Great Western Coffee Shop

Three Londoner Adults coming to visit Melksham for the weekend.

"Three returns to Melksham please" - walk up fares, or from the GWR web site, travelling out after work this Friday and back first next thing Monday morning. "That will be £615.60". Wow!

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/weekend_mkm.jpg)

But hang on a minute ...

Long Weekender, same train, getting off 10 minutes earlier in Chippenham - £207.00 + £30.00 for 6 x single fares = £237.00.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/weekend_cpm.jpg)

And the Groupsave thing is interesting - it seems to be being applied to singles and not returns in my example and even I am a bit confused here! Confusion somewhat resolved - is it because the returns can be used early in the day before the witching hour at which Groupsave becomes live?

Now, to be fair, a ticket clerk in Paddington when selling the tickets to Melksham might offer the long weekender and local tickets (and good on him/ her if he/she does), but buying from a machine there it's almost certain that would not be the case.

Probably not appropriate at this point to reminisce about weekend return tickets, not a peak fare, valid for travel in the evening peak on the Friday and on the Monday, in the morning peak too.

Mark

Long Weekender tickets were advertised as being a trial when they were introduced but that was over a year ago. Nothing said yet about when the trail is supposed to end, let alone whether it is considered a success, and then whether they actually will be extended to other destinations.

They are being strongly promoted on Facebook so I doubt that it's ending in the next few weeks.  Whether that promotion is to build on a good thing,  a desperate attempt to get the scheme to take off, or a piece of general marketing to make people realise that there are some sensible prices around I would not know.