Great Western Coffee Shop

Not sure if this is any use to anybody:

Holders of Off-Peak Day tickets and Off-Peak Day Travelcards from Shipton, Ascott-u-Wychwood, Finstock, Combe, Tackley, Heyford, Islip and Bicester Town may also travel on the following service:

London Paddington ^ Oxforddep.1621

Bit of a remnant of the days - not that long ago - when passengers for stations on the Cotswold Line could use cheap day returns to travel home from London and Reading on any train in the evening peak. Now you have to have a Saver or whatever it's called these days (available under another exemption for travel into London on the 06.42 from Hereford) to do this, though I wouldn't dispute we get a far better deal on fares than people travelling similar distances from the likes of Swindon.

One oddity of the exemption Devon Metro flags up is that there isn't actually a train from the Cotswold halts on which you can buy an off-peak ticket into London, but I suppose it may handy if you're travelling out to the country - and the booking clerk remembers the exemption, or can the ticketing system now flag it up on the screen for them?

Because the morning halts train into Oxford is the only service of the day (aside from assorted odd stops here and there at Shipton) for London-bound passengers, they have always been able to buy a Saver, even when making a connection in Oxford just after 8am.

The 16.21 connects into the return 17.31 Cotswold halts train at Oxford.

Bit of a useless easement now as the 16:21 is now an off-peak service. But was useful when the service was peak for everyone else.

So does the off-peak period now run up to 16.30 again for all trains from Paddington?

No not all trains, the 16:21 is just an easement :)

Ollie, is there a place on-line where you can view and download the simplifier that lists what tickets are valid on what trains out of Paddington in the evening peak? There's a poster with this information in grid form at a few locations in Paddington station, but I would have thought it sensible to include a .pdf version of it somewhere on the FGW website too?

Nope nowhere online that I am aware of.

PM me your e-mail I shall get you a copy. (note not back at work until monday)

When First Great Western withdrew trains  at 07:45, 09:12, 13:35, 14:49, 17:02 and 18:09 from Melksham in December 2006 - leaving a gap from 07:17 to 19:50 in the service to Chippenham / Swindon with a London connection, the cheapest buy-on-the-day return fare doubled from under 50 pounds to nearly 100 as there is no longer an off peak service, and that rose to over 100 pounds the following month.

When asked for an Easment, First Great Western told us that they could not provide one since it would be open to abuse by travellers from Chippenham.  Was this just an excuse, or are the good people of Oxford (who could abuse an easment from the halts) notably more law abiding that the folks from Chippenham  ;)

I would say partial excuse, people of Oxford wouldn't be able to abuse the system due to having ticket barriers, and unfortunately Chippenham to my knowledge does not.