Great Western Coffee Shop

An observation made last night on a WoE service:

Passenger travelling from Paddington to Chippenham (perhaps a member of this forum) on a service to Penzance planning to change at Westbury for a Transwilts service to Chippenham wishing to upgrade to First class using a Weekend First upgrade.

On a direct train to Chippenham normal cost would be £15 two zones price. Train manager however charged £20 three zone price which Westbury falls into even though the passenger has to travel via Westbury (or Bath, also in zone 3) due to engineering work.

My question is should the train manager have charged based on the destination station rather than because the passenger had to change at Westbury through no fault of their own. Worth noting sometimes there are direct trains to Chippenham that operate on the Berks and Hants during times of engineering work where you would only be charged the £15 two zone price.

Of note the passenger did ask the TM if it was worth raising this with GWR to get a refund of the £5. Personally I hope this person does so as IMHO on this occasion the TM got it wrong. Thoughts?

edited to correct spelling

As a matter of principle, I don't thinks passengers should be asked to pay a higher price for travel by a longer route  when their regular route and timing is unavailable or impractically bustituted - especially because of rail industry instigated changes such as closure for engineering.    We have had some interesting discussions with GWR (and Transport Focus) on that and largely established the principle.   I don't see any reason the same principle should not apply to first class upgrades.

Hope he was paying that extra money for "proper" First Class .............. on a 125 !

Would have been somewhat standard class suburban after Westbury if he was on the TransWilts. But that's such  step up from a Dogbox!

The passenger concerned and quite a few others for Chippenham missed the Transwilts connection at Westbury as our train was runnning 30 minutes late due to the IET in front for Bristol travelling rather slowly.

And yes it was an HST so “proper” First class and buffet car.

Who designed the I-E-T, Why did they not fit proper buffet cars, First class should be better than on a HST, I would of thought in this day and age.

So would most of us here however we get what we've got and are expected to be grateful.