I went on 28th Feb in the end and avoided the increase.  Though a couple of days before that, I asked the member of staff in the ticket office in Exmouth if she knew when fares were going up and she didn't.  You can tell the Government are in charge, and winging it.

I'm keen to know because I'm possibly making an outward journey on 1st March but don't want to buy the ticket before I have to! Official websites are strangely silent on the subject. The only reference I've found to 1st March is on MoneySavingExpert but I don't know whether they're just assuming that's the date (as I was before I started looking).

How does it normally work when you buy a ticket in advance, in the period approaching a fare increase? Suppose the increase is taking place on 1st March, would you expect to be able to buy a ticket on 28th February, for travel on 1st March, for the old price, or would you expect the system to charge you the new price?

These comments are telling, because I think there's a problem within SWR management (in its First MTR incarnation; I'm not suggesting it was the case under Stagecoach) that they see themselves as a suburban commuter railway and that their long distance services are just a nuisance. Having said that, I get the impression they're not much cop at running a suburban commuter railway these days .....

I've received an email from SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) Customer Relations this evening (in response to an email I had written to Claire Mann complaining about the service pattern) which makes no reference to the fact that the through service to Exeter is being reinstated from 21st February. It's basically saying the same thing as they've said to Paul Clifton. Either the PM is winging it, or SWR's right hand doesn't know what its left hand is doing. Or perhaps both of the above.

I haven't posted on this board for ages, but as someone who uses this service from time to time I'm pretty hacked off about this. It's not really down to Covid; there's a chap in our user group who monitors performance, and in recent weeks SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) have hardly cancelled anything on this line due to staff shortages. (Since they withdrew the Bristol services in fact, presumably because they've now got a glut of crews.) Last week there were no staff-related cancellations.

If it's down to reduced passenger numbers, why not just terminate every other Exeter train at Salisbury? Making people change trains introduces an element of risk, with the possibility of missing the connection, or the twenty minute delay if all goes well. Plus they've introduced stonking great delays at Yeovil Junction and Pinhoe (Exeter bound). It all seems designed to put passengers off using the line, so they can say "Look, no-one's using the trains, let's cancel some more".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no restriction on weekday leisure travel, is there? Surely people should be encouraged to be using trains for longer journeys rather than driving up and down the A303. Wan't our PM in Glasgow recently lecturing other countries on how they should be doing more to reduce carbon emissions, or was I dreaming all that?

Thanks both, that's really helpful.

Apologies if this has been asked before, but I can't find the answer either on this site or any of the railcard sites.

I'm planning on getting a Two Together railcard for a trip to Yorkshire with my wife in February, for which I'll be buying the tickets as soon as they become available.

I'm not sure if we'll be making any train journeys together between now and then.

I know the railcard has to be valid at the time of the journey, but do I need to buy it in advance of buying the tickets, which could be up to three months beforehand?

Many thanks.

Ross H

Thanks Fourbee, that's a really useful tip.

I think it's also possible to add more and more bookings to your basket until you get the seats you want, and then delete all the unsuccessful attempts before paying. I remember trying that once, I think it was to get seaward seats on a journey via Dawlish into Cornwall. And then the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) arrived the wrong way round so we went and sat somewhere else anyway!

Many thanks Bignosemac for that very detailed reply.

I've found out that Virgin trains will post tickets abroad for an extra ^7.50 (thanks to Man in Seat 61 for this info), so that is a possibility too. As an experiment I've tried setting up an account with Virgin and reserving both legs of the intercity journey (without going through to payment). I've done it for next week as you can't do it yet for 24th July. You can't select specific seats on FGW^▸ (First Great Western) trains but at least I was given seats in the same coach for both legs. I suspect it's unlikely that the seats for the second leg would be reserved to anyone else as far as RDG^‡(resolve) anyway.

As a matter of interest, which is the unreserved coach in HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) - I believe it is E?

Finally, thanks Chris B for the suggestion of Britrail passes. I don't think this quite stacks up for what they want to do (assuming I've converted NZD to GBP correctly) but it comes tantalisingly close!

Thanks for all your help.

Ross

Thanks both.

There are two of them; they are coming from New Zealand and already have UK^▸ (United Kingdom) senior railcards. They will be returning to Heathrow just over a month later (26th August I think) and are unlikely to be doing much else in the way of train travel while they are here.

Could someone help with the following questions please?

We've got some visitors arriving at Heathrow on 24th July and intending to travel to Exmouth by train. For various reasons they want to travel via Paddington (as opposed to Railair Link to Reading), and they don't want to pre-book their tickets as they've had problems previously with an international flight being seriously late.

They will hit Paddington in the evening peak, so the best solution I've found for them cost-wise is Heathrow Connect to PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) (purchased as a separate ticket), then travel on the 18.03 to Penzance as far as EXD^» (Exeter St Davids - next trains) (and change for EXM). On the intercity train, it is cost-effective to split at RDG^‡(resolve) because the peak has ended by the time the train gets there, so they can get Anytime singles as far as RDG and Off-peak singles for RDG-EXM.

My questions are:-
1. Online you can do all of the above, and you may even be able to fiddle with seat selection so as to get the same seats for both legs. However, in the printed timetable the 18.03 is shown as pick-up only at RDG. Does this affect the validity of split tickets, so as to potentially cause problems either when buying them in the ticket office or when the tickets are checked on the train?

2. What is the latest before a train departs that you can reserve a seat? In other words, will they be able to pitch up at PAD at, say, 17.00, buy the tickets and reserve seats on the 18.03?

3. Presumably they could purchase both legs separately at PAD (depending on the answer to Q1 above), but does anyone know whether they could buy those tickets (ie. PAD-RDG and RDG-EXM) over the counter at Heathrow? I ask because Heathrow doesn't appear to be a normal National Rail station (it doesn't have the three letter code and you can't collect pre-paid tickets from the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine)).

4. In case it's not possible to get reservations this close to departure, which is the unreserved coach in HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train)? I've warned them that they will not be the only ones making a beeline for it at PAD.

Hopefully someone will know the answer to these!

Thanks.

It's probably the same picture that we're treated to daily as part of the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)'s travel bulletins for Devon and Cornwall during their Breakfast programme.

As that's approx three months away, it could just be that the cheaper advance fares have only been released as far as 2 Aug. This time last year I was sat at my computer ready to pounce when Cross Country released their advance fares to Scotland, and I'd worked out in advance that they released them every Sunday for a week at a time. The National Rail website tells you when the various operators supposedly release their fares, but I didn't find it to be 100% accurate.

Haven't posted a link or photo before so not sure how this will work. Anyway, it's the Exmouth Journal/Herald - ancient trains and equally ancient photo (RIP Wessex Trains).

http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/ancient_trains_may_knock_sunday_city_service_off_track_1_2004105

Indeed. If three cars could be accommodated, they could take the non-driving trailer out of a 319 (or 317, of which I think there are some spare already), to make a 3 car EMU. If only two cars will fit, I suppose they could modify a 317 to a 2 car EMU by converting one end of the non-driving power car to a cab, in the same way that the 153s were created out of 155s.