• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Rotheram: Freeze fares, Grayling: Impossible, Northern/TPE: No response

Status
Not open for further replies.
P

pemma

Veteran Member
Joined
23 Jan 2009
Messages
31,474
Location
Knutsford
Hidden in TfN meeting minutes

Mayor Steve Rotheram (Liverpool City Region) (SR) advised that he had written to the Secretary of State asking that fares be frozen on trains in the north as a result of performance issues. The Secretary of State had responded that this was near impossible to do and would have consequences. SR asked whether the train operating companies would agree to a fares freeze until the mess was sorted out? A response was not made at the meeting.
Click to expand...

https://transportforthenorth.com/wp-content/uploads/Item-2-TfN-Board-Minutes-September-2018.pdf

I do wonder how much Arriva will try and increase unregulated fares on Northern by this year given some increases were as much as 33% this January.
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

M

Mag_seven

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Global Moderator
Joined
1 Sep 2014
Messages
10,034
Location
here to eternity
yorksrob

yorksrob

Veteran Member
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Messages
39,061
Location
Yorks
Arriva could save some money by not buying rubbish new seats for 158's and 156's.
 
W

WatcherZero

Established Member
Joined
25 Feb 2010
Messages
10,272
Freezing fares would cost an absolute fortune, no wonder no ones taking up the suggestion. Your talking tens of millions of pounds in the first year then the loss through compound inflation even if theres a regular rise in future years could end up being hundreds of millions of pounds by the end of the franchise.
 
B

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,927
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
yorksrob said:
Arriva could save some money by not buying rubbish new seats for 158's and 156's.
Click to expand...

True. GWR have done a particularly good job of reusing the originals from the 158 with new thicker base cushions to sort out the main issue with them (them being too low down). And there's nothing wrong with Chapman frames, you can put a very nice plush cushion on them like Chiltern did. The Richmonds are probably the issue, they are knackered, with broken armrests etc.
 
ForTheLoveOf

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member
Joined
7 Oct 2017
Messages
6,416
If anyone is planning any trips for January and beyond, the last day you can buy tickets at this year's pricing structure is today... anything could change in tomorrow's fares. Prices, restrictions, availability. Let's see what we get!
 
yorksrob

yorksrob

Veteran Member
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Messages
39,061
Location
Yorks
Bletchleyite said:
I'm aware of the changes planned for LNR (though as I'm not supposed to be aware of them I can't really post them), and I will I think be a winner overall, but many won't.
Click to expand...

I'm sure the currently absent new trains will be used as an excuse to screw us in the North, in spite of a year where they should be paying us to use the trains.
 
Starmill

Starmill

Veteran Member
Joined
18 May 2012
Messages
23,396
Location
Bolton
Hm an increase of 5.9% on my local fare then. Outrageous given the service was made much, much worse in the May timetable. Better than last year's 10% increase I suppose. Should we Mancunians be grateful for what we've got?
 
Starmill

Starmill

Veteran Member
Joined
18 May 2012
Messages
23,396
Location
Bolton
Weirdly the Milton Keynes C to London Terminals Off Peak Day Return goes up by only 70p from £24.30 to £25.00, but the afternoon restrictions are gone. TransPennine Express thinks it is not valid on the 1620 or 1643 services even though it is valid on those currently.

Passengers from Bletchley will have to pay £20.20, up from £17 (or £15 if they're buying the Milton Keynes C to London Euston WMT only ticket :p).
 
B

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,927
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
It’s the loss of evening restrictions that mean I’m a winner (now it’s public). I purchase quite a few Network Card discounted Anytimes.

x20 and xx43 are doublebacks via MKC I believe.

It looks like the LNR MK dedicated fares are gone - if that’s right that’s going to be a big hit on their custom. I had expected added Super Off Peaks which also seem to be missing.
 
