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Cheeky Virgin WC Train Re-time to increase revenue

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Puffing Devil

Puffing Devil

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I notice today that the 0747 Liverpool - Euston is now timed to arrive at 09:59, one minute earlier than previously. The intermediate timing at Crewe is the same at 0823.

One minute that makes split tickets with restriction code C4 (arrive London 10:00 or later) no longer valid on the train.

I've travelled twice this week on a C3 ticket and haven't been pulled up there were no checks on Tuesday and the guard rushed through the check today. Looks like I'll be stumping up an extra £16 per trip, or arriving 15 minutes later.

I hope there's a series of events that see the train arrive at 1030, just at the threshold for delay replay under the new times!
 
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ForTheLoveOf

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It's no different to what other TOCs have already done with some of their trains into places like London. The slight increase in penalty payments for being "late" more frequently is probably more than outweighed by the additional revenue.
 
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geoffk

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ForTheLoveOf said:
It's no different to what other TOCs have already done with some of their trains into places like London. The slight increase in penalty payments for being "late" more frequently is probably more than outweighed by the additional revenue.
Click to expand...
Sharp practice nevertheless.
 
ForTheLoveOf

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geoffk said:
Sharp practice nevertheless.
Click to expand...
Absolutely - unfortunately there is nothing to stop this and the TOCs would no doubt try to claim that they are "saving passengers time and decreasing journey times" when really it is nothing more than fiddling with a database in order to make more money at the end of the day.

It's not going to make any difference to the actual performance of the service; it's not like as if the driver will say "oh no, we're running a minute late on the new timetable so I'd better break the speed limit to make it".
 
Puffing Devil

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Bletchleyite said:
If people beat the TOCs with splits (as a legal judgement against BR ages ago prevented them stopping them) it's arguably only fair that the TOCs can also play the game back :)
Click to expand...

I'm still winning. Just not winning as much. And if I need to pay more I may just take the even earlier train arriving at 9
 
LNW-GW Joint

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You are all very cynical.
As far as I can see 1R27 has a slightly earlier (half-minute) run from Stafford southwards, and a 1-minute pathing allowance at Wembley has been removed.
It all looks very technical and probably because of the LM alterations this time.
I don't believe there is any "sharp practice" at all.
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P58609/2019/05/23/advanced
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/Y81822/2019/05/16/advanced

For several years all southbound fast line trains had a minute added at Norton Bridge because of the speed restriction over the junction.
With the new flyover and remodelling, that has now been removed.
Odd minutes do get added and taken away from time to time, all down to NR.
 
BluePenguin

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Bletchleyite said:
If people beat the TOCs with splits (as a legal judgement against BR ages ago prevented them stopping them) it's arguably only fair that the TOCs can also play the game back :)
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It's not fair though! We need that money more than them ;)

What is more interesting is that if all this time it has been possible to get the trains there sooner, then why hasn't every service got there quicker/earlier? Mind blown. Makes you think how much quicker other services could be if TOCs made more of an effort
 
Puffing Devil

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I'm wondering if they'd be so keen as to add a minute and push the train into the off peak arrival zone?
 
Lincoln

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Why not e-mail their customer relations and ask? Perhaps it could be advertised as arriving at 10:00, despite still booked for 09:59 in the working schedules.

I'd probably be easier for their pricing manager to adjust the time restriction slightly instead.

Thats of course if they are bothered!
 
ForTheLoveOf

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Lincoln said:
Why not e-mail their customer relations and ask? Perhaps it could be advertised as arriving at 10:00, despite still booked for 09:59 in the working schedules.

I'd probably be easier for their pricing manager to adjust the time restriction slightly instead.

Thats of course if they are bothered!
Click to expand...
The only station which Virgin calls at and takes passengers at, where the Off-Peak ticket has a restriction of "not before 10:00 into London", is Milton Keynes Central. West Midlands Trains quite rightly price the interavailable flow for this journey, and Virgin have homogenised restrictions on their cheaper route "Virgin Trains" tickets.

