Went to watch Forest today at Sheffield United (what a mistake!) and travelled by train. Outbound by Northern, Nottingham to Leeds trains, pretty busy but not bursting at the seams, arrived on time but no revenue protection on the train at all before Sheffield.
Coming back, EMT had put on an extra from Sheffield direct to Nottingham, no intermediate stops and formed of an HST. Excellent you might think and demonstrates flexibility and some forward planning (1R99, 14:50 Sheff-Nott).
However it all falls apart in the implementation. The cheapest ticket between Nottingham and Sheffield is a Northern only one, which of course the vast majority of supporters had. The platform staff were, rightly I suppose, informing everyone that their ticket was not valid on the extra service.
The result?
An 8 coach train leaves almost entirely empty and a huge number of people board the next Northern service which was formed a single class 150/2. No aircon, a hot day and crush loadings led to a very uncomfortable journey. And again no revenue protection so we could have done the entire journey for free if we were that way inclined (which we are not).
I find it quite depressing that someone was obviously thinking on their feet in providing the extra service but the benefits were not reaped because of lack of communication on the ground. I assume EMT could have collaborated with Northern and accepted their tickets but they did not. The net result being that the extra need not have run at all and lots of people having a very uncomfortable journey.
Coming back, EMT had put on an extra from Sheffield direct to Nottingham, no intermediate stops and formed of an HST. Excellent you might think and demonstrates flexibility and some forward planning (1R99, 14:50 Sheff-Nott).
However it all falls apart in the implementation. The cheapest ticket between Nottingham and Sheffield is a Northern only one, which of course the vast majority of supporters had. The platform staff were, rightly I suppose, informing everyone that their ticket was not valid on the extra service.
The result?
An 8 coach train leaves almost entirely empty and a huge number of people board the next Northern service which was formed a single class 150/2. No aircon, a hot day and crush loadings led to a very uncomfortable journey. And again no revenue protection so we could have done the entire journey for free if we were that way inclined (which we are not).
I find it quite depressing that someone was obviously thinking on their feet in providing the extra service but the benefits were not reaped because of lack of communication on the ground. I assume EMT could have collaborated with Northern and accepted their tickets but they did not. The net result being that the extra need not have run at all and lots of people having a very uncomfortable journey.