Great Western Coffee Shop

Was doing some tidying and came across a Central Trains 2001 timetable. This is around when I started using the railways regulary (before I was an occasional traveller) Lots of interesting stuff:

*timetable valid from Sept to June - sensible, so you can have a single booklet for the Summer (but conversely, not for leaf fall)
*old train times (bring back memories, etc)
*CT offered to send you a replacement TT! :o
*Wales and Borders ran to Bromsgrove and New Street! I suppose that was from Cardiff (wheras ATW stop at Gloucester now)
*Fewer Snow Hill services, more to New Street.

However, the main thing I noticed was the tickets. There were 2 types - Buy anytime, travel anytimes (SDS, SDR an SVR); and Buy anytime, travel restricted (CDR, SSR)

But hang on:

*a Saver (i.e. Off Peak return) valid anyitme?
*Super saver (Super Off Peak return) valid anytime, but not on Fridays, or Summer Saturdays?

What on earth went wrong? I'd happily get rid of rock bottom advances, if I could buy these SVRs and SSRs! CDRs had no evening peak restrictions either. Perhaps this was just for CT...

Any comments from people who used the trains from before 2001?

_{PS: I'm not praising CT. They were a waste of space - good riddance.}

Birmingham didn't used to have an evening peak.....

I remember those SSRs not Fridays / Summer Saturdays malarky....

Wales and West used to run 2 Penzance to Birmingham new st trains! thing is, there are far more people travelling now than in 2001 hence more restrictions etc.

For many of the ex-Regional Railways operators (or perhaps even all of them), a Saver ticket was valid without restriction; there was a similar comment in the Wales and West timetables of the same era, to the effect that Savers were available for travel on all W&W services but you may encounter restrictions on the services of other operators.