Now, of course, Virgin would be perfectly entitled to have differing restrictions on these tickets (and indeed this is what happens for many other flows with operator-specific fares). But it would represent an unwelcome step away from their general, simple fare-setting policy of duplicating the interavailable fare-setter's restrictions where they set a route "Virgin Trains" fare.

They aren't allowed to pressure WMT into varying the restriction on the interavailable tickets either, so practically speaking what they can do is limited to having a public policy of accepting invalid tickets, which is not a good situation for anyone.
 
mallard

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LNW-GW Joint said:
You are all very cynical.
As far as I can see 1R27 has a slightly earlier (half-minute) run from Stafford southwards, and a 1-minute pathing allowance at Wembley has been removed.
It all looks very technical and probably because of the LM alterations this time.
I don't believe there is any "sharp practice" at all.
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P58609/2019/05/23/advanced
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/Y81822/2019/05/16/advanced

For several years all southbound fast line trains had a minute added at Norton Bridge because of the speed restriction over the junction.
With the new flyover and remodelling, that has now been removed.
Odd minutes do get added and taken away from time to time, all down to NR.
Click to expand...

You seem to be operating under the bizzare and incorrect assumption that there is some sort of requirement that small changes to the working timetable must be reflected in the public timetable.

Case in point; this service to London Kings' Cross: http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/Y30882/2019/05/28/advanced WTT arrival time is 0958, but the PTT arrival (on which ticket restrictions are based) is 1000. Of course, the ECML routes have different ticket restrictions, with most off-peak fares being valid on arrivals from 1008, so the 0958 vs. 1000 makes little difference. I doubt that's entirely co-incidental.
 
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nw1

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ForTheLoveOf said:
Absolutely - unfortunately there is nothing to stop this and the TOCs would no doubt try to claim that they are "saving passengers time and decreasing journey times" when really it is nothing more than fiddling with a database in order to make more money at the end of the day.

It's not going to make any difference to the actual performance of the service; it's not like as if the driver will say "oh no, we're running a minute late on the new timetable so I'd better break the speed limit to make it".
Click to expand...

If it is the only off-peak instance of breaking a clockface arrival (not sure, haven't looked) it will look very suspicious.
 
A

A Challenge

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Depart LIV - Arrive EUS
05:26 (1R05) 07:50
06:05 (1R11) 08:23
07:00 (1R19) 09:03
07:47 (1R27) 09:59
08:47 (1A15) 11:01
09:47 (1A20) 11:59
10:47 (1A25) 12:59
11:47 (1A30) 14:03
12:47 (1A35) 15:03
13:47 (1A40) 16:03
14:47 (1A45) 16:59
15:47 (1A50) 18:03
16:47 (1A55) 18:59
17:47 (1A60) 20:03
18:49 (1A65) 21:02
19:47 (1A70) 22:04
20:48 (1A74) 23:44

It is XX:59 for the ~10:00, ~12:00 and ~13:00 arrivals, with the previous one being 09:03 and the next being 11:01.
 
Wilts Wanderer

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This sort of variance at a terminal is often due to platform end conflicts. In this case - which platform does the 1000 departure start from?
 
A

A Challenge

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The 09:59 is booked into platform 13 (routing at Camden Junction 'D'), the 10:00 (to Manchester Piccadilly) is booked from Platform 7 (route 'X')
 
LNW-GW Joint

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The OP appears to be grumbling about the availability of C4 restricted tickets on that train from Milton Keynes (MKC).
1R27 doesn't call at MKC, so I don't really see the relevance.
Even if it did, the crucial ticket restriction on this (and all other) train from the northwest that VT would worry about is the 2C restriction on off-peak fares, which is arrival at Euston after 1129.
I doubt VT is bothered about enabling/disabling MKC C4-restricted passengers from this train.
In any case the VT Anytime Day Return is only 10p more than the C4-restricted fare.
Maybe I don't get the point.
 