Last edited:
yorksrob

yorksrob

Veteran Member
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Messages
39,061
Location
Yorks
Bletchleyite said:
It’s the loss of evening restrictions that mean I’m a winner (now it’s public). I purchase quite a few Network Card discounted Anytimes.

x20 and xx43 are doublebacks via MKC I believe.

It looks like the LNR MK dedicated fares are gone - if that’s right that’s going to be a big hit on their custom. I had expected added Super Off Peaks which also seem to be missing.
Click to expand...

The loss of what evening restrictions ?
 
B

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,927
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
Last edited:
yorksrob

yorksrob

Veteran Member
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Messages
39,061
Location
Yorks
Bletchleyite said:
There used to be evening restrictions on south WCML Off Peaks which are, it seems, being dropped.

I reckon we need an overall “fares round” thread, will create one when on the PC in a bit.
Click to expand...

That's great, just as we've had a load of evening restrictions imposed on us because "that's what they do down South".

I notice on NRE that the non-direct route from Bingley to Lancaster seems to have gone from £44 to £88. Totally unjustifiable.
 
B

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,927
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
yorksrob said:
That's great, just as we've had a load of evening restrictions imposed on us because "that's what they do down South".
Click to expand...

The plan was, I believe, to remove the evening restrictions from the Off Peaks but up the prices somewhat (20% was what I heard), and to introduce more restricted Super Off Peaks, which is in line with the long distance dedicated fares. "2 step off peak" does make a fair bit of sense, avoiding shoulder-peak crowding which is very bad indeed, and this *is* in line with a number of other South East operators (and indeed BR - who says there's anything new in the world :) ). Overall it would probably make sense to move to this as a national policy, including Northern.

It appears, though, that this is not what has actually been done. Could be a fares data error I suppose. Hard to tell until brfares.com load the data.
 
T

Taunton

Established Member
Joined
1 Aug 2013
Messages
10,101
WatcherZero said:
Freezing fares would cost an absolute fortune, no wonder no ones taking up the suggestion. Your talking tens of millions of pounds in the first year then the loss through compound inflation even if theres a regular rise in future years could end up being hundreds of millions of pounds by the end of the franchise.
Click to expand...
Well then they should have run their franchise better. Any "real" commercial organisation would always have to take a revenue hit if they have persistently failed their customers and needed to try and regain them.
 
yorksrob

yorksrob

Veteran Member
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Messages
39,061
Location
Yorks
Well, the cheap fares on EMT seem to have gone for a Burton.

Everyone seems to be competing to be as crap as eachother.
 
B

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,927
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
yorksrob said:
That's great, just as we've had a load of evening restrictions imposed on us because "that's what they do down South".

I notice on NRE that the non-direct route from Bingley to Lancaster seems to have gone from £44 to £88. Totally unjustifiable.
Click to expand...

Is that an actual fare rise, or is it a split, with a route having been placed on the existing ticket?
 
P

pemma

Veteran Member
Joined
23 Jan 2009
Messages
31,474
Location
Knutsford
Looking at local Cheshire fares it seems increases to off-peak day returns start at 20p and are inconsistent while increases to anytime day returns increase between 20p (on a £6.70 fare) and 40p (on a £13.10 fare)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
P

pemma

Veteran Member
Joined
23 Jan 2009
Messages
31,474
Location
Knutsford
yorksrob said:
Arriva could save some money by not buying rubbish new seats for 158's and 156's.
Click to expand...

They aren't fitting new seats to 156s and that proposal was only so that they could upcycle the old 156 Chapman seating and use it to replace the Ashbourne seating on 150s, without buying new seats for trains which aren't expected to last for that much longer. However, they decided even that would be spending too much money on the 150s.
 
P

pemma

Veteran Member
Joined
23 Jan 2009
Messages
31,474
Location
Knutsford
Noticed with East Didsbury to Manchester while the Anytime Day Return increases by 20p to £6.30, there are still Northern Advance fares for £2 single including on peak time services.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top