Great Western Coffee Shop

Anyone know what is the best value (miles per pound) walk-on fare on the FGW network (or indeed the UK network)? As a user of the Bicester Town-Oxford service, it strikes me that the approx 23.6 miles round trip for only ^2 (off-peak) is rather good value at 11.8 miles per pound :) Probably won't stay that way after the Evergreen 3 upgrade though :(

Apologies if this has already been covered. I found this thread, but it's not quite the same topic:
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=6169.0 (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=6169.0)

Jon

Cheapest one I had recently was a Cheap Day Return (after 08:30) from Worcester Foregate St to Bristol Temple Meads - ^10.60.

I think that it's 68.1 miles each way, so that's 12.85 miles per GBP.

That is good value! It reminds me that the Bicester Town to Bristol TM return fare of ^18.80 is pretty good for circa 148 miles, but still only 7.88 miles per pound.

Plymouth - Penzance @ ^9.50 for 160 miles.

Thats 5.9ppm / 17 miles per GBP.

As an aside, you can find the distance of a journey by looking up a train on a Mixing Deck site (e.g. ECML) and looking at the Carbon Emissions page.  The URL contains the number of miles.

I can't find this URL - sounds useful though. Does it measure as the crow flies or actual distance travelled (which is the measurement I used).

Jon

You can use the same fare to travel from Bristol TM - Worcester SH via Newport and Hereford using permitted route/routeing guide rules.

So that's ^10.60 day return for a round trip of 198.5 miles. That's 5.34 pence per mile or 18.73 miles per ^.

Here is my half hearted attempt at taking a screenshot
(http://www.brucebolt.com/images/misc/fgwcoffeeshop/ec-miles.jpg)

Hover over the link labelled as "Carbon Emissions", then the number of miles appears at the bottom of your web browser.

It appears to be actual distance the train travels, rather than as the crow flies.

Alternatively... http://mileage.railmiles.org/

Anyone get it to work? I cannae get the 'Submit' button to do anything.  :(

It doesn't work for me either and I was asking it to do something very simple.. I don't usually click on unknown links.. so now I'm a bit worried.. I assume it's legitimate..

Worked fine for me in Firefox (although on Linux).  Do you have something that may be blocking the JavaScript?

Interesting!  ::)  It worked for me, on Google Chrome:


... including the map version.

Hmm. I think perhaps it's just a bit temperamental?

Chris. :-X

Never had a problem; I'll speak to the person who wrote it.

It's a brilliant bit of kit!

Brilliant bit of kit it might be but whoever designed it needs stringing up - complete FAIL at this end of the line!

Worked for me. It highlights some curious facts. eg Rhymney to Ebbw Vale Parkway is over 50 miles, yet 7.2 miles and 15 minutes by road.

I'm sure there are some more extreme examples, but thought I would throw that open to see what suggestions people have.

how about Axminster to Gunnislake via barnstaple for around 5p per mile :-)

I'm surprised people don't recognise who made it..Tom..swlines.

By the way works for me in Firefox.

works for me too i use firefox

I did wonder,(but thought there's more than one person called Tom).

True but does show Tom Cairns, and I figured be more than me on here who knew his surname too. I didn't mean it to come across as a "oh my god how can you not recognise who it is!!" :P

Hmm.  ::)

Just for the record, the website offered above by devon_metro is indeed run by Tom Cairns, who used to be member 'swlines' on this forum.

Further details are available at http://thomas-cairns.co.uk/

Chris.  ;)

Checked my settings on IE and JavaScript is enabled. Still cannae get it to work on IE. Firefox is fine though......

I'm not a user of Internet Explorer, however it worked for me in IE8.

Tom says that IE6/7 isn't supported.

The only problem I've had is that the 'map' link doesn't work... it takes me to Google Maps, but nothing comes up on there...

I had the same problem on IE6, but it works fine on the Android browser on my phone. Now if someone out there was clever enough to create a mashup using Tom's site and the National Rail fare calculator, we'd be able to set about finding the best value journey in the UK! :)

Just to summarise, I think the best we have so far is (mileage calculated using railmiles.org for a return journey using permitted route):

With changes:
Bristol TM - Worcester SH via Newport and Hereford: 200.15 miles @ £10.60 ⇔ 5.30 ppm / 18.88 miles per pound

Without changes:
Plymouth - Penzance: 158.95 miles @ £9.50 ⇔ 5.98ppm / 16.7 miles per pound

N.B. I've edited this post to correct the mistake bignosemac spotted (below).

"Clever" is one thing - there are people who could do it. Some of the problems start coming when the parties supplying the basic data say they're doing so for regular users only, and not for people who are looking to store the data / use it through automata - they claim copyright, etc, and can get very unhappy.   I recall there have been a few problems with the odd split-ticket web site.   Legal to split, but apparently not legal to provide a service that makes routine use of the data behind it.

Where'd you get ^9.50 from? The BRI-WOS CDR is ^10.60. Calculations are right though, based on ^10.60.

And the mileage can be upped. I've discovered that the ^10.60 CDR is valid from Keynsham and permitted route allows Keynsham-Bristol TM-Bristol PW-Newport-Hereford-Worcester Shrub Hill. 211.5 miles return. I make that 19.95 miles per ^ / 5.01 pence per mile.

Now, if the tunnel was closed you could (if you really wanted to!) go Keynsham-Bristol TM-Gloucester-Newport (via Chepstow)-Hereford-Worcester Shrub Hill. 324.25 miles return. 30.59 miles per ^ / 3.27 pence per mile.

Sorry, got my fares mixed up there, £9.50 was for Plymouth to Penzance. :-[

(Now corrected this post)