Great Western Coffee Shop

FGW sell books of 10 tickets between Copplestone and Exeter, however they do not include travel to Digby and Sowton despite the fact that 100's of people work in that area of Exeter. Does any one else think that this option should be included?

Welcome to the forum sfjwatts!  :D

It can do no harm if you contact FGW with your query. Contact details can be found here (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/ContactUs.aspx).

You never know, they might agree with you and extend the availability of carnet tickets to Digby & Sowton.

I think it is unlikely they will do this at the moment.  The carnet needs one end of your journey to be at a barriered station. 

If both origin and destination are un barriered then it will be possible to reuse your ticket if it is not checked.  So to prevent this the carnet is not offered for these journeys.

OK thanks for your quick replies. Its a shame as we are trying to use the car less and use the fantastic service that the Tarka line offers but we will not get the 20% discount available to somone travelling to Exeter Central. Are the tickets not checked on the train?

A couple of options for you :-

The first thing i will recommend is the devon and cornwall railcard which costs ^10 a year and gives you a third off most rail fairs within devon and cornwall (including plusbus) http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=4058

the second option is ... a carnet... this is slightly different to the one available at stations along the tarka line, they are valid from any station in devon and cornwall and valid for 10 journeys for the price of 9 to : plymouth, exeter st davids,exeter central,or digby and sowton
alternativly you can get a part time season ticket valid on weekends and 3 out of the 5 weekdays or the full on season ticket
http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/fgwticketoffers.pdf

The Devon and ~Cornwall railcard is only valid off-peak, as for the carnet books, they are targeted at lightly used flows to attract more custom, therefore FGW would lose revenue by introducing them on popular flows.

Are all routes from any Devon station to Exeter, Exeter Central and Digby & Sowton, lightly used flows?

The FGW leaflet relex109 linked to states the Devon and Cornwall Carnets are available on, "some of our most popular routes."

That leaflet also shows that a journey from one non-barriered station to another non-barriered station is possible with these Carnets.

Humm i was going to argue the point that one journey example is competing with the bus (exmouth-exeter central) where the carnet  could provide a cheaper alternative to the bus, but the trains only ^3.70 off peak and ^5 anytime..... the bus is ^6.90 .....

but that aside the carnets are most probably partly council funded as a way of getting new people to go by rail..... if you became a regular user you wouldn't buy them anymore and would probably opt for season tickets, i wonder how many new rail users these tickets have created

The OP was referring to the Tarka Line Carnets which are completely different to the recently introduced Devon and Cornwall Carnet's, the Tarka line ones have been in for a few years and offer a very significant discount compared with every day fares, even off-peak and can only be bought from various shops in the villiages concerned, they come in a little book and you tear out a voucher to hand to the guard.

The new D&C Carnets dont actually offer much of a discount.