Great Western Coffee Shop

Hi Folks.

On Saturday [The 19th] I will be travelling to either Torre or Torquay station [not sure which one yet] so I can get to Plainmoor and watch the mighty Green Army  ;D

I looked on FGW's Journey Planner for trains coming back from Torquay, and noticed there really isn't many. There is one at 17:57 and then not one to get back to Newton Abbot until after 7pm- Just wondering, on a Saturday Evening, after football matches etc, the lack of services running from Torquay/Torre to Newton Abbot? Surely it wouldn't hurt to throw in an extra train....

Also, would it be worth booking my tickets in advance for the Plymouth-Newton Abbot leg of my journey [I plan on getting the 10:25 from Plymouth and the 18:22 from Newton Abbot] are these trains usually busy?

I'm not much of an expert so any answers you can give me is appreciated  ;)

Thanks.

The truth is not that many footie supporters tend to go to the matches by train. The train service being considered otherwise adequate for normal passenger use at that time of day on a Saturday.

no advanced  fairs on this route so your looking at an off peak day return available from the station on the day for 6.40 (Before any railcard discounts) if you dont have a railcard and dont want to shell out 28 as long as you are a resident of devon or cornwall and are over the age of 16 you can get a devon and cornwall railcard for 10 pounds a year which gives you 1/3 of all off peak fairs within devon and cornwall aswell as the devon day and evening rangers and the 3 in 7 and 8 in 15 devon and cornwall flex rovers


also if there are 3 or 4 of you going (and avoid cross country trains) you can get a group save, with the group of 3 the price is 12.60 saving 6.60 or groupsave 4 would cost 12.80 saving 12.80 (you can also take an additional 4 children on the gs4 for only a pound each

Just clarify that GroupSave tickets are barred for Torre and Torquay that Saturday for trains arriving before 15.00.

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/groupsave_calendar.html.

Buy GroupSave to Paignton and travel short?  :P

Probably not, but the exclusion would've been better if it explicitly excluded Paignton as well.

oh thats just unbelievable, these barred dates represent nothing but greed .... i can understand it on high speed peak services, but down here we should be doing all we can to get people to leave the car at home

groupsave is there to encourage use on lightly used services, not to give cut price travel on lines that are at capacity most of the time!

GroupSave is valid on many services that are extremely busy at times. And on lines that are at capacity.

I think it more a case that FGW decide that the best way to manage demand on certain services is to use the blunt instrument of pricing people off those trains.

Demand can be managed in other ways, rather than simply withdrawing fares that would normally be allowed.

is that not the whole of devon  ;D

i just think groupsave especially in devon can be the decider when picking train or car and its a shame that its not being used as a selling tool to get more people on board ... take the rugby at digby a day return from plymouth for 4 adults on group save would be 17 pounds  (4.25 each) could you drive and park up for that? ... double the price and driving becomes the option you would go for!

 
 

I though that the idea of "off peak" and "Super Offpeak" was to encourage people to travel on lightly used services, and the idea of "Groupsave" was to help the railway compete with the car which usually has 4 seats. 

So would it not be more logical to manage flows at busy times by moving trains up from "super offpeak" to "offpeak" and from "offpeak" to "open", or vice versa as I think is done around the holiday periods sometimes.

I've seen Boots advertising "Buy 2 and get a third [cheapest of the 3] product free".   If they're rather busy one day and have a queue at the till, do they temporarily withdraw the offer?  And what is Groupsave 3 but "Buy 2 and get a third one free".

Interesting how it lets you book it online isn't it,I think all the groupsave bar does is give the majority of customers a bit of disappointment when they find out they have to pay double

I dont know maybee having special advanced fairs for these events would help to predict loadings and get more people to leave the car behind, at least that way they could add extra units to the diagram if needed and wouldn't have to gamble on wether or not they would be needed, advertising them on the events website on the booking screen as an add on extra that forwards you onto a ticket sales site would probably drum up a fair amount of business

Just to add The bar is lifted from 1500 so apparently people traveling from Torquay joining the train with which is packed full of football fans going home can get the discount ....  ::)

So why not just halve all the fares permanently? It's because train companies are in business and need to make money. The idea of groupsave is/should be to attract passengers onto trains that would be lightly loaded not to sell all tickets at half price on a service that is totally rammed from the get-go. 'Put on more carriages' is the usual response. Where are they going to come from? We don't have them! It's only going to get worse when the majority of west services are run by 143 units which have less seats and luggage/bike space than the 142s.
Really as a business I've often thought that groupsave is an anachronism, especially when you're offering to halve the fares of passengers who were quite prepared to pay the full price. There are very few lightly loaded westcountry services nowadays, even off season so why cut your taking in half unnecessarily?

GroupSave is about attracting additional custom to the railway, not halving your income. As for train companies needing to make money, well, that's a debate for another topic!

'Put on more carriages' doesn't have to be about an areas normal rolling stock. It's possible diagrams can be tweaked to allow for an additional unit from elsewhere in the franchise area. If FGW can spare a Class 150 for a railtour off the WSR then surely they can spare one to strengthen services on a Saturday on the Riviera Line. If not then spot hire is an option, and in my opinion should be seriously considered.

I agree on the day you have no chance of wizzarding up another unit but if you know in advance...... Anyway I feel like I've opened up a hornets nest on this one I guess I'm seeing it from both sides of the situation

In a week or two's time Plymouth Albion are playing the Cornish Pirates at Penzance. Group Save is barred as I presume it's going to be busy..
but holders of match tickets can get 34% off cdrs..
Discuss

 possibly getting funding or may have some other kind of settlement in place .... i wonder if xc have barred dates on group travel

Nope, the group save in this part of the world aren't valid on xc at any time, nor is the 34% discount with match tickets, it's all purely fgw

note to mods - if too far off thread, please feel free to split off

No sorry xc have their own offer for group travel nothing to do with groupsave