Great Western Coffee Shop

Hi ALl,

Know its not right to travel short but can you book an advance say from Swansea and start at Cardiff where they are showing a change of train?

Trip in question is to Leominster no advance from Cardiff but are from Swansea

Basset

In a word, no. Advance fares require you to do the whole journey. You might find a way around it, but it would not be legal.

One way which is still nto legal but more easy not to get caught - try looking for a Cardiff to Ludlow or Shrewsbury - Leominster has no barriers and I'm not even sure it is manned.  You should be able to find an advance for that at the same price.

If you get an officious ticket inspector he may question a person joining at Cardiff with a Swansea advance (and most likely your seat reservation will have been removed if you arent sitting in it by Cardiff) however there is little they can do to physically stop you getting off the train.

None of the above is legal but then if they will make rules ridiculous..............

Just a gentle reminder to all that this part of the forum isn't intended as a place for discussing tactics for circumventing/evading ticket restrictions and conditions.

I'm going to lock this temporarily and confer with the other mods. Will hopefully be back soon.

Hmm.  ::)

I'm sorry, but this forum cannot be seen to be encouraging 'fare dodging / ticket laundering', in whatever guise.  We have been criticised, quite severely, in the past, for allowing that to happen.

I therefore agree completely with inspector_blakey's action, and we'll get back to you further, 'soon'.

Chris.  :-X

General 'official' statement ...

This board / forum has to work within the letter of the law, and byelaws too. And one of the things that means is that we cannot (legally) encourage, aid or condone others in breaking the laws / byelaws, even if those laws / bylaws are (in our view) inappropriately framed. And providing a public platform, to the extent that it helps  others break the law, to a new or previously unpublished 'scheme' would be considered aiding the breaking of the law.

However ...

We can state where we feel the law is an ass, and campaign for a change. We can talk about ways that are already in the public domain that others use to break the law. And we can be a point of explanation, pointing out which laws / byelaws are broken by actions / posssible actions that are raised for discussion.

This Thread

It's *very* borderline indeed - thanks to the moderators who were around during the night for picking up on the issues and moving it to give us time to look at it more generally.

Buying tickets for shorter journeys than have been made, with the purpose of using them to pass through gates, is a well known way that the rules are broken - in the public domain.  But specific routing suggestions that encourage (or appera to encourage it) probably aren't well know and shouldn't be posted.

Buying journeys for longer journeys that you take IS allowed on certain ticket types, is certainly not allowed on some others (Megatrain is often quoted) and is, frankly a grey area to me persoanlly on some others.  I'm told that the advanced fares cannot be used for a shorter journey, but the terms and conditions under which they are sold on the web site do NOT say that; I am going to quote 'the whole' here for critical consideration.


From personal experience (but a while back and the Ts and Cs may have changed), I can quote that FGW staff clearly do believe that short journeys are not allowed. Scenario - a Melksham to London advanced ticket.  Train from Melksham, cancelled.  Instruction from National Rail Enquiry Centre was to wait for next train (12 hours / overnight, and they also refused to pay for accommodation overnight for a guest who did not live in the town) which was not acceptable. Drove at own expense to Swindon as only practical way to pick up the service from there.  Ticket failed to work barrier, and barrier staff very accusatory and aggressive - never mind the fact that is was due to FGW failure to run a timetabled train that we were there ...

The phrase "only valid for the date, time and trains specified" is also very interesting.  Reading that carefully, it means that if (let us say) I hold a ticket at 20:29 from Swindon to Paddington, but the train is delayed by half an hour, then FGW are within their rights to charge me a new fare.  It says "for the time specified" and not "for the train scheduled to run at the time specified" after all, and 21:00 is not 20:29 ...

The rules on this ARE very unclear in many ways, and I believe mis-stated in others. Fair game for discussion and where appropriate ridicule. But please don't advocate / encourage / provide new information sources to help people break them.

I believe that this post, and those from Chris and Inspector Blakey make it very clear that we do not condone the breaking of the rules.   However, all the information posted earlier in the thread is in the public domain so I am going to leave the test as it is, and invite posters who made prior comment to amend their posts if they wish.

