I think this question is appropriate for this thread – I suspect that availability of reservable seats or counted places may explain some of what I’ve noticed. If I’m asking in the wrong place, apologies, and maybe the powers that be can move it.
If all goes according to plan, I will be travelling from Penzance to Reading on Friday 2nd October. In view of the coronavirus-related uncertainty, I would prefer not to have an Advance ticket, and as GWR have reasonably priced walk-up singles, this is what I am trying to buy; but to avoid any risk of not getting on the train I would prefer to make a reservation sooner rather than later, and not wait to buy a ticket on the day. The line between Exeter and Taunton is closed that week, and I am determined to avoid the replacement bus; my preferred option is a diverted through train from Plymouth, but changing to SWR at Exeter would be quite acceptable. However, there seems to be a problem with buying tickets.
Trainsplit finds no flexible fares at all, and most of the fixed-time ones include a bus journey. If I use the advanced options to exclude bus travel, I get just one flexible journey opportunity, via Basingstoke, but if I switch to ‘fixed time’, I get the same flexible super-off-peak single at £61.10 offered on a few other journey opportunities, also via Basingstoke. If I add in the information that I have a Network Railcard, there is still just the one flexible option (slightly cheaper as it involves splitting and using the railcard); fixed-time gives more choice, but this time most options really are fixed-time.
NRE offers mostly bus options, with one Basingstoke one, a couple of Advances on diverted GWR trains, and one option with no fare shown at all that supposedly involves a 17.58 train from Exeter through the blockade to Bristol Parkway. Asking it to avoid Taunton gives several Basingstoke options at £61.10 and some journeys on through Plymouth-Reading trains, of which some are on advances and some have no fare shown.
The GWR site also tries to put me on the bus, with just one Basingstoke option arriving late in the evening. Asking it to avoid Taunton gives a reasonable number of Basingstoke options (though none between 12.50 and 15.50), all at £61.10, and none on diverted trains.
I haven’t tried actually booking any of these options, so I don’t know whether some of them might fail at a later stage.
Can anyone explain these oddities?
And does anyone have any idea a) whether what actually runs on the day is (assuming no dramatic changes in the coronavirus situation) likely to be the same as the timetable currently in the system, b) how busy GWR and SWR are likely to be on that date, and c) which departures from Penzance are likely to be HSTs?
Thankyou for any information you can provide.
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Further to this, I've gone part of the way through trial bookings with both Trainsplit and GWR, and they seem happy to sell me (flexible) tickets with an itinerary involving the 10.50 from Plymouth to Exeter and the 14.25 from Exeter to Basingstoke*, but without seat reservations. Does this indicate that the counted places have already sold out more than two weeks beforehand, or that if I completed the booking I would in fact get a counted place but no specific seat, or that due to the Tiverton blockade the trains haven't been opened for reservations, or what?
*albeit Trainsplit gives few other options (as described previously), and for some reason suggests getting a local train up the hill at Exeter and boarding the Waterloo train at Central.
As I understand it, on SWR's Exeter-Waterloo trains the normal position is that there are counted places for Advances and no reservations of any kind for flexible tickets, and I presume this continues in the current situation; is this right?
It looks as if it would probably be simpler just to turn up and buy a ticket on the day -- I get the impression from what people say above that I'm unlikely to have problems boarding trains, and I've got all day to make the journey anyway.
