In message , Roland Perry
writes

MML still accept off-peak Travelcards in the evening rush, so this may
shift even more of the Luton/Bedford crowd off Thameslink and onto MML.

Are you sure about that? I just complained to FCC about the fact that
their new pocket timetables no longer show the morning peak restrictions
with darker shading, as all Thameslink ones did (and their own first
attempt did also). In their reply they also told me about the new
evening peak restrictions, which they say also apply to departures from
St.Pancras - and only MML runs trains from there.

I will check by emailing MML customer services, but they usually take
ages to reply, which means getting an answer before the restrictions
come into force is unlikely.

--
Clive Page

In message .com, Paul
Oter writes
Journeys entirely within the travelcard area are not affected, it
says...

Indeed, as there have never been time limits on use of travelcards (once
they start to be valid after the morning peak).

But this brings in some other silly anomalies, e.g. on a slow train you
could use a 1-day travelcard bought, say, from Luton quite validly on
the crowded section from King's Cross to Elstree, but not on the section
from Elstree to Luton, where the passenger loadings will be
significantly lower.

--
Clive Page

In message , at 21:30:54 on Tue, 6
Jun 2006, Sarah Brown remarked:
My reasoning is that when I go to London, I can buy a standard return (and
therefore use peak time trains), and use the Oyster for Underground travel.

Is that cheaper than buying a Peak Travelcard (which are still valid on
all trains)?

At the moment I'm buying a day return from Cambridge to London/Travelcard
combined ticket.

An off-Peak Travelcard?
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 21:30:54 on Tue, 6
Jun 2006, Sarah Brown remarked:
So what's to stop Cambridge travellers buying an Ely-London cheap day
return and using that? Does the small print prevent this?

Will the ticket offices at Cambridge sell that one?

All ticket offices are required to sell all tickets, but they may moan
and tell you not to "try to beat the system". However, it's their
system, and they are beating *you* at every possible opportunity...
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 00:03:51 on Wed, 7
Jun 2006, Clive Page remarked:
MML still accept off-peak Travelcards in the evening rush, so this may
shift even more of the Luton/Bedford crowd off Thameslink and onto
MML.

Are you sure about that? I just complained to FCC about the fact that
their new pocket timetables no longer show the morning peak
restrictions with darker shading, as all Thameslink ones did (and their
own first attempt did also). In their reply they also told me about
the new evening peak restrictions, which they say also apply to
departures from St.Pancras - and only MML runs trains from there.

I will check by emailing MML customer services, but they usually take
ages to reply, which means getting an answer before the restrictions
come into force is unlikely.

The FCC leaflet is at:

http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk...DL_Leaflet.pdf

but the headline wording is somewhat misleading, even for a railway
publication.

It says:
"The return portions of Cheap Day Return, One Day off-peak
Travelcard, Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from Moorgate, King’s
Cross, King’s Cross Thameslink and St Pancras between
1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday."

But the rest of the leaflet goes on the describe a regime where only
*some* return portions aren't valid.

You really need to see the leaflet to understand, but they've chopped
their lines into Zones A,B,C,D and E, and only banned the travel between
B and D.

That's journeys originating in the Central area between East Croydon and
WestHampstead/Finsbury Park, *which also* terminate in an outer area
between Potters Bar and Peterborough/Waterbeach

All other travel is still OK, for example from the centre to Ely or
further north; or to destinations south of Elstree/Hadley Wood/Crews
Hill, and south of Redhill.

Looking at it from another perspective, all they are targeting is people
originating in Central London travelling to places between about half an
hour and one hour away.

What's missing from the mix is any detail with regard to the Zoning for
the alleged similar restrictions by GNER and MML.

It's feasible, if they adopt the same system, that MML will only be
targetting (eg) Off-peak travelcards issued at stations from Bedford
south, and that tickets to stations further north will still be
accepted, being in MML's equivalent of the Zone E [nb. That assumes they
still offer Travelcards from stations further north, yesterday I was
struggling to find a Kettering Travelcard after July 6th].

Savers have much smaller (1 hour) restricted window; if MML or GNER
adopt that much more lenient approach I'd be dancing in the streets.

ps. A final point for the pedants - these rules are from 11th June, but
what if I bought my saver a few weeks ago and haven't yet used the
return portion (or indeed either portion). Can they change its
availability "under my feet" so to speak?

--
Roland Perry

You cannot buy an ODTC travelcard online more than a month in advance.
Whether this is an actual rule or a vagary of the programming I don't
know but it's certainly been the case for a while.

And break of journey is permitted in both directions on CDR tickets -
it's only saver/supersaver where it's return journey only.

Sam Holloway said the following:
You can certainly buy tickets from Ely that start at Cambridge (e.g. if
you hold Ely-Cam season ticket and want to travel to London, you can
buy the Cam-London part from Ely).

.... and if you do that it's always worth bearing in mind that your 'gold
card' season ticket *counts* as a network rail card, so gives you a
third off for off-peak travel. And you can get that discount for up to
three (I think) people travelling with you, too. And you can each
upgrade to first class for £3 (subject to various T&Cs). The folk at Ely
train station tell me that I'm about the only person to ask for the
discount ... which might have something to do with it not being very
well advertised...

Stuart.

Stuart Bell wrote:
... and if you do that it's always worth bearing in mind that your 'gold
card' season ticket *counts* as a network rail card, so gives you a
third off for off-peak travel. And you can get that discount for up to
three (I think) people travelling with you, too. And you can each
upgrade to first class for ?3 (subject to various T&Cs). The folk at Ely
train station tell me that I'm about the only person to ask for the
discount ... which might have something to do with it not being very
well advertised...

And if this is the sort of thing you do often but don't have a Gold Card,
you can buy a Gold Card from Ryde St John's Road to Ryde Esplanade for
112ukp, which also gets you a network card discount with no ten-pound
minimum fare M-F. Trips to the Isle of Wight not required.

Theo

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...

I've forgotten which ticket types are subject to controls as part of the
privatisation process - I assume CDRs are not part of the regulated
bundle of ticket types? I can vaguely understand why an Inter City
train operator may wish to impose some restrictions on some journeys but
this is blatant profiteering by First. It must also have been endorsed
by the DfT as part of accepting the franchise proposals - I wonder when
GoVia will introduce the same policy on the South Eastern franchise.

Yes probably the franchise documents state that "attempts to reduce crowded
trains must be made" and of course being a TOC, rather than increasing train
lengths to a reasonable length, in their eyes, price the "cheapees" off the
crowded trains. Simple economics for them... simple chaos for the rest of us
mortals...

Paul

Theo Markettos wrote:
... and if you do that it's always worth bearing in mind that your 'gold
card' season ticket *counts* as a network rail card, so gives you a
third off for off-peak travel. And you can get that discount for up to
three (I think) people travelling with you, too. And you can each
upgrade to first class for ?3 (subject to various T&Cs). The folk at Ely
train station tell me that I'm about the only person to ask for the
discount ... which might have something to do with it not being very
well advertised...

And if this is the sort of thing you do often but don't have a Gold Card,
you can buy a Gold Card from Ryde St John's Road to Ryde Esplanade for
112ukp, which also gets you a network card discount with no ten-pound
minimum fare M-F. Trips to the Isle of Wight not required.


Although this is (pretty much) only worth doing instead of paying £20
for a Network Card if you:
a) make somewhere around 40[*] sub-£15 trips a year within the
Network area that involve leaving after 10AM; or:
b) care about the off-peak first-class upgrade bit.

Since acquiring my Network Card I've run into problem (a) once [**],
and I use the London-suburban rail network a lot.
[*] if the average sub-£15 trip costs £7.50, the average saving you'd
get with a Gold Card but not a Network Card is £2.50.

[**] actually the combination of problem (a) and my own stupidity - I
could have bought a Saver for the relevant journey, which would have
brought me above the crucial £15 undiscounted barrier, but the Saver
fare was 50p more than the price of two cheap singles and I forgot
about the £10 minimum until the final screen on the machine. At which
point I pressed "confirm" and put my card in anyway before realising
what I'd done...

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org