CrossCountry 8X restriction to change to 'after 0930' to/from South-West?

I've heard very strong rumours, including from a ticket office clerk who's seen a CrossCountry memo, that XC are changing the restriction on SVS/SVR to/from South-West stations for journeys beyond Birmingham.

Currently out and return are valid after 0500, but the rumour is this is to change to after 0930.

Does anyone have any further info on this and is there to be other flows where the current 8X restriction is to be changed to 2V?

Yes, this is correct, although the message only states that "a number of long distance journeys" will be affected, with a restriction change from 05.00 to 09.30. Apparently there should be leaflets at affected stations.

This was done before, and was a disaster so they changed it back.

Splitting is the solution to this.

The journeys concerned are longer distance fares, as the shorter ones are 2V anyway, so it will be easy to get around the restrictions, though how easy/cheap that will be, depends on the flow.

From places like York it will be fine, as Northern and East Coast have a relatively sensible policy (unlike XC) when it comes to pricing before 0930, and by the time you get to the Midlands it's not too bad with EMT (worse than EC/Northern but better than XC!) but people who start their journey in solid XC territory like Birmingham New Street may have to pay a bit more.

For example, a York to Plymouth Off Peak return is £142.10, so if XC want people to pay £286.00 for an Anytime the clerk should politely (it's not their fault that XC are disgrace, and XC don't have any ticket clerks anyway) be told that they will not be getting their hands on your hard-earned extra cash, and instead ask for an Anytime return to a station nearby, and then an Off Peak return would start after 0930. So, if I wanted to get the 0824 from York, I'd get an Anytime return to Sheffield, an Off Peak return from Sheffield to Derby (yes, that would be departing Sheffield before 0930, but that's fine as EMT price that ticket and it's valid from 0900!) and then the Off Peak return from Derby to Plymouth is valid as by now it's 0953! The total price of these 3 tickets is £149.20. Ask for combinations like this at York and the staff won't be at all surprised at the request, they expect to be asked for combinations and are quite used to it!

So the customer only pays £7.10 extra, not the £143.90 extra that XC wants. And the best bit? XC will get even less of the money, as the combination of fares will give considerably more money to other operators for the first two tickets! In many cases XC will be reducing their own revenue.

Certain organisation and individuals (who are clueless but falsely purport to represent customers interests) want peak restrictions to be "unified" and "simplified" across the entire network, e.g. all after 0900 or 0930, if that happened then splitting would need to be done for every long distance journey before that time!

At present, you do have to do the splitting trick for medium distance journeys, but not really long ones. Under XCs new pricing, you will have to do this even more!

Note that I do not know if York <> Plymouth is actually going to be affected, it's just an example.

yorkie said:

This was done before, and was a disaster so they changed it back.

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When this was originally in the headlines, two or more years ago, the internet was jammed solid with discussions about it affecting all XC long distance flows, but IIRC from checking planners at the time it was never applied to long distance journeys right across the XC core boundaries, which I think at the time meant south of Reading/Bristol, and north of Derby. So for example Southampton to Newcastle, (or Basingstoke to Sheffield) always kept the 0500 start for offpeaks, and it still does AFAICT.

Are there really any routes that were altered and then changed back, or was it a rumour to test the water that was never followed up in practice...

(NB this is only referring to the original changes, not that newly reported.)

I know I'm being devil's advocate here - and probably a bit stupid - but what has been the point of, taking York to Plymouth as an example, the £286 SOR, if the £142.10 SVR has been valid on all trains anyway?

The concept of SOR's on very long-distance journeys is completely flawed - they are priced as if you are travelling during the Peak for the entire journey, when in reality most customers will be travelling during the Peak for less than 50% of the journey. Just imagine if they tried to introduce a restriction during the evening-peak - most people wouldn't be able to complete their journey after noon!

All Line Rover said:

I know I'm being devil's advocate here - and probably a bit stupid - but what has been the point of, taking York to Plymouth as an example, the £286 SOR, if the £142.10 SVR has been valid on all trains anyway?

The concept of SOR's on very long-distance journeys is completely flawed

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Obviously they are designed to penalise people who buy onboard whilst an opportunity to pay existed, and to catch out the unwary and unsavvy passengers.