The National Rail version of the T&C for 'Advance' is quite explicit:


http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/advance_conditions.html (http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/advance_conditions.html)

It seems FGW (indeed most TOC) staff appear to be trained to apply the rules that National Rail shows.

FGW are causing a problem for themselves, they really ought to ensure that all the T&C sing from the same sheet...

However the same National Rail T&C go on to say:


So any full cancellation should be dealt with as for any other railway problem, AFAICT. In the event of your booked train running late, IMHO you must still get that train, ie your ticket is valid for the booked train, not a precedeing late train that happens along at the time shown on the ticket.

Paul

If the train was from Melksham was cancelled(the 1947 service to Swindon), it's obviously not your fault.  You drove at your own expense to Swindon to be able to board a train to London to continue your journey.   For the barrier staff at Swindon to be very accusatory and aggressive is just not on.  They could have easily checked that that service from Melksham was indeed cancelled.   And in my opinion, in these circumstances the ticket from Swindon-London should have been accepted even if you missed and were not on your booked train. 

To be informed that you would have to wait untill 0640 the next morning for the next train to Swindon to continue your journey is just absolutely bonkers.    And with no accommodation expenses provided for people who don't live in the area adds further insult to injury.  Absolute bonkers and extremely unfair to the innocent passengers. Some people for instance could have been on their way to Heathrow or Gatwick Airport for a flight.  What are they expected to do, miss their flight because they have to wait for the next available train the next morning?!  As that was the last train of the night from Melksham to Swindon(for London), FGW should have arranged for a taxi(or two or howver many necessary to accommodate all the passengers) to take passengers to Swindon so that they could continue their onward journey to Reading, London, or wherever they were travelling to.   They would also have to inform the ticket barrier staff at Swindon of this.  As well as provide passengers with a written note to explain the situation to the conductor onboard the train.   Some conductors just ask for and are happy with the customer just giving them the train ticket.  Whilst a fair amount of them(well over 50%) do also ask for the reservation tickets as well.    Whatever, they shouldn't really expect passengers to have to wait nearly twelve hours overnight for the next available scheduled train.   

Joining short is actually fare evasion, and heres, why, you are travelling from B to C but buying a ticket from A to C which is cheaper, therefore your are deliberately avoiding the correct fare for your journey which is from B to C, hope this makes sense.

...but only when you join at a station where you cannot break your journey.

Condition 16 of the NRCoC explicitly allows this.

You want my honest response to that?  ;D  ;D

Agreed.  The lady with whom I was travelling - a customer of ours - swore she would never use the train again, and I really can't blame her.  And she's not been back to us since, either.  Not that she necessarily would, as once we're trained someone they're "good to go" and shouldn't need too many more courses.


I cannot but agree.  We were told what to do by the person who answered the rail enquiry number that's displayed at the station, without reference to anyone else;  with a need to get get on to London, I didn't stop to argue. More important at the time to ensure my client was sorted than to argue.

You mention ongoing airline connections - "what if they had missed".  Again, I agree but connections between air and rail, when they fail, are NOT the responsibility of the supplier of the first let of the transportation.   Train to airport gets seriously delayed (as might have happened this morning for passengers from Cornwall) and you won't find the airline taking you on tomorrow's flight instead.   Flight gets delayed and even if you allowed yourself 4 hours at Gatwick, if you've missed your advanced purchase you have to buy another.


What a silly system we have!

No, no, no. Joining/leaving short is only fare evasion on Advance Purchase ticket and a few outward portions of walk-up tickets on certain routes.

NRCoC says:-

16. Starting, breaking or ending a journey at intermediate stations.

You may start, or break and resume, a journey (in either direction in the case of a
return ticket) at any intermediate station, as long as the ticket you hold is valid for
the trains you want to use. You may also end your journey (in either direction in
the case of a return ticket) before the destination shown on the ticket. However,
these rights may not apply to some types of tickets for which a break of journey is
prohibited, in which case the relevant Train Companies will make this clear in their
notices and other publications.

I have removed one of my posts.

Thanks, Btline!  ;)

Sorry, did not mean to encourage fare evasion etc. Just wanted to see if it was legal I know I should try and read T&C more. Thanks to all those who informed me that I cannot do this.

It would appear you need a degree to understand the Fare structure and that brings us back to earlier posts on the crazy fare's which should be sorted.

Why is it where there is no other TOC operating on a route the Fare's seem higher or there dose not seem to be a correlation between distance travelled on routes.

Why if you have time it would be cheaper to go from A to B by going back to Z day singles on certain trips?

And thanks to the moderators

Thanks, in turn, bassett44.  ;)

We on the admin team here only step in, on this forum, when we really feel we have to do so.  Unfortunately, on some topics, we do have to adopt an approach of, 'better safe than sorry'.

However, in this case, there's 'no harm done' - and the overly-complicated and often bizarre fare structure remains a valid subject for general debate!  ;) :D ;D

I have considered and I'm NOT removing mine

generally I have co-operated with the mods  and volunteered more than asked on occasion but on this I think - no, its ridiculous.

I can see how getting a shorter journey then staying on for a longer one is evasion - but it is only in the realms of TOC fantasy land you can charge someone more from cardiff to leominster than swansea to leominster.

Yes I know one is an advance fare but it does take the biscuit.  Sort it out.

There needs to be a complete sea change in how fares are priced and the technology used.

If I can use an iphone as  a boarding card for a flight - train companies can surely find some better way of making sure fares are fool proof rather than dumb barriers and dumber barrier staff (in my experience they are either poorly literate or dumb).  We're in the 21st century

Thanks, FallenAngel.  However, just for the record, there was no request on our part for any posts to be removed: grahame merely stated that we "invite posters who made prior comment to amend their posts if they wish".


And I, for one, agree with you completely on that!

And I agree - it is because I feel so strongly on this I am expressly making the point.

Graham invited - I spent the day considering my point - and I stand by it.
And I wanted to emphasis my point!

I decided to remove mine as it was encouraging someone to "join short" by suggesting a way of doing so.

As joining short is apparently Fare Evasion, I decided that it would help the moderators if I were to remove it - i.e. save any potential headaches.

However, I think the system is ridiculous, and I agree wholeheartedly with Fallen Angel! :)

The post I made was referring to Advance tickets as that is what the initial post was about!

As was mine

As was mine.... ???

Where's this going? ::)

I'm rather reluctant to step in here again ( ::) ), but it appears that all of the previous posts on this particular topic were indeed made in the context of 'advance' tickets - and their possible (mis)use.

And that's exactly the issue: many such 'advance' tickets do have that potential for 'abuse', due to the various anomalies in their pricing.

Then why not quote some of that 'initial' post, and make it clear that's what you were referring to?  The thread title doesn't mention Advance tickets and, looking back, most of the intermediate posts didn't either!

Follow ups read, thank you everyone.

I read the following ...

From National Conditions of Carriage.


From First Great Western's web site:


From the FGW Tickets web site


The latter two quotes are from the pages that relate to tickets purchased at advanced fares for future travel.

I know that the professionals on here who have addressed the question of joining short have assured us it is totally against the rules for an advanced ticket, but I am left asking ...

If I buy a ticket from the FGW web site based on the above, isn't it these conditions (which I read and checked were right for me) that form the basis of my contract?  (If they don't, what on earth are they doing there?)  Therefore it IS legal for me to join and/or leave short provided I use the right train.

Not legal, but IMHO you would have a very good defence if you were ever prosecuted for joining short and I suspect tbat any sensible magistrate would side with you.  Does anyone know if anyone has ever been sucessfully prosecuted or even charged with this sort of ticket fraud. 

I know I have said it before, but all ticket restrictions ought to be printed on the ticket itself.  If they are too complicated to fit, they shouldn't exist

A proper fares simplification, not window dressing, coupled with smart card/ticket technology and automated ticket validation (touch in-touch out ^ la oyster) is what is needed.
The technology is there and has been proven in other markets. Passengers will less likely be mis-sold a fare or caught out with restrictions. The TOCs will be able to use the technology to gather accurate data on passenger numbers, routes etc, thus enabling them to better plan services.
As I've said elsewhere, there is a hefty capital investment needed for start-up which would require all interested parties to sing from the same song sheet. However at the moment there is too much short-termism in 'UK Rail'.

Hopefully, Southern, Southeastern and c2c (the only "contained" TOCs around London) will just extend Oyster across their whole networks.

