Great Western Coffee Shop

I normally travel between Bristol and Portsmouth, so the prices from Bristol to London came as a bit of a shock.

An anytime return from Bristol TM to Paddington is ^153, or ^101 with a railcard :o

My journey would have needed to be first thing tomorrow morning so no chance of any advance fares or off-peak discounts.

Just out of interest, I then looked at first class prices.  ^254 for a return in 1st class - so and extra ^101 just to be allowed to sit in a lounge with a free cup of tea on-board and a newspaper.

How on earth can FGW justify such high prices on this journey?

People pay them!

It will probably be cheaper for you to split your ticket at Didcot Pakway, simply by ensuring that your train calls there.

Assuming you are retuning on the same day:
Bristol - Didcot SDR  @ ^42.60 (no railcard)
Didcot - Paddington SDR @ ^46.80 (no railcard)

Total ^89.40 (Applying 1/3 discount to that and it will cost roughly ^59)

From Bristol to London, the following call at Didcot Parkway:
0447, 0530, 0600, 0630, 0700, 0730, 0800, 0830

Alternatively, if you can avoid the peak hours back then buy a single up and an off peak or super off peak single back. It will then also be around ^100 before railcard deduction.

By the way, the 0830 may stop at Didcot but is now Off peak, so much cheaper.

Thanks - both good replies that I'll remember for the future.

Have managed to get out of going to London this week (phew) so won't need to be robbing the bank!

Saver tickets are valid from Bristol to London on the 447

Its not just FGW that have to justify them though, its the rail industry in general, especially peak services in/out of London.

Birmingham - Euston
Sheffield - Pancras
Leeds - Kings Cross
Norwich - Liverpool Street

They are all of a similar price during peak hours.

As long as people pay the prices and there are no rules or boundries for the TOC's, then why will they change this and lose out on easy profit.

I can trump those prices!

Bristol - Didcot.        Anytime Day Single(SDS)      ^21.30 (^14.05 RC)
Didcot - Paddington. Anytime Day Return(SDR)      ^46.80 (^30.90 RC)
Didcot - Bristol.        Super Off Peak Single(SSS)   ^14.30 (^ 9.45 RC) [valid on all evening sevices]

                                                       TOTAL:   ^82.40 (^54.40 RC)

There is a further potential saving by splitting the DID-PAD return (SDR) into two singles. You can buy a DID-PAD SDS at ^24.00 (^15.85 RC) and a PAD-DID CDS at ^19.90 (^13.15 RC). However the extra ^2.90 (^1.90 RC) saved leaves your evening departures from Paddington much reduced. Last direct to Bristol TM at 1530 or 1930 onwards, by changing at Swindon the 1548, by changing at Didcot the 1622. Then there are stoppers to Didcot you can use at 1627 (change onto 1812 to BRI), 1718 (onto 1842), 1725 (onto 1912), 1818 (onto 1942).

In summary, the cheapest you can do a day return to Paddington from Bristol Temple Meads out and return in the 'peaks' is ^79.50 (^52.50 RC). There are other journey options involving travel to BRI via BPW (a permitted route), but my heads starting to hurt. There's your fares simplification for you!!!

As stated before the fares structure is a mess.

Question, as I understand it TOCs are supposed to sell you the cheapest ticket(s) for your journey. If the cheapest ticket involves a split shouldn't BRI sell the split tickets automatically provided the person catches a train which stops at the split station?

It would then be up to TMs to police as now.

No, The rules are clear on this.  The ticket office is not allowed to offer you a split ticket, but if you ask for one, then they must sell it. 

(just imagne, if they were obliged to sell the split tickets, the whole situation would rapidly desend into a mess, the queques would lengthen and there they still might get it understandably wrong not sell you the cheapest combination - in which case you would have a casue for complaint. The solution of course is to remove the fare anomalies not to burden clerks with even more complexity)

No !!!  These anomalies don't do much harm, if any, to the general travelling public - but they are of great benefit to those, like the denizens of this site, who know how to use the system to their financial benefit. Some fares will rise to remove the anomalies - but none will fall to benefit those who say they should be done away with.

Earlier in the summer I went to Paignton Zoo from Westbury; it cost me less for the train fare than it cost to park my car at Westbury. This may be an anomaly, but FGW/Railtrack got a few quid out of me for fares, coffees etc. If I had to pay the "full" fare, I wouldn't have gone !
In fact, it was such a good day out I went again a few weeks later with my daughter - so the railway gained 3 times !

I've long since come to the conclusion that the answer is 42.

Therefore, I shall be listening to the 6th part of the HHG2TG trilogy on Radio 4 at 22:45 this evening and all week.

It will hopefully make more sense than the current fares system.

IMHO They do a huge amount of harm to the industry.  They give headline writters a stick to beat the railway with

Does anyone really take much notice of the ill-informed drivel in the Daily Wail ?

Most of the anomalies are probably based on quite sound logic anyway, which have become submerged in the mists of time or have a fairly simple explanation if people really look at it.
If I wanted to go to B'ham tomorrow (I go via Worcester, for reasons that become obvious), according to the FGW website I have a choice of 3 single fares to buy at this very moment: ^2.65; ^5.65 or ^15.70.  If I wait until the morning the only fare is ^15.70. Is that an anomaly ? I would say so.

The reason is: FGW run a train from the South coast to Gt Malvern (daft (DfT?) maybe - but FGW didn't make the rules), is it unreasonable for FGW to try and attract people onto their services rather that split the revenue with another TOC and perhaps even generate some extra traffic with give-away fares ?
Remove the anomaly - have everyone pay ^15.70 ? What does that do ? I don't go or I go by coach or by car ! The railway system in general loses out.

 

I was put off travelling Bath to Darlington at the last minute (to attend a funeral on a Friday) .  I wanted to travel on the first train North and return the same afternoon.  I was fully prepared to pay a high fare (perhaps ^220 / ^250 or such like) only fares I could find were for something like ^350, so I didn't make the trip.