In article ,
(Peter Smyth) wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote in message
...

On Sep 9, 9:24 pm, wrote:

[snip]

The standard FCC ruse at Cambridge for those who want to return
within the evening peak is the buy an Off-Peak Day Return or Day
Travelcard from Ely which is cheaper than the anytime version.
Cambridge are happy to sell tickets from Ely, seeing as it's NXEA
and not FCC selling them.

Interesting - thanks for that, that's one to remember. For those not
clued up on these things (and I had to check!), FCC created the
concept of "zones A to E" so as to apply their off-peak evening
restrictions - Ely is in zone E whilst Cambridge is in zone D - and
yes, return journeys to zone E are exempt from the restrictions,
whilst zone D isn't.

FCC's off-peak restrictions and 'zones' are all explained here, along
with a link to a map of the zones:
http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk...iCmsPageId=134

Although the FCC website is clear that the restrictions do not
apply to Ely, the fares data has not been updated correctly. In The
Manual the CDR from Ely - London has the same restriction code as
Cambridge - London. Therefore online booking engines will not show
this ticket for travel during the evening peak.

I think FCC's printed material has it right. The Outers timetable booklet
labels two evening peak down trains as "[Relevant] tickets are not valid
during the *evening peak* for travel *from* stations tinted in red *to*
stations between Stevenage and Waterbeach/Peterborough inclusive."

The only error there is that no departure station is tinted in red but we
all know they mean King's Cross. :-)

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article
,
(John B) wrote:

On Sep 10, 12:51*am, wrote:
The standard FCC ruse at Cambridge for those who want to return
within the evening peak is the buy an Off-Peak Day Return or Day
Travelcard from Ely which is cheaper than the anytime version.
Cambridge are happy to sell tickets from Ely, seeing as it's
NXEA and not FCC selling them.

Interesting - thanks for that, that's one to remember. For those not
clued up on these things (and I had to check!), FCC created the
concept of "zones A to E" so as to apply their off-peak evening
restrictions - Ely is in zone E whilst Cambridge is in zone D - and
yes, return journeys to zone E are exempt from the restrictions,
whilst zone D isn't.

It's not clear to me that FCC themselves would sell Ely tickets.

They're legally obliged to, if you ask for one.

Including to someone not starting at Ely, you mean? I didn't think that
was so clear-cut. It's pretty academic as far as Cambridge and Ely are
concerned (though at busy times FCC staff do sell tickets at Cambridge
from portable machines). Local stations towards Royston might be more
interesting.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote in message
...
In article
,
(John B) wrote:

On Sep 10, 12:51 am, wrote:
The standard FCC ruse at Cambridge for those who want to return
within the evening peak is the buy an Off-Peak Day Return or Day
Travelcard from Ely which is cheaper than the anytime version.
Cambridge are happy to sell tickets from Ely, seeing as it's
NXEA and not FCC selling them.

Interesting - thanks for that, that's one to remember. For those not
clued up on these things (and I had to check!), FCC created the
concept of "zones A to E" so as to apply their off-peak evening
restrictions - Ely is in zone E whilst Cambridge is in zone D - and
yes, return journeys to zone E are exempt from the restrictions,
whilst zone D isn't.

It's not clear to me that FCC themselves would sell Ely tickets.

They're legally obliged to, if you ask for one.

Including to someone not starting at Ely, you mean? I didn't think that
was so clear-cut.

It is. TOCs were told that they must abandon any previous policy of
refusing such requests and were obliged to sell any NR ticket from A to B,
regardless of where A and B are. AIUI they are not obliged to sell PTE
tickets out of area.

tim

On Sep 10, 5:55*pm, "tim....." wrote:

wrote:

(John B) wrote:

On Sep 10, 12:51 am, wrote:
[big snip]
It's not clear to me that FCC themselves would sell Ely tickets.

They're legally obliged to, if you ask for one.

Including to someone not starting at Ely, you mean? I didn't think that
was so clear-cut.

It is. *TOCs were told that they must abandon any previous policy of
refusing such requests and were obliged to sell any NR ticket from A to B,
regardless of where A and B are. *AIUI they are not obliged to sell PTE
tickets out of area.

Another exception being that you can't buy outboundary Day Travelcards
when 'inboundary' (i.e. within the London zones), though you can
sidestep this by buying online and then collecting via TOD. I'm not
sure if there's any money to be saved by doing this though compared to
buying a zones 1-6 Day Travelcard plus an extension from Boundary
zones 6 to the destination (and even if one was to do so, then
arguably it'd only really be useful for making the journey out of
London - returning to London on that ticket would definitely be
breaking the rules of using the return portion before using the
outbound portion, plus it would likely raise suspicions during a
ticket check). I think I digress somewhat from the topic at hand
however!