12 Week Booking Window

[rob.rjt]

Prompted by a comment in another thread, I was wondering if there was any idea when services will generally all be bookable with confirmed timetables 12 weeks in advance.

Looking at National Rail, they are showing some services not being confirmed until the week before travel (admittedly, this is for Southern for w/c 1 December). Even some other operators are showing with errors for the current week (SWR).

Rail Delivery Group gave a timescale of 6 months to be back to normal https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/media-centre/press-releases/2018/469773793-2018-02-23.html

Network Rail is making temporary changes to the advanced availability of final timetables for approximately six months from 20 May onwards, meaning these will be published later than normal...This temporary change will take affect from Sunday 25 February and be in place for a number of months. The industry will focus on returning to its twelve week planning horizons as soon as possible, focusing especially on the critical Christmas holiday period.

We are now well past 6 months from 25 February and nearly 7 from 20 May.

Is 6 weeks or less going to be the new normal?

 

[Wallsendmag]

If you find out can you let us know please

 

[Silverdale]

Looking at journey planners today for VT West Coast on 27 & 29/12, no longer shows the 'unconfirmed timetable' message, but still no Advance tickets available to book.

The advances for 22 & 23/12 which are available offer very little saving over the flexible Off-Peak returns.

 

[IceAgeComing]

Isn't that always the case though? Its the last weekend before Christmas and with the 24th being on a Monday most people who live in London who go North for Christmas are probably going on the last few trains on Friday evening if not on the weekend. I'm travelling back on the last train on the Friday and my relatively early advance cost me more than it normally would. I'm intentionally coming back on a Monday to avoid the peak period and save myself a fair chunk of money so I'd recommend doing that if you have the means to - in my eyes an extra day of Christmas Holiday and £25-30 extra in the pocket is hardly a bad thing!

Perhaps I'm wrong but that weekend strikes me as possible being one of the busiest on the network so its not surprising that Advances are both more expensive and also probably go quicker since people generally plan their Christmas holidays very early and that includes booking train tickets.

For LNER the first weekend of January still aren't available (and they warn you of this if you try to book an earlier ticket since I imagine that they assume that people going north on the 22nd or whenever are probably going to come back South soon after) but everything before then is.

 

[Silverdale]

Isn't that always the case though?

Seems to be.

My trip will be from the W.Mids to the North, between Christmas and New Year. With no advance tickets available on VT (and the likelihood of a bare minimum saving when they are) I'm going to book via Manchester using CX and TPE, who do have advance tickets on sale.