Ticket Man

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I'd be very surprised if the OP's original post had any weight. Having seen first hand how this process works, it is normally Retail pricing managers working to the timetable in terms of setting restrictions. I've never seen a train planning manager set a timetable based on ticket restrictions.

In this specific case, a move like this would probably end up costing virgin money rather than making it. Every time I've seen a peak restriction move (or expand, of which I've seen a few), the off peak travellers simply wait for a later service.
 
IrishDave

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mallard said:
You seem to be operating under the bizzare and incorrect assumption that there is some sort of requirement that small changes to the working timetable must be reflected in the public timetable.
Click to expand...
The default is exactly that public timetable (PTT) times are the same as working timetable (WTT) times (with half-minutes automatically rounded up for arrivals and down for departures).
Timetable databases store this as WTT times and "public offset": that is, if a train's PTT time is to be anything other than the WTT time, then whoever is entering the schedule must manually add the number of minutes of "public offset" - so in this case the schedule would need 1 minute's public offset manually adding to its arrival time at Euston.
I can't see any plausible explanation for this change other than recognising the benefits of a ½-minute improvement in sectional running times (SRTs) through Norton Bridge.
 
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robbeech

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We should probably assume that the OP is a season ticket holder and combines this ticket with a MKC London Ticket.
 
Puffing Devil

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LNW-GW Joint said:
The OP appears to be grumbling about the availability of C4 restricted tickets on that train from Milton Keynes (MKC).
1R27 doesn't call at MKC, so I don't really see the relevance.
Even if it did, the crucial ticket restriction on this (and all other) train from the northwest that VT would worry about is the 2C restriction on off-peak fares, which is arrival at Euston after 1129.
I doubt VT is bothered about enabling/disabling MKC C4-restricted passengers from this train.
In any case the VT Anytime Day Return is only 10p more than the C4-restricted fare.
Maybe I don't get the point.
Click to expand...

The VT only Anytime is £16 more than the VT Only C4
 
mallard

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IrishDave said:
I can't see any plausible explanation for this change other than recognising the benefits of a ½-minute improvement in sectional running times (SRTs) through Norton Bridge.
Click to expand...

Isn't it odd how all these little things that increase TOC revenue keep happening, yet the opposite pretty much never happens? Almost as though the multi-million-pound private companies that benefit from these changes welcome them, but put up a fight there's any hint of it ever going the other way. Do you honestly think that the train would be re-timed back to a 1000 arrival if it started running consistently a minute late?

I'll start giving multi-million-pound private companies the benefit of the doubt when they start giving their customers the same luxury. That's not likely to happen anytime soon.
 
Wilts Wanderer

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mallard said:
Isn't it odd how all these little things that increase TOC revenue keep happening, yet the opposite pretty much never happens? Almost as though the multi-million-pound private companies that benefit from these changes welcome them, but put up a fight there's any hint of it ever going the other way. Do you honestly think that the train would be re-timed back to a 1000 arrival if it started running consistently a minute late?

I'll start giving multi-million-pound private companies the benefit of the doubt when they start giving their customers the same luxury. That's not likely to happen anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Ahem... Network Rail validates the timetable, not the TOC. If there is a valid reason to move the train 1-min later and back across a peak restriction boundary, they will do so and there is very little Virgin Trains can do about it.

(Hope that armchair is comfortable)
 
mallard

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Wilts Wanderer said:
Ahem... Network Rail validates the timetable, not the TOC. If there is a valid reason to move the train 1-min later and back across a peak restriction boundary, they will do so and there is very little Virgin Trains can do about it.
Click to expand...

So the TOC has no say in their own timetable? Sure... It's entirely possible for the PTT arrival time to be before the WTT equivalent too, so there's absolutely something Virgin Trains could do to in that hypothetical scenario to prevent the arrival time changing back.
 
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