One of the things that would make the policy work is ease of reservation.
The GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) website says up to two hours before departure of the train (from origin). Ideally this would be at any time prior to departure - BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) managed to provide reservations for cycles at any point during the journey (and that was with 1980's computing!).

Many thanks for that.

Digging back in the archives I found this

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=9623.msg100530#msg100530

where there is a quote from FGW^▸ (First Great Western) customer services "I note your comments regarding the validity of the tickets beyond Bedwyn that they must travel on a Peak time service. The fares structure is of course more complex than just to assume that services will be Off Peak/Peak however passengers traveling to Bedwyn are traveling on the London Thames Valley route whereas beyond this becomes the High Speed Services route, these are different routes that are made clear in our Passengers Charter. "
Actually, the charter does not make it clear, just referring to the 'former FGW link' services. But that gives me enough to go back to them with. The difference in fare for the woking only ticket is quite small, and prefer to have to have the option to go via Reading.
Of course the real service  issue is that the Basingstoke - Reading line has deteriorated since the 150's came along, but thats another story....

Does anyone know the if Basingstoke - London is in "Thames Valley"? Currently trying to renew a season ticket and while last year was given the discount (after some debate) this year have been advised that was a mistake and it comes under High Speed (and therefore not eligible for performance discount). As the line is 'Former First Great Western Link' and was priced by FGWL prior to Greater Western coming along, this sounds wrong, but maybe someone here would know? Thanks.

Interesting. The NRCoC^▸ (National Rail Conditions of Carriage) says these are prohibited anyway. But similar things like skis and ski boards are (at no charge). Do they perhaps mean that they are about to offer a chargeable option to take them (and none was available before?).

So does the 150's  (whichever variants they are, hopefully 3 car)  mean the end of 1st class on Basingstoke - Reading?

Heresy though it might be to say, part of this is a British Rail legacy issue. A long time ago, day returns were available for most journeys (I recall buying several Glasgow - London day returns in the 80's) and then along came the saver. It was marketed as 'like a cheap day return, only it lasts a month'. And from that time day returns were roughly restricted to journeys under 50 miles - although there are exceptions in both directions. Of course it soon became obvious that a saver cost more than the cheap day return did - although not to the extent it is today. It made sense then, though, as there was only the equivalent of the anytime period return (full fare) or the day return (cheap fare), and for many journeys there was a fares gap in between which the saver filled. (And advance tickets did not exist then).
The bit that baffles me about the fraud angle is that until a few years ago, most ex NSE^▸ (Network South East) flows had the period return of 5 days validity - "Network Awaybreak". Then it largely was moved to have a months validity, same as the saver. This would give more room for fraud rather than less. In any case the train companies could help themselves on this, e.g by having barriers stamp dates on return halves or making the guards use sensible ticket punches rather than scrawls that mean nothing (but thats another thread....).

Unfortunately, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and other train companies ask that you do not lock your bike to the train

http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=80

Do not lock bikes to anything in the train
If you lose the keys, we can't delay the train to remove the cycle.

Interesting dilemma!

The lowland sleepers were the last BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) departures. The Edinburgh portion was held back a few minutes (they both left at 23:55 in the timetable) to be the definitive last BR train. I still have my free whisky miniature given out on the train with the caption "Cheers to a better future".  Not quite sure thats what actually transpired....

The problem with no advance booking on WF only really kicks in if you are making a journey covering two or more TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company). If you buy the supplement in advance (and all the tocs concerned have not withdrawn from prebooking, as East Coast already have) then the supplement covers you for the entire journey. You just pay the highest applicable WF supplement. With on train only it will only cover you for the part of the journey on that TOC, so you could end up paying a two or more supplements. And I guess that there's something in FGW^▸ (First Great Western) in the revenue split in the change. Unless anyone knows differently of course....

According to the leaflet on the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) site, it is valid on heathrow connect between Hayes & Paddington.

http://firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Documents/Custom/Rangers%20&%20Rovers/Rangers%20&%20Rovers%20%20-%20Thames%20Valley%20L_109_0410%20FOR%20WEB.pdf

So just print that off and take it with you in case of any misunderstandings....

I raised this with the trainline years ago and got the usual unsatisfactory reply. However, does it not mean that the train company is in breach of its obligation to sell the cheapest ticket for the journey, and therefore just saying there is no fix is indeed very unsatisfactory? The situation does seem to have improved - a year or so ago no off peak tickets showed at all on the afternoon window to Paddington - but looking for next monday, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) web sales shows the 1725 is valid for offpeak, the 1732, 1744 and 1752 are not, and the 1756 is. So a ordinary person might reasonably conclude they have to buy a peak ticket (at well over double the fare) when they do not if they want to leave in that time window.

Have had a few runs on the non air con "refreshed" 2 car 165s between Basing and Reading. Really seems just like a fresh coat of paint and new seat covers except - where have the little tables between the standard class face to face seats gone? My morning coffee used to rest there - now it has to be juggled with a copy of the metro for the journey. Surely taking these tables away is not an improvement?

Right so meanwhile back on the thread, I think we can say...

Salisbury is not a pure PF^▸ (Penalty Fare) station, so therefore the requirements from DaFT^» (Department for Transport - critical sounding abbreviation I discourage - about) to have an arrangement to allow platform tickets or similar do not apply.

Although one could argue that as the same rules (4. say that you can only create a CTA^▸ (Compulsory Ticket Area) if all operators have penalty fares, and as we have established here that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) don't, then it seems there is a further issue as you can legitimately board an FGW train at salisbury with no ticket (if you are happy to pay the full undiscounted fare) and so there isn't actually a CTA, just a barriered area.

I'll try to buy a platform ticket at Waterloo next time I'm there, which I'm pretty sure is 100% PF.

In fact I might just get one for Southwark underground, where presumably there are no "less than honest" people....

http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/4395

as no less than Boris is happy with them being issued there.

But the platforms are 'private', technically, and this does appear to be a loophole that allows station operators to annoy people genuinely seeing off / meeting others. It will be interesting to see what SWT^▸ (South West Trains) come back with to moonrakerz.

Under the penalty fares rules, set by DaFT^» (Department for Transport - critical sounding abbreviation I discourage - about), they are obliged to make 'an arrangement' for people seeing others off, or enthusiasts, to access the station. This is at stations with both penalty fares and a compulsory tickets area, if you have barriers but no penalty fares this does not apply.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/legislation/pf/penaltyfarespolicya?page=5

It doesn't have to be a platform ticket, although its difficult to think how anything else could work effectively. So you absolutely should not have been challenged, even politely, at worst you should have been sent to the ticket office or machine to buy a platform ticket.