Great Western Coffee Shop

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

So let's get this right.

Book (or turn up) for the direct train at 06:15, and the fare is 50 pound.
Book (or turn up) for the 06:25 - slower with changes, and I can have an anytime fare of 21 pounds.
Book ahead for the 06:25 and I can have it for 6.50.

Would anyone care to offer the reasons, and the moral justification?

I don't know the technical reasons why, but the moral justification is that by making things too difficult for your customers to understand, you can advertise cheap tickets while forcing most of them to pay through the nose, thus increasing profits. And since the 1980s there has been no higher virtue in life than maximising the returns for shareholders.

Yesterday I was trying to work out a worthwhile way of getting the train from Bristol to Heathrow in October. Usually I get the coach, cause it's simpler and more flexible for the return journey, but because of a physical condition I really want to use the train for a change. Anyway I won't bore you with all the confusion but while I was trying to get a good price by splitting the ticket at Didcot, I found it amusing to discover that an Anytime single from Didcot is actually cheaper than the Off-peak fare. So if anyone can come up with an explanation for that one, I'd be interested. In the end I was too confused to make a purchase but I'll probably get the railair coach from Reading as it's quickest and only involves 40 minutes or so in a bus seat.

The reason you cant get the cheaper ticket for the direct train is that the two routes available are either via Bath Spa or via Not London.

As the direct train does not go via bath spa the system will not offer it for you. I would suggest that when the ticket routings were set up a number of years ago Melksham was closed so a direct train would not have been an option.  Maybe if you contact FGW they can change it as it does seem to be a bit of an anomoly.

As to why you cant get the 6.50 ticket.  Again a technical issue.   If you cant reserve a seat on a train then you cannot get an advance ticket.  There are exceptions but generally speaking if the WHOLE journey is on a non reserveable train then the system will not sell advence tickets for that journey. (Connections are ok)

A crass example of this was during the days of the direct Oxford to Bristol turbo service. (if you remember that)  You could not get advance tickets on the direct train but you could get one if you changed at Didcot as the next journey was reservable from Didcot to Bristol.  You would get little old ladies who had been to the ticket office and booked ahead to get the best deal forced to struggle across the platforms with their luggage when the direct service would have been the better option.

Just checked on wikipedia and Melksham reopened in 1985 so the ticket routings must have been set up before then.

You can't reserve seats on Southern but they offer Advance fares (^2 London to Brighton with railcard!)

As i say there are exceptions but generally speaking the ticket will not be offered if a seat cannot be reserved for at least part of the journey.  It is also possible to get Advance tickets on some oxford services worked by Turbos and you dont get a seat reservation.

I believe originally this was because it was decided you cannot force a person to stand on a train journey if they dont want to.  If the service they are shown to be travelling on is full and they cant find a seat then they would be within their rights to get a later train. Hence Advance tickets only came with a seat reservation so this problem would not arise.

...or advance tickets from Warminster to Waterloo on the SWT services - not 1st class anyway.

Tell me more.....cos I can't find this ^2 Railcard fare. Is it/was it a special offer? Cheapest I can find is ^3.30. (^5 without railcard)

My bad. Tis an online jobby. Luckily for me (Solo card holder) Southern use 'Mixing Desk'. Day out to Brighton coming up methinks......if I can get a cheapo Advance to London!

London to Brighton starts from ^3. A railcard gives you 1/3 off. Therefore cheapest fare is ^2.

Combined with VT's excellent fares, you can go from Birmingham to Brighton via London for about ^6. Avoiding London is slower and much more expensive - even when XC ran to Brighton!

Long walk from Euston to Victoria and vice versa though! Extra fiver for tube or 2x^2 bus fares.

Ummm, rail fares across London include the Tube journey! ;)

In the above journey, it is obviously costing ^1! (B'ham to Brighton minus railcard is ^9: so ^5 for London - B'ham, ^3 for London - Brighton leaves ^1 for cross London travel) With railcard, it is obviously costing about 66p.

Many  thanks for the follow ups - especially super_tm.   I hadn't realised the strange Didcot situation that had arisen on the late and much lamented Bristol to Oxford service that many of us found so useful ...

It' s my understanding that although Melksham station was closed from 1966 to 1985, the line through there never was - although at one time the service was reduced to a summer saturday only service from (?)Wolverhampton to Weymouth via Oxford.  But I guess that wasn't enough of a service (nor a direct Swindon / Salisbury service) for the fare for that journey to be calculated using it.  In fact I think (I may be wrong) that is wasn't until May 2001 that the TransWilts services started running on to Salisbury and Southampton.

Ooops, my bad again. Was asuming you were refering to 2 seperate advances, BHM-EUS and VIC-BTN. Now if I can find one of those cheapo journeys, I may be able to get to BTN, for an overnight stay, from home in Bristol via BHM cheaper than going to PAD.

And, before anyone says, yes I know there is a direct service to BTN from BRI, but 4 hours plus in a Class 15X, is not my idea of fun.

Exactly, the other reason (other than the price) that I am going to Brighton via BHM and London is that I would not like to do Worcester to Brighton in one train - esp a 150!

I WANT to change trains. It allows you to stretch legs, wonder around the station, visit various facilities, get a breath of fresh air (without 125 mph winds!) etc. It makes the journey more of a journey and less of a 6 hour slog.

I would not want to do it either - but at least my laptop would now be usable the whole journey!