It's nothing new from XC. This has been forthcoming since they changed many flows on the Manchester - Bournemouth corridor from 8X to 2V not that long ago.

As yorkie has demonstrated, one way to combat this disgraceful act from XC is to split, so that the greedy corporate ends up with even less money.

If my sources are correct then the BMH/RDG-EastMids/NorthEast are also being taken over to the 2V darkside from next year. They where the only long distance XC route fares left as 8X down my way after all the MAN/NorthWest went over about a year ago.

DXC said:

If my sources are correct then the BMH/RDG-EastMids/NorthEast are also being taken over to the 2V darkside from next year. They where the only long distance XC route fares left as 8X down my way after all the MAN/NorthWest went over about a year ago.

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OK, let's take Winchester (home of Wintonian) to Newcastle (home to DaveNewcastle) as an example.

Currently this priced is as follows (selected return fares shown only, only dealing with the outward restriction for simplicity)

Route Not London
SVR £126.60 (8X - Valid after 0500 at present)
SOR £255.00

Route +Any Permitted
SSR £131.50 (9D - Valid any time to London, then from 0906 from King's Cross)

Example itineraries to arrive for lunch time (taking Tue 13 Dec as an example):

Avoiding London:
Dep Winchester 0631, arr Birmingham 0848, dep Birmingham 0903, arr Newcastle 1234.
Journey time: 6 hr 03
Current fare: £126.60 return
Fare from January: £255.00 return

Via London:
Dep Winchester 0755, arr Waterloo 0903, dep King's Cross 1000, arr Newcastle 1251 (But, if you made it across from Waterloo in good time, you'd be within your rights to take the earlier 0930 train)
Journey time: 4 hr 56
Current fare: £131.50 return

Right now, some people will save themselves a fiver, and take an hour longer on XC. But will people do that when XC want £255 and EC only want £131.50? Only if they have more cash than brain cells.

*****

yorkie said:

Avoiding London:
Dep Winchester 0631, arr Birmingham 0848, dep Birmingham 0903, arr Newcastle 1234.
Journey time: 6 hr 03
Current fare: £126.60 return
Fare from January: £255.00 return

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Not according to the NRES OJP as attached - unless the planner is not yet updated, so buy while you can...

swt_passenger said:

Not according to the NRES OJP as attached - unless the planner is not yet updated, so buy while you can...

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The introduction of the new fares has been delayed until the 20th December so there isn't much time left!

Max said:

The introduction of the new fares has been delayed until the 20th December so there isn't much time left!

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That's the obvious reason, but can we be 100% sure that fares changes and restriction changes can't be done separately?

Here is the XC leaflet I picked up in Stafford station last night:



I don't get this. I sometimes use a Nuneaton-Liverpool SVR to travel short to Stockport at peak times, which involves using XC from Stafford to Stockport. This leaflet makes it clear that I won't be able to do that from 2nd January. Yet online systems are still selling NUN-LIV tickets via SPT that use XC at peak times.

Either some SVR restriction codes are changing, as the leaflet implies, or XC are simply not telling the truth and presumably fall foul of ASA regulations? Anyone know which it is?

MKB said:

I don't get this. I sometimes use a Nuneaton-Liverpool SVR to travel short to Stockport at peak times, which involves using XC from Stafford to Stockport. This leaflet makes it clear that I won't be able to do that from 2nd January. Yet online systems are still selling NUN-LIV tickets via SPT that use XC at peak times.

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Nuneaton to Liverpool is priced by Virgin Trains and is therefore not affected by the changes being implemented by CrossCountry Trains.

yorkie said:

Right now, some people will save themselves a fiver, and take an hour longer on XC. But will people do that when XC want £255 and EC only want £131.50? Only if they have more cash than brain cells.

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Maybe it's an odd attempt at an ORCATS raid given that the †ANY PERMITTED SVR will be valid on XC?

XC said:

Advance tickets are subject to availability, however we have increased the availability of these tickets on peak services from January 2012.

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Yes, I know - those Advance tickets which are just £1 or £2 cheaper than an SOS! :roll: