Chesterfield-York: splitting at Sheffield

[JohnGeddes]

For anyone needing to travel before Off-Peak is available, the saving from a split at Sheffield seems remarkable: is this a temporary error in the database or the permanent situation?

EMT and Trainline both show:

Chesterfield - York: Anytime Return £62 (no Day Return option)
Chesterfield-Sheffield-York: Anytime Day Return £24.80 or Anytime Return £30.30

(Anytime Day Return Chesterfield-Sheffield@£5.80+Anytime Day Return Sheffield - York@£19 - or 2 x Chesterfield-Sheffield Single =£9.20+Sheffield - York Anytime Return@£21.10)

John Geddes
Derbyshire

 

[yorkie]

Welcome to the forum

Chesterfield - York: Anytime Return £62 (no Day Return option)

Priced by XC, so attracts a huge premium.

Chesterfield-Sheffield-York: Anytime Day Return £24.80 or Anytime Return £30.30

Sheffield-York is priced by Northern, so is reasonable.
Sheffield-Chesterfield is priced as a local fare by EMT so is also reasonable (EMTs long distance fares are not so reasonable).

It's not an error; it's how our fare system works. There are examples like this over much of the National Rail network, especially where XC are involved.

If XC gets too annoyed at people saving money on a particular flow, they can bid to become the lead TOC to set the fare for that flow. They did this on the Banbury-Leamington-Birmingham route, and this led to huge price increases and draconian peak restrictions. Chiltern displayed posters at stations making it absolutely clear who was to blame. Since then I've not heard of XC doing this elsewhere, but I wouldn't put it past them.

 

[Paul Kelly]

CrossCountry took over a lot of flows from First Great Western some time last year. In general in three main areas as far as I can see:

• Taunton/Bath/Westbury to Worcester/Bromsrove/Droitwich Spa
• Banbury/Oxford to Salisbury/Andover/Southampton/Winchester/Portsmouth/Eastleigh/Fareham
• Cheltenham/Gloucester to Barnstaple/Dawlish/Exmouth/Totnes/Paignton/Plymouth/Gunnislake/Penzance

They haven't changed any of the restriction codes from those formerly used by FGW yet though. Perhaps they are being sneakier now because of the Chiltern experience and will wait another couple of NFMs before putting in their draconian 2V SVRs and BX CDRs everywhere.