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Northern Tyne Valley Advance fares

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I have just noticed that Northern have started offering Advance fares on the Tyne Valley line for off-peak services that terminate/start at Carlisle. They are not available on the Hexham terminators, or those that go beyond Carlisle.

Newcastle - Hexham: From £2 to £3
Newcastle - Haydon Bridge/Bardon Mill: From £3 to £5
Newcastle - Haltwhistle and stations to Carlisle: From £4 to £8

I'm not sure why they feel the need to do this? I couldn't find any other Northern service where Advances are available.
 
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ainsworth74

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There are advances between Leeds and Sheffield/Nottingham on Northern services. They seem to be slowly introducing them on some flows but not particularly quickly or widely, the Leeds - Nottingham advances were introduced maybe six months ago and don't think any more have been introduced. It makes a bit of sense to introduce them here as I'd guess they're trying to drum up more passengers on off-peak (or trying to move existing passengers to the off-peak) services as these offer quite a considerable saving on the exiting open fares.
 

DaveNewcastle

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Yes, there have been other routes over which Northern have begun to introduce Advances. These aren't the first as Ainsworth74 rightly points out.
I'm not sure why they feel the need to do this?
Would you remain in such doubt if I reminded you that in September we'll see the usual autumn round of East Coast diversions via Carlisle, with Advances cheaper than Northern's usual Newcastle - Carlisle Fares (and the availability of passengers boarding/alighting at Carlisle)?
 

Max

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Stats:1166449 said:
I'm not sure why they feel the need to do this? I couldn't find any other Northern service where Advances are available.

To get bums on seats, simple as that really! I suspect patronage on routes such as Hull-York by leisure passengers would increase a fair bit with cheap advances. The current on-the-day prices are pretty extortionate and its normally cheaper and must faster to simply drive. (Shame they had to close the line via Market Weighton!).
 

142094

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Not sure how much of a success this will be, I guess most people who travel on the Tyne Valley line are day trippers who will not want to be fixed to a certain service.
 

yorksrob

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I've noticed quite a few reserations on weekend Settle-Carlisle runs of late and I guess most of these would be leisure travellers.

Northern didn't appear to have anything printed on them though.
 

CaptainHaddock

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I wish Northern would introduce advance fares on their trains from Sheffield to the coast. If you want a day trip to Bridlington for example, it's a ridiculous £30.60 SDR - there isn't even an off peak return!
 

MidnightFlyer

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The Tyne Valley line was full and standing today with people to / from Metrocentre westwards, even beyond Carlisle to Glasgow via Dumfries and Whitehaven. Northern must have taken four figures today from SDRs / SVRs etc sold on there, I can't really see the point in advances under these sorts of passenger levels - I suspect the nature of the Metrocentre would make Advances unpopular, so maybe it's more weighted towards Newcastle and beyond?
 

paul1609

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The Tyne Valley line was full and standing today with people to / from Metrocentre westwards, even beyond Carlisle to Glasgow via Dumfries and Whitehaven. Northern must have taken four figures today from SDRs / SVRs etc sold on there, I can't really see the point in advances under these sorts of passenger levels - I suspect the nature of the Metrocentre would make Advances unpopular, so maybe it's more weighted towards Newcastle and beyond?





Bit of a coincidence since I live in kent but i travelled on the 14.24 from Hexham to Newcastle yesterday, probably 25 to 35% full negligible traffic either alighting or joining at either Prudhoe or Metrocentre. interesting trundle round Newcastle to arrive from the North is that normal?, Ive only ever done the tyne valley hat diversions before
 

142094

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There are a couple of booked workings that use alternate routes into and out of Newcastle Central, so it does happen. In a lot of cases for Northern they do it if there is something in platform 6 for some reason.

I can't see it making that much of a difference, unless they are trying to get people to make leisure trips to/from Carlisle. What might have been a better idea is to offer advances on the Scotrail services that go to Dumfries and Glasgow.
 

yorksrob

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I wish Northern would introduce advance fares on their trains from Sheffield to the coast. If you want a day trip to Bridlington for example, it's a ridiculous £30.60 SDR - there isn't even an off peak return!

It might be a good way to revitalise the Sheffield - Cleethorpes via Kirton Lindsay route.
 

Solent&Wessex

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There are advances between Leeds and Sheffield/Nottingham on Northern services. They seem to be slowly introducing them on some flows but not particularly quickly or widely, the Leeds - Nottingham advances were introduced maybe six months ago and don't think any more have been introduced. It makes a bit of sense to introduce them here as I'd guess they're trying to drum up more passengers on off-peak (or trying to move existing passengers to the off-peak) services as these offer quite a considerable saving on the exiting open fares.

The availability of Advance fares on many routes is now nothing to do with demand management, but purely to do with revenue generation. Take for example Leeds to Sheffield. The income from "Any Permitted" fares will be split between Northern, XC, East Coast, and probably TPE to a lesser degree. Lets say the fare is £10. Of that £10, by time it is dived up, Northern may only get £4. Lets say they sell an Advance fare for £6. They will get ALL that £6 and not share it with anybody. Plus they may get additional revenue when the inevitable wrong train / no railcard scenarios crop up. For the Tyne Valley where they are the only operator I cannot see why they are doing it.

 

142094

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TPE used to offer advances (may still do, haven't used one in a while) from York to Darlington, usually only for something silly like £3. Seeing as it is 1tph to Darlo compared to the compeition with EC and XC, it must have made them a bit more money than their allocation from ORCATS.
 

323235

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Believe it or not XC now offer the cheapest advances between York and Darlington. For a date in October the prices are for XC £2.95*/£4.50, whilst TPE lag behind somewhat at £3.50*/£4.60**/£7.00

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ainsworth74

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The availability of Advance fares on many routes is now nothing to do with demand management, but purely to do with revenue generation. Take for example Leeds to Sheffield. The income from "Any Permitted" fares will be split between Northern, XC, East Coast, and probably TPE to a lesser degree. Lets say the fare is £10. Of that £10, by time it is dived up, Northern may only get £4. Lets say they sell an Advance fare for £6. They will get ALL that £6 and not share it with anybody. Plus they may get additional revenue when the inevitable wrong train / no railcard scenarios crop up. For the Tyne Valley where they are the only operator I cannot see why they are doing it.

Of course and I understand that after all why would Northern (or any other TOC) share it's revenue when it can take all the money from the ticket? But as you've noted they are just about the only operator over the Tyne Valley so it can't really be a revenue thing which leads to my other thoughts.
 

142094

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Only thing I can think of is that there is a bus service (usually a coach) between Newcastle and Carlisle, and stops in most of the places served by the train. Of course the bus provider (Arriva) don't show the price of that journey on line, but I'm pretty confident it is lower than the normal return by train.
 
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