Then gradually, other TOCs can extened, line by line, until every station in the UK has a Oyster validator! ;D

This may eventually lead to advance fares being no more if the TOCs expect everyone to pay on the day through the smart card. There is nothing wrong with paper ticker ticket but a smart card should be available to use across the network along with teh currentpaper tickets.

There is no need for smart cards to only be available for walk up fares. Buy your AP ticket online and enter your smartcard details along with your payment card details. Or buy your AP at the station and have your card loaded as you would with a walk up fare.

You could buy an Advance ticket at a ticket office, and have it loaded onto your Oyster card there and then.

Or, for online purchases, have an Oyster option in the delivery section, so the ticket gets "sent" to your card automatically. (for free) Ditto for season tickets.

All guards/RPIs would carry a scanner with a red and green light. They would scan the oyster card: if the ticket's valid, a green light would show; if not, a red light and a buzzer would sound. The machine would give details of the problem, and a suggest a suitable excess. This would also do Advance tickets. The guard would programme the service into the scanner, so it would show a red light if an Advance ticket holder was travelling on the wrong train.

It would speed up ticket checking, thus reducing evasion.

NB: Of course, paper tickets would NOT be phased out (for elderly and other people who can't cope with the concept of a Smartcard).

BUT, in London, they have seen the use of paper tickets fall dramatically - 80% of journeys use Oyster. I expect the 20% are mainly outsiders of London. If Oyster were to be spread around the country, then figure would rise to 95%. TfL already want a Visitors' Oyster card, eliminating paper tickets for tourists.

Hi All,

When we on the discussion of Tickets why dont they call Advance tickets by what appears they really are which is Long Distance Train Tickets because I was under the impression that book in advance to get the best deals but no if you journey is not long enough it dose not count.

Could anybody tell me the distance or is it up to each TOC to decide?

Basset

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but this is a really good idea.

This site has an example of an Amtrak ticket from the US: http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/index.aspx?NID=1859
You'll need to zoom in on the picture, but the tickets shows a few things that I like:
"AAA Discount - Membership Card Rqrd" rather than just quoting a code like we do (Y-P, GPS-3, etc)
"Fee for Exch or Rfnd"
"No Rail Rfnd once tvl begins"
"No Stopovers"

Makes the ticket restrictions incredibly clear and stops any confusion.

Wont legibly fit onto a credit card - so to intorduce them - redesign all those wonderful ticket barriers

OR simplfy the ticket conditions so they do fit.   

I am surprised this hasn't been tested in court, but TOCs may well be on legally sticky ground enforcing restrictions against passengers where the passenger genuinely did not know about the restriction and where it was not drawn to the passenegrs attention clearly enough.  Remember the suggestion that mortgage lenders might not be able to enforce the collars on tracker deals if they didn't disclose the collar clearly enough in the mortgage fact box?

I know that the legislation is different and TOCs don't have to comply with the FSA, but tickets are covered by the Unfair Contract Terms Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_Contract_Terms_Act_1977 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_Contract_Terms_Act_1977) which requires resonableness in consumer contract terms.

TOCs have constructed a very complicated system and it has reached the point where reasonable customers (ordinary people who are resonably honest but not not experts) can come a cropper. 

I think there is some truth in what you say Tim. I too would like to see ticket restrictions publicised much more clearly at the time of purchase. This needs to be done unambiguously and provided to the customer in writing (i.e a print-off on headed paper) if requested. Merely having a ticket clerk tell you or writing them down on a scrap of paper is not good enough, particularly if you are challenged later in your journey.

As for the 'reasonableness' test I can't see ATOC or individual TOCs wanting to go to court, when someone has been penalised for unknowingly breaking restrictions. I think they'd secretly agree they are on shaky legal ground and prefer to deal with the customer by way of refunds.

There is a flip-side as well. Those 'in-the-know' can use anomalies and ambiguity in the restrictions to their advantage..... I know I have, and I don't feel guilty in the slightest!

Also, I've lost count of how many times my train is pulling out of Temple Meads when the TM announces that Off Peak tickets are not valid. Fair enough, but surely better to announce whilst the train is boarding. It's too late once it's departed.

Presumably toilet occupancy rate increases!