Does anyone travel on a straightforward ticket on Cross Country these days?

[whole diary]

[didcotdean]

Of course there will be some on short journeys.

At the weekend though everyone in my earshot when the tickets were being checked through were on split tickets, including myself (Didcot-Banbury, Banbury-Birmingham NS). Some had as many as six for a single journey without a real change.

[ChrisB]

They're damned expensive these days on longer journeys....its not surprising really.

[didcotdean]

Anyone trying to get data on travel on Cross Country from ticket sales is going to struggle. Although maybe they are able to knit them all back together again from a sequence of seat reservations ...

[JayMac]

A semi-regular trip I took with CrossCountry when I lived in Bristol was from Bristol TM^▸ (Train Manager, or Ticket Machine, or Temple Meads (Bristol), depending on context) - Birmingham NS. Often the first leg of a split for travel further north. I always used a point-to-point ticket, either Anytime Day Return, Off Peak Day Return, Off Peak Return, or 1st Off Peak Return.

Those tickets never had Bristol or Birmingham printed on them mind... 

[grahame]

What are you folks meaning by "short" and "long" journey?   I've used their service to travel from BTH^» (Bath Spa - next trains) to PLY^» (Plymouth - next trains) on a standard anytime return (with senior railcard discount mind).   A very useful service as it lets me travel from home to Plymouth and be there in time for a day's work.  Can't recall which TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) I started with on the way back, but changed to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to reach BTH.

[didcotdean]

That fare though is set by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway). It is also one of a reducing set of anytime returns that is priced at a relatively trivial amount above an anytime single (£1.60) - and really not that much above the off-peak price. A fairly sweat spot maybe.

[JayMac]

A fairly sweat spot maybe.

Stood in the vestibule of an overcrowded Voyager? Can get a little clammy. 

[didcotdean]

I'm glad that didn't go unnoticed. I thought of doing it in brackets.

Incidentally in looking up the prices I see the outward portion is valid for five days. Good for a leisurely peak-time progression south westwards or maybe they think people need to take a break at each stop on the Voyager.

[trainer]

I suspect the strict answer to the posed question is:

'The ill-informed and those on expense accounts.'

A few years back I was pleased to hear a booking clerk (is that still the correct title?) at Weston-super-Mare gently explaining to a lady of mature years that she could save money by splitting at Cheltenham.  I say 'gently' because the poor soul was very dubious that she was able to have two tickets, not get off the train and it would cost less.  Fair (fare!) play to the clerk for persisting in helping even when resisted.

[ellendune]

'The ill-informed and those on expense accounts.'

That depends on the culture of the company you work for.  Where I work just because it is on expenses that does not mean people do not try to get a good deal.

[Worcester_Passenger]

I had four tickets to get to and from Skegness yesterday. OK, only two of those were on XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)).

I don't think that it's possible to reassemble the through journey within the passenger data - every time that I've seen some of this data it has been aggregated into totals by class and ticket-type between A and B.

[didcotdean]

I recently read in the latest iteration of the South Oxfordshire Local Plan that from Didcot only 50% of the commuting journeys are to London, with 20% being to other Oxfordshire+Reading stations and 30% elsewhere. This compares to say Henley where it is 70%. It did niggle at the back of my mind though whether this had been calculated somehow without the distortion of split tickets (even though there are genuine commuters to Swindon and points further west). Mind you it could be even further distorted if using ticket sale data with people using Oxford-London seasons from Didcot.