Slough - Hanwell and third track possibility.

[whole diary]

[ChrisB]

So who sets the fare at Watford Junction?

AS I've already saud, we're talking TfL^» (Transport for London - about) contracts, not TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) ones. so LO and going forward Crossrail only.

[ChrisB]

Also, Crossrail has a central core of new route, where currently there are no fares set. The central stations won't be classed as 'London Terminals' for sure, as Farringdon isn't now. So there will be new Crossrail fares from the off. Yes, Travelcards will be valid, but single (assuming its all Oysterised to the extremities) fares will still be required. TfL^» (Transport for London - about) will presumably set these (who else?)

[paul7575]

So who sets the fare at Watford Junction?

London Midland.   The equivalent at Maidenhead etc would be that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) retained the fare setting role. 

Through fares starting outside the zonal area, to stations within Zone 1 are set by the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) adding to their London Terminals fare.  Suitable fares for a journey such as 'Reading to Farringdon' therefore already exist, and would be shown as Reading to U1 on a ticket. 

All the central Crossrail stations, and AFAICT^▸ (as far as I can tell) all those anywhere within the zones, will have common gatelines with the relevant LU station, so would have to charge the same fare as the normal 'underground' - eg there is no way to differentiate a Crossrail journey from Ealing Broadway to Liverpool St from the same journey on the Central Line.

The situation regarding stations 'beyond and between' London Terminals, ie at Farringdon, is already a bit of a nightmare under Thameslink, where different rules apply from stations on the MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about) north of St Pancras who have a valid destination of London Thameslink - AIUI^▸ (as I understand it) this is good as far as Elephant and Castle.

Crossrail can hardly make it any worse.

Paul  

[ChrisB]

Crossrail however can, and should be IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion), competition for FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

You may be right, but I'd like to see them undercut FGW, especially if/when it reaches Reading. That might ease the crush on the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) if they get the differential right, and/or introduce skip-stop pattwern of service making the journey time/fare differential worth considering.

[ellendune]

Crossrail however can, and should be IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion), competition for FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

Trick one that. If the Crossrail franchise is like Overground, and assuming it does not run at a profit, then London taxpayers would be subsidising competition with a commercial company.  That presents all sorts of issues.

[Southern Stag]

Crossrail however can, and should be IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion), competition for FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

Why? Crossrail is surely not designed to be competition for FGW really. If you are coming from Reading it is going to be so much quicker to take an FGW service into London that I doubt many would transfer to Crossrail. The price undercut required would probably undermine the whole fares structure on the route, you'd have to lower fares along the whole line just to make Reading fares attractive enough to tempt people onto a much slower train. The only limited competition would be at Slough, Maidenhead and Twyford. And the extent on the competition at those stations will depend on service patterns.

[James]

This board was ment for Slough to Hanwell and third track possibility, but i think most has been said about this earlier on in this thread. I have no idea why it has wondered of into posts for Competition and fares. Remember there are other areas of the coffee shop where you can post these things. Therefore i want to call and end to this thread and can the mods please remove it, or transfer the relevent parts to more appriopriate areas. Thankyou

[grahame]

This board was ment for Slough to Hanwell and third track possibility, but i think most has been said about this earlier on in this thread. I have no idea why it has wondered of into posts for Competition and fares.

It took me a while to realise just how interlinked all the various elements of railway provision, operation and finance really are.  I've no idea how this one "morphed" either, but I'm not surprised. When you start a thread, you've no idea where it will go; you may feel you have some sort of "grandfather" rights over it and in terms of influence and advise, yes you do ... but only a very little.  In fact, the more I think of it, the more grandfather / granddaughter  it reminds me of; we have a lovely granddaughter, we have everything needed for her to visit us and perhaps stay. But it's all been outgrown and never used because in an extended family riddled with nursery school qualified people, we're untrained apart from through the school of life. So - we celebrate our granddaughter, we see her occasionally, we rejoice as she grows and becomes a person rather than a baby.   So, James, celebrate your thread and the fascinating discussion you've triggered.

Remember there are other areas of the coffee shop where you can post these things. Therefore i want to call and end to this thread and can the mods please remove it, or transfer the relevent parts to more appriopriate areas. Thankyou

I'm going to leave it to another of the moderator team who, I suspect, has been following more closely than I have and will know whether and where to split to make the discussions more followable and a better resource for the future; and I'm certainly going to restrain from deleting anything; such action's unnecessary and I always feel that deleting even a single post is changing history, and is showing a disrespect of the person who put time and interest and knowledge and his/her personality into writing it.  Splitting and moving to give better indexing / exposure?  Maybe.

[James]

Thank You Grahame, to be honest yes i do agree with you on some things such as the wonderful things people have put into the thread, however I have sort of dropped the idea of removal of this thread after discovering it may just be better to split or move it into areas that are more appropriate. Just also wanted to say thankyou to everyone who has posted in this thread, some information such as the Track Layout of Crossrail is very useful and didn't know it existed until it was posted by Southern Stag i think. So thankyou
Feel free to post anything that relates to the topic.
Cheers Guys