Since GBR was first mooted I've been asking on this forum (where it's largely being enthusiastically anticipated) how it'll be better for customers and have yet to receive a meaningful response.

It's perhaps telling that one of the most well informed members of the Forum feels similarly in the dark!

 
Fair enough.

 
Was it that recent? year 2019.

Swear it was longer than that,maybe getting years mixed up with the David de Costa campaign

 

As regards your first point, you were correct. In early trade in Asia, Brent crude reached $100, and a few minutes later reached almost $110.

WRT your second point, I stand by my remarks, though I think it was longer ago than 2022. The electricity supply industry allows an average load of about 5 amps per home if mains gas is available, and 10 amps if gas is not available.
The use of ONE electric heater per home can double this loading. When heating oil prices increased substantially, a significant minority of homes locally used multiple electric heaters and power failures resulted.

 
Split tickets x 3 for £59

Split at Winchester (OPDR), Basingstoke (Evening Out Return) & OP Travelcard to Twickenham

 
From the BBC:

 
From the BBC:

 

Yes, I am - but not 'engaged' - I've been married to my good wife for nearly thirty years now.

I, too, still have my badge from that event - and I'm now searching through my drawers, so to speak, as I'm sure I still have somewhere the railway security pass issued to me on that day.

That owl (Isambird Kingdom Brownowl) is still a feature of the Coffee Shop forum - indeed, I sort of bumped into him on a fairly recent visit to Melksham.  He, by the way, was the cause of some interest to the public as grahame and I trundled him on his platform through a pedestrian precinct to grahame's overnight accommodation. 

In that picture, I am standing second from left, facing the camera.

Chris.

 
George Orwell - 1984 - Rail terms for 2026.   Perhaps it's just my age, but I am sensing that I'm more being lectured at and less being an appreciate partner who helps pay the bills and bring business these days.  We could - if we were so inclined and trusted - help explain some of the very real issues ...

 

I'm seeing First Class Advance from Bath Spa up to Paddington. However, looking for a journey I used to do by train heading west down to Cornwall, the booking engine borks out, says it 'can't find stuff, try again later', with a cheerful 'New search' button that resets the page so everything has to be entered again.

But for some reason, if the page is closed and the GWR site reopened, the page usefully populates itself with the details of the previous search.

Searching again for another journey I may do by train, the search, having prompted me to correctly identify both ends of  the trip, came back with 'Invalid destination'.

Mark

 

David's been transferred from Taunton to his local hospital. The report I have, though vague, indicate that he's getting the attention he needs and he's on his way to recovery.

 

Serious concern at some of the developments. We are at a stage where it is ever more important to have a clear picture of where we are headed at a macro level and how that will be reflected at a more granular level. It would also be good to know how customer, wannabe-customer and campaigner inputs will be effectively gathered and used to inform positive and sustainable development.   Gee - I sound like ChatGPT, don't I?

 
The opinion of Messrs Harris & Bowker (Green Signals Podcast), and one with which I completely agree, is that if this process change is designed to fix a known issue - that of used but unscanned digital tickets being submitted for refund - then this is not the correct way to go about it; our government repeatedly tells us that the GBR run railways are going to become more cost effective and passenger customer focussed but all this does is inconvenience those whose travel plans unexpectedly change and/or, possibly, persuade people to buy cheaper Advance tickets (=less revenue) the day before a confirmed journey, or even worse make the use of the car a better option. A more sensible approach would be to ensure that, where installed, ticket gates are always active and, failing that, get the on-train staff to check tickets much more regularly than is presently the case.   

 

So as we move towards GBR we can look forward to a policy of higher fares and fewer passengers. Perhaps not quite what people will be expecting from a Labour Government.

 

Maybe ... but the maths are very complex and I don't suppose anyone in the GWR fares section will be wanting to share the data.  Once we're under GBR, perhaps we can learn more under FOI!

I did some sums (I'm dangerous)

Let's say 10 people caught the PAD to PLY train first class at £104.50 - income £1045.   Now if that ticket is no longer available, perhaps 3 will pay £234.70 first class, and 5 will pay £74.90 off peak standard class.  That's two people who move away from rail completely, and income is still up - to £1078.60.    Seatfrog may take some money, and there's extra money to be made by selling rather than giving away cups of coffee.

Modern day electronics and ticketing add a different flexibily matrix which - err - I haven't tried to build into my example.

 

That doesn't reflect my experience. I often travel from Reading to Plymouth utilising Advance First class tickets in carriages which are no more than 15-20% full.

Those very same trains now appear to have no Advance First class tickets available - amongst other things, this facility encouraged people to travel by train on business as it gave a quieter and more spacious environment in which to work without incurring the enormous cost of "regular" First class tickets - this is why Avanti's "standard premium" is becoming so popular.

I suspect in the absence of these tickets people will simply downgrade to standard class instead, thereby reducing revenue.

 

Is it one of the ways that "the railway" is increasing its income from the same number of passengers while "not raising [regulated] fares"?

