March void days

[whole diary]

[charles_uk]

After the weather disruption at the beginning of March, void days have been declared for all service groups for 1 March, and all service groups except LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) on 2 March 2018.

Or to put it more bluntly, Friday 2 March was not a void day for the Cotswold Line.

How very GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).

[ellendune]

What view of the geography of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) puts Worcester in the Thames Valley?

[ChrisB]

THe old Network South East area....

[grahame]

What view of the geography of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) puts Worcester in the Thames Valley?

THe old Network South East area....

[grahame]

After the weather disruption at the beginning of March, void days have been declared for all service groups for 1 March, and all service groups except LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) on 2 March 2018.

Or to put it more bluntly, Friday 2 March was not a void day for the Cotswold Line.

How very GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).

Just bear in mind that being part of the LTV group and Network South East also has its advantages.  Anytime return Swindon to London - £133.60.   Moreton in Marsh to London - £74.80    Worcester Shrub Hill to London via Evesham - £83.80 . That is probably the most extreme comparison ... I suspect you get the better overall deal with lower fares and fewer void days.

[jdw.wor]

I think the fare reflects the "planned" service (forget the recent events!). No 2 hour service from Worcester to London but plenty in around an hour from Swindon. I think that is what causes the differential in price. However the walk up price to London at the moment is Swindon £27.?? and Worcester £33.??. So the poor Worcester passenger gets a much inferior and irregular service and pays more!

[ChrisB]

That is definitely a consideration too - so expect GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to be considering slowly raising your prices once the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) hourly (plus peak extras) comes in at the end of the year. Unfortunately.

[ellendune]

I think the fare reflects the "planned" service (forget the recent events!). No 2 hour service from Worcester to London but plenty in around an hour from Swindon. I think that is what causes the differential in price. However the walk up price to London at the moment is Swindon £27.?? and Worcester £33.??. So the poor Worcester passenger gets a much inferior and irregular service and pays more!

Nice theory, but it doesn't really stand up as the fares from Chippenham and Bath are just as outlandish (per mile) and they only have 2 trains per hour!

[grahame]

I think the fare reflects the "planned" service (forget the recent events!). No 2 hour service from Worcester to London but plenty in around an hour from Swindon. I think that is what causes the differential in price.

Surely it should work the other way?   Swindon - London - Swindon peak is charges at £1.11 per minute of travel, but Worcester - London - Worcester is charged at just £0.33 per minute of travel.   Same train type, same hire charges, same number of staff and presumably similar pay rates all of which are time rather than distance based.

OK - writ a bit in Devil's Advocate mode. But it does start to indicate just how lucrative some services are over others.

[charles_uk]

It's been an interesting diversion from the point I was trying to make - and an education into the workings of rail policy in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom). One thing I would add here is that until late 2016 the Cotswold Line fell under High Speed Services for performance purposes (at least that is what GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s social media team told me when I was renewing my season ticket last year and checking up on void days).

However, GWR say "a void day is when there’s a serious disruption at peak time, and we haven’t offered you another way to get to where you are going." The service along the Cotswold Line on 2 March met that criteria - the last down train of the day departing Oxford at 10:20. I'm not sure many passengers wanting to get home to Charbury, Moreton-in-Marsh or Worcester would consider the fact that there were some trains running between Paddington and Reading of any relevance to their particular journeys.

[ChrisB]

That's another very valid point....the Cotswold Line at the time of designation was run mostly on turbos/non HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train)....but from 2019 it should be all (but the stopper each way) IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train). So reclassification ought to be sought to transfer it to the HST/IET group.

[Birdie100]

Interesting - the bean counters in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) towers have obviously decided it was better not to void 2nd March for LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) for a strategic reason - be interesting to see the performance stats as a result.

[Richard Fairhurst]

Just bear in mind that being part of the LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) group and Network South East also has its advantages.  Anytime return Swindon to London - £133.60.   Moreton in Marsh to London - £74.80    Worcester Shrub Hill to London via Evesham - £83.80 . That is probably the most extreme comparison ... I suspect you get the better overall deal with lower fares and fewer void days.

Swings and roundabouts, I suspect!

First evening arrival at Worcester on an off-peak ticket: 21:47 (£68.50)

First evening arrival at Bath Spa on an off-peak ticket: 20:29 (£70.50)

(I might be slightly off on the fares and times there - they're from notes I took last year.)

[ChrisB]

Interesting - the bean counters in GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) towers have obviously decided it was better not to void 2nd March for LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) for a strategic reason - be interesting to see the performance stats as a result.

Had they released an emergency timetable on 2nd? If so, stats will refer to that timetabke, not the 'proper' one. And the perforance against that ight have been within tolerences

[Worcester_Passenger]

On March 2,

05:14 Oxford - Foregate Street cancelled at Evesham.
05:12 Padd'n - Moreton cancelled at Charlbury.
05:47 Paddington - Foregate St cancelled.
06:52 Padd'n - Malvern cancelled.
07:50 Padd'n - Malvern operated (but 42  late)
08:21 Padd'n - Hereford cancelled
09:21 Padd'n - Foregate St operated (but 14 late). This was the last train west of Oxford - everything afterwards was cancelled

And this doesn't count as a void day?