New ticket restrictions have been announced with effect from next
Monday to services which depart from King's Cross to Cambridge in the
evening peak. This was expected but this is the first time I've seen a
definitive announcement.

According to a new leaflet "Ticket Changes from 11th June 2006", from
that date "the return portion of Cheap Day return, One (sic) Day
Travelcard (off-peak), Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from [King's Cross and Moorgate]
between 1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday. In addition to this Network
AwayBreaks and Saver tickets are not valid on services which depart
from these services between 1730 and 1830 Monday to Friday."

These restrictions apply to passengers returning from a variety of
inner London stations to stations between Potters Bar to Waterbeach
inclusive. The leaflet explicitly states that passengers returning to
Ely and points north thereof are not affected.

Similar restrictions have been introduced to Peterborough and on the
Thameslink route to Bedford.

PaulO

"Paul Oter" wrote:

New ticket restrictions have been announced with effect from next
Monday to services which depart from King's Cross to Cambridge in the
evening peak. This was expected but this is the first time I've seen a
definitive announcement.

So we've had the removal of the refreshments services, removal of the
onboard announcements from the lovely lady, and now bans on actually
travelling by train. I wonder what other improvements First have lined up?

I notice that they've made a start on their number one priority: repainting
the trains or putting stickers on the side.


According to a new leaflet "Ticket Changes from 11th June 2006", from
that date "the return portion of Cheap Day return, One (sic) Day
Travelcard (off-peak), Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from [King's Cross and Moorgate]
between 1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday. In addition to this Network
AwayBreaks and Saver tickets are not valid on services which depart
from these services between 1730 and 1830 Monday to Friday."

Are they allowed to change the terms & conditions of tickets that have
already been issued? e.g. if I'd bought my Saver ticket 3 weeks ago (it
allows the return journey up to 1 month from the ticket date)


--
Stewart Brodie

In message .com, at
14:17:31 on Mon, 5 Jun 2006, Paul Oter
remarked:
According to a new leaflet "Ticket Changes from 11th June 2006",

The new timetable starts then.

from that date "the return portion of Cheap Day return, One (sic) Day
Travelcard (off-peak), Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from [King's Cross and Moorgate]
between 1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday.

Are Network Card discounted tickets still OK?

Similar restrictions have been introduced to Peterborough and on the
Thameslink route to Bedford.

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.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
According to a new leaflet "Ticket Changes from 11th June 2006",

The new timetable starts then.

from that date "the return portion of Cheap Day return, One (sic) Day
Travelcard (off-peak), Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from [King's Cross and Moorgate]
between 1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday.

Are Network Card discounted tickets still OK?

I tried to look this up, but weirdly, the FCC website doesn't seem to
have the new restrictions loaded - if you search for tickets from
Cambridge to London on Fri June 16, it's happy to sell you CDRs and
SVRs on FCC with the return leg during the 'banned' hours.

(I recommend taking advantage of this if you need to make the relevant
journey - while the tickets will technically be invalid, there is
absolutely no way the company could get away with enforcing this).

AFAIK every other peak-evening restriction does still allow Network
Card tickets, although of course you need to buy a Network Card SDR not
a CDR.

Similar restrictions have been introduced to Peterborough and on the
Thameslink route to Bedford.

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.

....although possibly not for very long; certainly if I were an MML
manager I'd be looking at bringing my rules into line with FCC's.

It seems a bit of a draconian restriction set for a surburban operator
- the FGW rule where cheap tickets can only be used on slow trains
(effectively also the case on the WCML with the Virgin/Silverlink
split) is more reasonable.

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

Roland Perry wrote:
In message .com, at
14:17:31 on Mon, 5 Jun 2006, Paul Oter
remarked:
According to a new leaflet "Ticket Changes from 11th June 2006",

The new timetable starts then.

from that date "the return portion of Cheap Day return, One (sic) Day
Travelcard (off-peak), Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from [King's Cross and Moorgate]
between 1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday.

Are Network Card discounted tickets still OK?

Similar restrictions have been introduced to Peterborough and on the
Thameslink route to Bedford.

Wow. If travelling from Peterborough mid morning and back between 1830
and 1900 it will be £15 cheaper to buy a walk on CDR and use GNER than
a SDR on FCC! And the journey time will be quicker too!

