Further Price Confusion

[whole diary]

[eightf48544]

Admittedly not FGW^▸ (First Great Western) territory but it makes the point.

Just looked up Bangor to Chester single for Sunday 9th November after 11:00.

Gives ^14.20 for Advanced but only available on one train which happens to be the Holyhead Euston Virgin.

Off peak ^15.80

Anytime ^14.80!

Can anyone explain please? It doesn't make sense to me.

[TerminalJunkie]

The 15.80 fare is an Off-Peak Day Return, while the 14.80 is an Anytime Single (there's no Off Peak Single); both fares are set by ATW^▸ (Arriva Trains Wales (former TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company))).

The 14.20 is a Virgin-Only Advance single.

Does this help?

[Btline]

Why isn't there an off peak single.

I have also found routes where there are only Anytime tickets, or only off peak tickets.

They need to sort this ticket mess out!

[Ollie]

Being realistic the only way I would see that happening would be them renaming the Anytime Single to Off Peak and then having a higher priced Anytime single ticket..

[eightf48544]

Thanks, it's not clear from the web site that the off peak is a return as I only put in a single journey. In fact if you click on teh Off Peak info it implies there are Off Peak Singles

It's even more startling from Rhyl to Chester. Where:

Anytime is 9.70
Off Peak  11.30 and
Virgin Advanced 10.30.

Still doesn't make sense to me.

Almost as confusing as if a group of you (5) want to travel from Cheminitz (Zone 13) via Stollberg (zone 18) to Zwickau (Zone 16). You get given a Zone 12 Verbundraum day group ticket. Which means all the Zones you want to travel through are adjacent to  Zone 12. It's cheaper than an all zones ticket.

They even have an excellent website in English at:

http://www.cvag.de/

[TerminalJunkie]

It's even more startling from Rhyl to Chester. Where:

Anytime is 9.70
Off Peak  11.30 and
Virgin Advanced 10.30.

Still doesn't make sense to me.

Remember that in the underlying system they're still using the old ticket types (SVR, CDR^▸ (Off Peak Day Return [ticket type] (formerly 'Cheap Day')), etc), and that for most fares they've only changed the name; the prices, restrictions and types of ticket available are effectively unchanged.

Rhyl to Chester has the following Standard Class fares:

• ^13.60 SVR "Off Peak Return"
• ^11.40 SDS "Anytime Day Return"
• ^11.30 SDR "Off Peak Day Return"
• ^9.70 SDS "Anytime Day Single"
• ^10.30 BAO "Advance" (Virgin Trains only)

Again, there's no Off Peak Single fare for this flow.

And in this case there's no SOR fare, but the ^13.60 Off Peak Return is actually valid on any train!

[eightf48544]

Thanks TerminalJunkie I've just realised part of my confusion is thet I keep thinking Off Peak  are day tickets similar to the ones we issued to London on the Southern in the 60s and not replacement Savers.

I assumme the anytime day single ticket is valid on Virgin as well as Arriva. In which case I don't see the point of giving the other fares as I hadn't asked for a return journey.

I think BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) dropped them because they caused so much trouble. You had to ask every passenger who asked for a day return. "When are you coming back?" and when you issued the pink ticket say "You can't come back between 4.30 and 6.30", but even so they still turned up in droves at Victoria at 5.00 and were very miffed when told they had to wait to 6.30. "The booking clerk didn't tell me" was the cry.

They were some of the first tickets isued from machines, the ones with six rolls of tickets and you pressed the lever down and the ticket isssued which you tore off. Each station usually choose its six most isued tickets. Forgotten what the machines were called.

I remember  the day return from East Croydon to London in 1964 was 5/6 so you had a pile of 2 bobs and half crowns on the counter so when they gave you a 10/- note you gave them one of each as change. You could get a fair old rhythm going,  someone asking  for a ticket to Oxted which you had to the rack for really interupted the flow.

I see FCC^▸ (First Capital Connect) has bought them back for Northbound Thameslink although I believe TFL^▸ (Transport for London) has banned them for Zonal stations.