Brighton to Victoria off peak changes

[matt9f]

Hi,

The Brighton Argus is reporting a temporary suspension of through off peak trains from Brighton to London Victoria. Could this see a change to GTR ticket acceptance?

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/182...-trains---travellers-face-massive-price-hike/

 

[gray1404]

No Southern branded services to run directly between Brighton and London.

Customers currently using Not Gatwick Express tickets on Southern branded services fearing they will have to pay more for Any Permitted tickets. The spokesperson implies Not Gatwick Express tickets will be accepted as far as Haywards Heath where customers must then change to other services.

The reality of the situation is if this was all ran as GTR none of this branding nonsense would create this mess. The reality of the situation though is customers wishing to carry on using Not Gatwick Express fares should either: change en-route at Hove, or at Haywards Heath if this is what they are allowing or use Thameslink branded services.

It is a raw deal for consumers.

I can't find any Southern Only tickets between Brighton and London Victoria/London Terminals (except for Advance tickets) so I suspect it is the Not Gatwick Express tickets people currently use on Southern that they are upset about.

 

[JonathanH]

The reality of the situation is if this was all ran as GTR none of this branding nonsense would create this mess. The reality of the situation though is customers wishing to carry on using Not Gatwick Express fares should either: change en-route at Hove, or at Haywards Heath if this is what they are allowing or use Thameslink branded services.

It is a raw deal for consumers.

If the only fare was an Any Permitted one at current prices, that would be an even more raw deal for (some) customers.

None of this would be a problem at all if people weren't insistent on having services to both Victoria and London Bridge from every station in the area. Brighton will still have six trains an hour to London.

It is only an off-peak gripe anyway as there already aren't any Southern branded trains from Brighton to Victoria until 0933 (apart from a very early one).

 

[infobleep]

"Off-peak passengers buying a Travelcard to use the Tube won't have to pay any more than they do today to travel direct from Brighton to Victoria in the future because these tickets are already valid on Gatwick Express."

So have The Argys selectively quoted the spokes person or will Thameslink Only Travelcards be accepted into Victoira?

It can be argued they already are valid but I'd be surprised if a spokesperson for GTR would say that.

 

[infobleep]

No Southern branded services to run directly between Brighton and London.

There are the x25 and x55 London Victoria to Brighton Southern branded services and the x03 and x33 Brighton to Victoria services. These definitely run off peak.

 

[JonathanH]

So have The Argys selectively quoted the spokes person or will Thameslink travel cards be accepted into Victoira?

There are only "Thameslink only" or "Any Permitted" travelcards from Brighton so the quotation is right. People with Travelcards from Brighton going into Victoria will not be charged any more than at present.

There is a cheaper fare for Thameslink only which most people would not use to travel to Victoria (because they consider it not to be valid on Gatwick Express or Southern services or don't want to change at East Croydon).

http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=BTN&dest=0035

 

[JonathanH]

There are the x25 and x55 London Victoria to Brighton Southern branded services and the x03 and x33 Brighton to Victoria services. These definitely run off peak.

Yes, but they are not going to do so after 23 May.

There will continue to be a Southern branded service from Brighton to Victoria on Sundays (when of course their Gatwick Express brand doesn't go south of Gatwick) and the Coastway trains are already separate (once an hour to each side).

 

[infobleep]

Yes, but they are not going to do so after 23 May.

My apologies I misread gray1404's post. I missed out the word "to". So I read it as "no trains run between them" as opposed to "no trains will run between them".

 

[infobleep]

There are only "Thameslink only" or "Any Permitted" travelcards from Brighton so the quotation is right. People with travelcards from Brighton going into Victoria will not pay any more than at present.

There is a cheaper fare for Thameslink only which most people would not use to travel to Victoria (because they consider it not to be valid on Gatwick Express or Southern services or don't want to change at East Croydon).

http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=BTN&dest=0035

But the Thameslink travelcard is valid into London Victoira. So are they say the Thameslink only Travelcard is valid on Gatwick Express?

 

[bramling]

The changes seem reasonably sensible to me. Apart from improving performance by ditching the divides and joins at Haywards Heath, presumably part of the rationale is to lengthen the trains which run towards Eastbourne and Worthing, which can be quite busy at times.

By contrast I’ve used off-peak express services to Brighton which have been very empty.

6tph to Brighton still seems like a pretty good deal to me.

People on other routes shouldn’t be losing out just so one destination can have a cheaper fare option, although wasn’t part of the rationale for extending the Gatwick Express brand south of Gatwick that premium fares would only apply for London / Gatwick journeys? Or am I misremembering?

 

[JonathanH]

But the Thameslink travelcard is valid into London Victoira. So are they say the Thameslink only Travelcard is valid on Gatwick Express?

Thameslink only travelcard is deemed valid into Victoria if you first travel by Thameslink trains to East Croydon and change there. In most people's view it is not deemed valid on Southern or Gatwick Express branded trains between Brighton and East Croydon.

If anyone thinks it is valid on Southern between Brighton and East Croydon then they would consider it valid on Gatwick Express already.

 

[JonathanH]

People on other routes shouldn’t be losing out just so one destination can have a cheaper fare option, although wasn’t part of the rationale for extending the Gatwick Express brand south of Gatwick that premium fares would only apply for London / Gatwick journeys? Or am I misremembering?

