination.

Same applies with the return, if you have a Euro Apex Return, if the Eurostar is late, or the Tube is late, you can get the next available train...

I'm more implying that it would be nice if when you buy the Eurostar ticket that you get advised. I'm not suggesting the national rail station just happens to ask, "not travelling on the Eurostar are you?"

That's the way it is I'm afraid.

The majority of people who travel on Eurostar will probably go to a ticket office prior to travelling though - just say "I'm travelling on Eurostar tomorrow and here is my ticket - is it possible to get a ticket to London International CIV?". If they don't know how to issue it then tell them it's NLC 5470. ;)

Most of the Eurostar cheap fares are for booking onlime.  If you buy your Eurostar ticket online to colelct it at St Pancreas is the booking confirmation print out suffiecnt for your local station to sell you a Cheap CIV ticket to London or do you need the full Eurostar ticket?

Also, if you are travelling from, say Scotland or Cornwall, spending a night in London and getting the Eurostar the following day are you still allowed to buy the CIV ticket?

Do you actually have to travel on the Eurostar for your domestic ticket to be valid or is it legal to use the Eurostar ticket merely to gain access to what is effectively an open return at the saver return price?

The CIV ticket is also available, I think, if you buy an international train/ferry ticket from Liverpool Street to Holland which would proably be cheaper than Eurostar.

The man at seat 61 has some info about this   www.seat61.com

On South West Trains you require the full ticket following a chap fiddling the system a few years back, buying Eurostar tickets, printing confirmation, cancelling, etc.

Assuming that your train is not reasonably possible to get to in the morning, yes.

You do not have to travel on Eurostar. You must have a valid Eurostar ticket.

London International CIV is available to St Pancras and Liverpool Street although I've been told that it's been removed in recent years for Liverpool Street due to the boat trains not really being boat trains at all and just being all stopper 321s. ;)

I'm travelling on Eurostar at 10:58 on Monday morning from St Pancras.   Through ticketed from St Pancras to my final destination in the Netherlands, but I couldn't find any system to sell me through ticket from Melksham or even Chippenham.

I understand there's an add-on available from my local station to St Pancras International, only to be used in conjunction with Eurostar.   Is this available walkup at Chippenham / on train from Melksham on Monday morning?

I've certainly bought such a ticket from Taplow it's around Off Peak price but valid anytime I certainly used it on a peak train into Padd it includes Undergound.

There's a special staion code for St. Pancras International, I think there's a thread on it  probably a few years ago.

A ticket to "London International CIV" rings a bell - though not sure whether it is still available. You would need evidence of your travel on Eurostar to purchase.

That's the ticket - yes, I believe it's available, but only atstations that aren't linked directly with E* fares.

Thanks, Chris, John R, 8F .. concensus is that I can buy on the way.  Where you say "at" stations, I wonder if that extends to buying on the train if joining at a station without a ticket office or TVM ...

Hmmm, not sure whether these tickets are loaded on the TMs machines....anyone?

I believe in the past it was available from Bristol even though Eurostar add on fares were available from that station. One big advantage of the CIV ticket is that you get flexibility over journeys into and out of London. The through tickets mandate the connection time, and the only time I used them arrived back at Paddington in time for an earlier train which I wasn't able to board. 

It's a couple of years ago though, so hopefully someone can give more up to date information.

Funnily enough during a big tidy up looking for some tokens I was given at Xmas I came across the ticket

It's to London INTL [CIV]

It's called Euro Std Single

Validity 2 months. 

It's the CIV that's important.

IIRC, the CIV is important because if your connecting train is delayed, it guarantees passage on a later train than the one you are booked on.  Particularly useful on the outward journey up to London, where you will almost certainly be on a booked train from St Pancras.

 

What does CIV stand for please?  it's not in abbs.

CIV = Convention Internationale pour le transport des Voyageurs.

Paul

Don't think it includes transferring via London underground though.  Certainly I had to buy another ticket when Eurostar left from Waterloo.

I believe this ticket was also available through raileasy.co.uk and may well be still.  I have not seen it offered on other ticketing websites but that means nothing!