In message .com, at
00:45:01 on Tue, 6 Jun 2006, John B remarked:
Similar restrictions have been introduced to Peterborough and on the
Thameslink route to Bedford.

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.

...although possibly not for very long; certainly if I were an MML
manager I'd be looking at bringing my rules into line with FCC's.

There's something funny going on, either a change of policy or a bug
(surely there's not a rule that you can't buy a Travelcard more than a
month in advance?).

Currently (and until 5th July) you can get a Kettering-London Offpeak
Travelcard for £30, but on 6th July and after the cheapest ticket to
return in the evening peak is apparently a SOR at £57. (A Saver,
restricted in the evening of course, is £32.70)

If that's a permanent change, not a hiccup, the cost of most of my trips
to St Pancras has just gone up thirty quid.

It seems a bit of a draconian restriction set for a surburban operator
- the FGW rule where cheap tickets can only be used on slow trains
(effectively also the case on the WCML with the Virgin/Silverlink
split) is more reasonable.

We seem to have reached a "tipping point" where the rule that you can
use off-peak tickets on suburban, but not the long distance, is blown
apart.
--
Roland Perry

John B wrote:

It seems a bit of a draconian restriction set for a surburban operator
- the FGW rule where cheap tickets can only be used on slow trains
(effectively also the case on the WCML with the Virgin/Silverlink
split) is more reasonable.

Depends on capacity constraints - it may well be that the commuter
trains are more overloaded than the ICs.

There is a precedent to all this; off-peak tickets were not allowed
between 1600 and 1800 in the Merseytravel area for a long time. I have
a feeling, but might be wrong, this only applies to the City Lines
these days, as the Northern and Wirral Lines have a lot more capacity.

That said, all this could lead to an interesting fares anomaly, in that
an off-peak travelcard and a peak single back, or a SDR and an off-peak
travelcard bought separately, may now be cheaper than the available
through ticket.

Neil

Paul Oter wrote:
According to a new leaflet "Ticket Changes from 11th June 2006", from
that date "the return portion of Cheap Day return, One (sic) Day
Travelcard (off-peak), Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from [King's Cross and Moorgate]
between 1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday. In addition to this Network
AwayBreaks and Saver tickets are not valid on services which depart
from these services between 1730 and 1830 Monday to Friday."

These restrictions apply to passengers returning from a variety of
inner London stations to stations between Potters Bar to Waterbeach
inclusive. The leaflet explicitly states that passengers returning to
Ely and points north thereof are not affected.

So what's to stop Cambridge travellers buying an Ely-London cheap day
return and using that? Does the small print prevent this?

Sam

In message . com, at
01:54:20 on Tue, 6 Jun 2006, Neil Williams
remarked:
all this could lead to an interesting fares anomaly, in that
an off-peak travelcard and a peak single back, or a SDR and an off-peak
travelcard bought separately, may now be cheaper than the available
through ticket.

For years it was cheaper to buy a SOS from Royston to London (for use in
the morning peak) and a Network Card SOS back (which was valid in the
evening peak). That's because the route didn't have a Peak Travelcard
(only the more common off-peak ones). Eventually they [WAGN] did
introduce the peak Travelcard (for the right price), and saved a lot of
paper and ticket office queues.

--
Roland Perry

In message . com, at
02:55:48 on Tue, 6 Jun 2006, Sam Holloway
remarked:
According to a new leaflet "Ticket Changes from 11th June 2006", from
that date "the return portion of Cheap Day return, One (sic) Day
Travelcard (off-peak), Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from [King's Cross and Moorgate]
between 1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday. In addition to this Network
AwayBreaks and Saver tickets are not valid on services which depart
from these services between 1730 and 1830 Monday to Friday."

These restrictions apply to passengers returning from a variety of
inner London stations to stations between Potters Bar to Waterbeach
inclusive. The leaflet explicitly states that passengers returning to
Ely and points north thereof are not affected.

So what's to stop Cambridge travellers buying an Ely-London cheap day
return and using that? Does the small print prevent this?

Exiting at Cambridge in the evening is a Break of Journey (are they
allowed on the return half of a CDR?)

It's never been clear whether or not joining at Cambridge in the morning
is also a BOJ or not.

But without gates [yet] or a ticket check at Cambridge, you'd get away
with it.
--
Roland Perry