They got rid of 'Not Gatwick Express' fares on almost all flows - in that sense there isn't a premium for Gatwick Express other than from Gatwick Airport itself.

There continue to be cheaper 'Thameslink only' fares (but that doesn't mean Gatwick Express should be considered a premium service). Those should have also been removed by now but it was deemed not to be in the interests of users of those tickets to do so.

 

[bramling]

They got rid of 'Not Gatwick Express' fares on almost all flows - in that sense there isn't a premium for Gatwick Express other than from Gatwick Airport itself.

There continue to be cheaper 'Thameslink only' fares (but that doesn't mean Gatwick Express should be considered a premium service). Those should have also been removed by now but it was deemed not to be in the interests of users of those tickets to do so.

I really don’t get the fuss.

For those who wish to save, there’s presumably still the option to change at Haywards Heath onto the Littlehampton or Eastbourne services. The whole timetable shouldn’t be being structured around offering a cheap option for one station, with Brighton already enjoying an excellent service. This really does seem to be cake and eat it too.

Reading some of the comments in the article, it amuses me to read people moaning about the Tories as if this is some kind of conspiracy. It’s ironic that whilst many of the places who will benefit from this timetable change are Conservative constituencies, in some cases newly won ones like Eastbourne, this doesn’t apply to Brighton!

 

[jon0844]

Reading some of the comments in the article, it amuses me to read people moaning about the Tories as if this is some kind of conspiracy. It’s ironic that whilst many of the places who will benefit from this timetable change are Conservative constituencies, in some cases newly won ones like Eastbourne, this doesn’t apply to Brighton!

It's because of a multi-million pound rebuild of Gatwick station. It isn't a conspiracy, but a method of working around what will become a building site in the coming months.

I suppose it's no different to hearing people moan about spending so much money and never seeing any benefits, while they board a brand new train and come into a virtually rebuilt London terminus.

No doubt when Gatwick is finished, that will also be disregarded.

 

[Bensonby]

Have the NRCOT been amended to allow valid based on brand rather than TOC?

 

[infobleep]

Interestingly there will still be the planed additional Reading to Gatwick Airport service running from May, despite the rebuilding works.

 

[JonathanH]

Interestingly there will still be the planed additional Reading to Gatwick Airport service running from May, despite the rebuilding works.

Or not running, according to what 'Clarence Yard' indicated in another thread - sounds like it needs a number of 769s to be in operation before it can happen.

However, it can still be timetabled because almost all of the disruptive work at Gatwick Airport is happening on the 'fast' side of the station.

 

[ianBR]

Following an intervention by Caroline Lucas, GTR have now committed to offering super off-peak fare and kids for £2 on the Gatwick Express for people travelling FROM Brighton only
However this will NOT apply to people travelling from London to Brighton

The most outrageous thing here is that there will presumably no longer be any advance fares for people travelling from Victoria to Brighton as the Gatwick Express services don't offer these

Whereas today you can travel for £8.50 with advance fares on the off-peak Southern services, GTR will just use this as an opportunity to whack the fares up to £30 for any tourist or daytripper travelling to Brighton - a whopping 250% fare increase to unsuspecting travellers.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would surely make more sense to get rid of GatEx for this period rather than of the Southern services.

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

Oh dear, another fares and ticketing disaster in the offing. Can't the TOC just sort out with DfT a sensible package for fares from Victoria that people can understand who do things other in their life than study the fares 'system' (noble calling though this is!)?

 

[gray1404]

The solution here would be to brand the trains as Southern services, even if they are using Gatwick Express branded stock.

 

[JonathanH]

People who want advance purchase tickets can just get the train to Hove.

 

[MikeWM]

Maybe a slightly esoteric point, but this makes the Southern DaySave ticket rather less useful, as there will be no valid way of approaching/leaving Brighton from the north

(Seems an odd move anyway, as to me it feels like the London->Brighton service is the spine of the Southern network. Southern's maps have always implied that. So to have zero Southern trains running on this route anymore feels plain wrong).

 

[JB_B]

Maybe a slightly esoteric point, but this makes the Southern DaySave ticket rather less useful, as there will be no valid way of approaching/leaving Brighton from the north
....

Going via Hove won't add a huge amount to journey times.

 

[JonathanH]

(Seems an odd move anyway, as to me it feels like the London->Brighton service is the spine of the Southern network. Southern's maps have always implied that. So to have zero Southern trains running on this route anymore feels plain wrong).

It is also the spine of the Thameslink network. Thameslink is cheaper walk-up anyway.

 

[Kite159]

The solution here would be to brand the trains as Southern services, even if they are using Gatwick Express branded stock.

Agreed, maybe even calling them at Clapham Junction (pick up only heading towards Brighton) If the signalling can't support it, then maybe make the Reigate 4 coach unit skip Clapham.

 

[JonathanH]

Agreed, maybe even calling them at Clapham Junction (pick up only heading towards Brighton) If the signalling can't support it, then maybe make the Reigate 4 coach unit skip Clapham.

I don't think running the Reigate non-stop through Clapham Junction will help. The residual service will run xx29 / xx59 from Victoria five minutes after the xx25 / xx55 diverted to Eastbourne service and before the xx06 / xx36 Arun Valley. The Reigate is xx09 / xx39 and there is a gap after that through to the xx15 / xx45 Littlehampton.