Booked an advance trip right at the edge of their availabilty last week via Eurostar, and likewise could not convince the website to do a through ticket from Cornwall, let alone Lostwithiel, to Bruges. 

Called the help line and was informed that because Eurostar's advance fares were significantly ahead of those of UK TOC's, then they were unable to book both simultaneously.

Advice was to keep looking at FGW's site for when suitable advances are issued, then to give Eurostar's UK rail travel office a call on 01233 617913, quote our booking number then let them book the FGW tickets on our behalf. 

Advantage of this apparently is that it is then treated as a through journey, and in the event of any delays to any part of the journey, then any onward travel resulting from missed connections either way becomes Eurostar's problem.

Great information and customer service I thought.

There are a range of tickets available from Melksham to London International (CIV) all including a cross London transfer. Whether they are purchasable onboard through Avantix I can't say. So if you want it from Melksham, and you have the chance before Monday grahame, I'd suggest buying at a staffed station. A Eurostar booking reference email is usually suitable evidence to show as proof you are eligible to buy the CIV tickets if you haven't got a physical Eurostar ticket.

Destination three letter code would be LNE.

http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=MKM&dest=LNE&rlc=
http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=CPM&dest=LNE&rlc=

Don't ask me why there are different fare types (EVS/EVR & EOS/EOR) in the system that are all unrestricted time wise. You'll want the EVS/EVR Euro High Saver Single/Return which is unrestricted. You can use this ticket on any trains to/from London and you'll note that it is particularly good value when compared with the Anytime tickets to London Paddington.

From Melksham you'll also note that there are fares via Swindon and Any Permitted. Maybe handy if timings are conducive to using the Berks & Hants route to London.

Thanks Paul, perhaps one for the list Mods please?  I must warn Grahame that the Belgium to big cities in NL service has been in complete chaos.  I read the Dutch papers every day and they are about to start a renewed inter-city from Brussel to Den Haag on Feb 18th, but that is no use to you.  Travellers to Amsterdam then will have to change at Rotterdam into a Fyra that isn't, if you follow me.  The coaches are Fyra but the engine is a substitute engine fro the failing Italian engines that can operate on 25kv.

Pax are writing into the paper wanting to know why the main flow (Amsterdam) is not being catered for by running the intercities over the HSL.  Of course they are unaware of the voltage differences, poor people.

So having been informed, the accusations are now about 'civil servant and politicians' trains' because the ministries and parliament are of course in Den Haag whereas the capital city and financial centre is of course Amsterdam!

Also dark comments are being made about 'buying cr*p off the Mafia' suggesting kick backs were at play.

It's all very sordid.

Thanks.  Silly question - if they're time unrestricted, what's the difference between the EVR and the EOR if they're both time unrestricted, apart from the price?

CIV added to Acronyms/Abbreviations page.  ;)

As I said. Don't ask! I've no idea except to guess that at one time there were time restrictions on the EVR on these flows and when those time restrictions were removed the more expensive fare wasn't also removed.

Thanks - I'm user to "adventure travel" ... my last journey was on Wednesday evening this week, and was rather better than most - approached on the platform to ask about my TV appearance, and just 23 minutes late into my final destination.  But I can't - usually - rival thetrout in my stories.  Perhaps I'll have a chance if I come to write up this trip ;-).

In seriousness, I'm travelling during the day and then recovering staying in a hotel overnight before I work, so delays won't be anything more than an adventure.

OK - going for the cheaper one  ;D

I could pm but I think this may be interesting to others.  You did not say where you were going in NL. It may be private (no I am not insinuating 'coffee shops' and the like  ;D ) but I could give some tips in the same way that we have over other hotels, etc, plus experience of using the OV Kaart.

Correct  ;D


I'm giving a training course, and not at liberty to reveal my customer company's names or too many clues to them without their permission ... and I think I'm going to a one-IT-company town.   It's a two-hotel town though, and my client has advised which hotel I should use already, I'm through ticketed to the town's station, in walking distance of the hotel and the place of work, so I suspect that I'm now past the point at which those inputs would have been of maximal use.

As general use / reading, I'm going to encourage posts somewhere (wider?) that describe other countries systems, especially where they give us lessons / contrasts / ideas - in fact I've posted a load of those in the past!

Thanks, eightf48544 - there was indeed such a discussion, in 2008, so I've now merged both topics here, in the interests of continuity and completeness for future reference. :)

Spot on - the CIV is indeed important. The CIV conditions entitle the traveller to use the next available service in the event of a missed (advertised) connection, provided that you have planned your train journey to allow you to get to St Pancras in good time for Eurostar check-in.


No idea why, as to the best of my knowledge London International CIV tickets have *always* included travel to the Eurostar terminal, and certainly do today. The exception these days are journeys originating on First Capital Connect, East Coast and East Midlands Trains: these would take you either to St Pancras Domestic, or Kings Cross (from which no underground journey to St Pancras is necessary or indeed possible, seeing as it's just across the street).

Indeed that now seems to be the case, which makes sense. It was over 10 years ago when I was refused entry to the tube with a CIV London International ticket at Paddington. 

You can indeed buy that onboard. You may wish to inform the Guard when he can't find the ticket that it's 5470.

Just to warn you there are two routes available:
+Any Permitted (EOR/EVR are ^181/^73)
+Swindon (EOR/EVR are ^158/^66.50)

The ticket includes underground travel between PAD and STP - there is a First Class option if you want... both the +AP and +Swindon are ^248.
There are no single tickets on this flow.

There are Single fares (EOS, EVS) in the retail systems. They're just missing from brfares.com.

Thanks, EBrown and all for the feedback on these fares, which I've never used before - I'm a real newbie at this one!

I thinks I'll go for standard class - 4 x time the fare for a journey that's only first for part of the way seems excessive (would probably have paid 1.5 times on this occasion as the start of a long day's travel!).    Any permitted is only useful on the 06:38 from Melksham - the 07:20 and 19:47 both run via Swindon, and the 19:11 via Westbury gets overtaken.  And on the return, the only useful train in the whole 24 hours is the 17:45 via SWI ... a second train involves a night spend on the platform at Swindon, and the two services via Westbury are overtaken by the two SWI trains. Not a brilliant service (!) but the trains happen to fit my travel plans next week.

Then, bon voyage! (or rather 'Goeiereis'   :D ).
I have been boning up on this through booking lark (for my own benefit, I long to find out that train beats plane one of these days) and produced some astonishing results using the Eurostar and SWT sites (I am certain the FGW scene will be the same picture so I will look that up too, and produce overall comparisons).  So far I am getting advance prices that vary by three hundred percent or more, depending whether one buys in stages to STP (Int) or from one's home station.

Incidentally trying to book through to NL on the Eurstar site, it just keeps saying that there are no trains on that day.  I think this may be due to the Fyra fiasco (??), but it is a very poor denial message.  If you just split up the request and ask STP to Brussels (for instance) then you are no longer refused and are given loads of trains.  Very bad, and no wonder people just ring up and try to book, instead of using the net.   

Couple of things my ticket has a * against Taplow and a (dagger) against LONDON INT [CIV]

The other point is the reasons for the mess up with the Fyra is two fold. Crap trains from Italy and incomaptible ERTMS software between Belgium and Holland. There are lessons to be learnt from this for GWML moderniastion.

Hopefully the Hitachi IEP will work out of the box and secondly hopefully the whole line will be resignalled with the same version of  software. However, when it comes to resiganaling other lines, at a later date, to ERTMS. Great care will have to be taken as to the starting version  of the software.

It's similar to the problem with Windows if I were to buy a new machine today it would have Windows 8 installed, so do I upgrade my laptop to Windows 8 or down grade the new machine to Vista or carry on with two versions of Windows? The railway equivalent being do I have two types of IEP one confined to GWML and one to ECML.

Moderators feel free to move the Fyra problems and it's affect on GWML modernisation to any other suitable thread as per Graham's idea of what can we learn from others.

The * is there because Taplow is a short name and therefore prevents addition of extra characters (e.g. changing Barry to Barry Links).

The Maltese Cross is actually associated with the route field and permits a cross-London transfer on the tube.

For the sake of completeness, I've checked the fares manual and the single fares are:

Route +Via Swindon EOS 79.00, EVS 39.00
Route +Any Permitted EOS 90.50, EVS 43.50

Thanks for letting me know. I don't generally take my fares manual CD on holiday with me - so that was my only option. :)

Edit: It's also a pain in the backside for the new MacBook Pro users who have had their CD drives stolen.

And this highlights one of the problems with publicly available fares information. Many sources (both official and unofficial) that don't always tally.

brfares.com is a great unofficial resource but it's not perfect. So its perfectly understandable that the absence of single fares from this particular flow may be seen as the actual case. I thought that may be case myself after posting my response to grahame (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1420.msg125711#msg125711) where I made mention of single fares (EOS/EVS).

It was only on further investigation that I discovered there were indeed single fares. That investigation comprised of making a specimen booking on the only booking engine that will sell tickets to London International (CIV) - raileasy.co.uk. Single fares were available there but I didn't take that as gospel because even booking engines can offer up fares that aren't in the fares database. So I double checked with 'The Manual'. The single fares were listed there, and as that is; 'The official source of retail information for the rail industry' I felt confident to state that single fares are indeed available between Melksham/Chippenham and London International (CIV).

A complex fares system with inconsistencies across official and unofficial sources does rather make life difficult. Just today I discovered a fare that only respottedhankey.com would sell. A fare that all the other official and unofficial sources are adamant doesn't exist.  ::)

That's a very old post that I've dredged up and there was some uncertainly as to whether it's still available this way. 

I'm returning by boat rather than by Eurostar (finish in Holland too late to get home by Eurostar; may as well sleep on the boat) ... so I guess I should get the EVR rather that than EVS.

I trust that you found the through fares on the ship : any NS station to any Greater Anglia station.

I say 'ship' on account of it being much much bigger than a 'boat'.

Yes, though I'm not sure how my receipt translates into a ticket at the obscure NS station I start from - I had to book through the Dutch site because the people in the UK only book tickets (singles and returns) originating in the UK.  Why do people go out of their way to put on such restrictions.  Almost temps me to drive!

The EVR should suit your purposes grahame. It should be valid in combination with your return journey from the Netherlands to London Liverpool Street.

From 'The Manual':


Greater Anglia in conjunction with Nederlandse Spoorwegen is one of those 'certain TOCs'.

Can I find this information in the public domain? Guess.....?  ::)

seat61.com? :-)

A good, very good, website for information on UK and European rail travel. Extremely detailed and accurate, but it's still not an official source.

ATOC would do well to employ Mark Smith, the Man in Seat Sixty-One, to help improve their information to the public.

An update - ticket bought, no problem (but many thanks for the guidance - that magic number helped) and I'm now in the Netherlands.   Long and boring travellogue in two sections at

http://melksh.am/3994
and
http://melksh.am/3995

Only problems?  The cancellation of Fyra, but I had been given a heads-up, and it gave me a chance to see local rail in Belgium.  And the ticket barrier at PAD which refused my ticket, and the chappy who then let me through and confiscated it until I pointed out it was valid to Kings Cross and got it back.  The TfL barriers were happy with it ...

Totally agree BNM, although the links to the booking systems of course only end you up in their blind alleys.  I just sampled Seat 61 and ended up on an SNCF site that was a pain to use.  I am now reduced to looking up maps to see if there are alternative options.  I cannot believe that the only trains from Bordeaux to Bergerac are at 0600 and 0700.  It's a bit like Melksham.   >:( 

Of course there's nothing Seat 61 man can do about that, but as you write, if he were brought in....

The barriers into the underground at Liverpool Street accepted the ticket when I arrived back off the boat train about an hour ago, so there's a confirmation that the CIV still works inbound via Harwich  ;D