Advance fares were introduced to help fill seats on quieter trains, as I recall.  With trains getting so much busier and (we hear) services on Sundays being reduced, there are now and progressively will be fewer - far fewer - spare seats to offload.

 
That was a good day,still have my badge even though I didn’t make it into the picture.

 

I have some disquiet over service reductions though in certain instances they can make sense.   

At Melksham, we lost two round trips on Saturdays "so that the others can be more reliable".  The services lost were the ones that had been running pre-2013 and we were left with just the Westbury - Swindon shuttle with extended gaps in the middle of the day where those previous skeleton services had run.   In some ways a logical cut, as the trains cut had been run at times the stock wasn't really needed on other lines either - quietest time of day.  However, I spite of us being told they were being cut to help reliability, the reliability of the remaining service got worse.    This broke the promised message we had been sold - "fewer trains but more reliable" though of course we don't know if it would have been even less reliable had they remained.   As a result of this failure to deliver what we were sold on, we find it harder to trust GWR these days.

GWR services on the South Coast to the east of Portsmouth - to Brighton - were also lost.  Two round trips a day.  There was sadness rather than retention campaigning as they were lost.  Again, comment / promised that it will "let us do better / be more reliable with the other services" which has had a hollow ring, and I'm not sure that the promises - or implicit promise of the marketing hype - has been delivered.

In December, GWR cut a peak train from Warminster to Westbury in the interest of "the reliability / time keeping of other busier trains".  Problem is that as a result, they then offered no route home for students and working people from Salisbury from 16:42 to 19:13 - for sure, there are fewer passengers on the train culled than on the one it held up, but should they really be prioritising saving a couple of minutes delay over getting people home at all?   With an extra call on the train that was got in the way of sometimes,  the issues could have been compensated.  But, no, in spite of their being three minutes of extra allowances in that train, they won't add the call and seem to be intent on performance stats one serving their existing customer base.   And - we were presented with a "fait accompli" on this one - no notice at all of the significant change prior to it happening and the train just disappearing from the timetable.

So - whilst we appreciate the need to update timetables, and to provide a reasonable level of service overall that may be a lessening for some, we treat planned cuts with extreme unease and we don't trust (sorry) GWR to deliver the benefits to us that they promise.

 
I and others elsewhere are noting that since the change to the GWR booking engine, First class Advance tickets seem to have virtually disappeared and/or are only available on a few random services, has there been a conscious decision to do away with these by GWR?

 
Lot 17: Apparently a 'Train traffic light' !

 

Under normal circumstances - Southampton to Clapham Junction and then change for Twickenham, can be done in less than 2 hours but definitely check nearer the time for engineering works.

 

........as part of the failure of management of this problem - fixed it for you! 

 

All the cuts do is take out some of the unpredictability of which trains might be cut.  But there is already uncertainty as GWR latest figures shows over 1 in 20 trains cancelled.   

It's not like anyone has a crystal ball and can tell me which 5% of trains will be cancelled this week.  So even thinning a timetable still makes cancellations a lottery.

https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/about-gwr/what-you-can-expect/our-performance/GWR-Periodic-Web-Report-P2611.pdf

And of the trains that do run, more than a third are late

 

Best I can find is the super off peak travelcard £73
10:50 changing Chichester and Clapham Junction, arriving 14:10

But advance tickets for 20th June have not yet been released,
And SWR don't yet seem to be offering tickets, as ought to be cheaper changing at Woking and New Malden (Twickenham via Kingston loop)

But then digging bit further, discovered there is a 52 hour engineering work planned in Surbiton area, so possibly trains will go via Addlestone and Twickenham

https://sacuksprodnrdigital0001.blob.core.windows.net/operational-rules/Operational%20Rules/EAS%20documents/EAS%20ARP%2025-26%20Sections%205%20&%207/V2/NAT%20MAPS%20EAS%20ARP%20FWLA%202627.pdf

 
Pictures and text suggest this was a great success - and that I was wise not to go for the sake of my wallet.  Did any Coffee Shop members go?

 
Best ticket advise sought - 2 adults, day return on 20th June 2026, Southampton to Twickenham to attend a major event (a rugby match between TBA and TBA according to Google) that starts at 3 p.m.  No age related railcards

Looks to me like "super off peak" only allows travel too late in the day.     

Not sure how direct or indirect will be acceptable - I would suspect that Southern fares via Gatwick are out.

 
69 lots, 12th to 17th March 2026.

https://www.wilsonsauctions.com/auctions/tfl-museum-depot-auction-3223

I am not seeing any *I MUST have that* items ... but others just might.

 
A Google search (already!) comes up with this thread as its top hit  ...

Your other overnight question asks about long-standing members, and we use aliases here so it could well be that David is a member, and / or retains his interest in other ways. 

I would ask anyone who knows / reads this to be aware of GDPR, as we at the Coffee Shop are, and if they have current details not to publish them in the open forum without permission.  The most appropriate way would be to get in touch with David and ask him if either his details can be shared, or he can get in touch with infoman if he wishes.