Rail Rover Changes

[matt]

Ive just seen this posted on wnxx.com

Just read that GNER have pulled out of both the North Country and Freedom of the North East rail rovers and both tickets will not be valid on GNER services from 2nd January. Over on the West Coast, the Coast & Peaks and Freedom of the North West flexirovers change from three in seven to four in eight days for £50 instead of £44.

No doubt this decision by GNER has been caused by the delayed shock and realisation of just how much money it has promised to pay the government over the term of the current franchise. Whatever next, Aldi pork sausages in the restaurant car ?

http://wnxx.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=132

 

[AJP]

Are East midland rovers still valid?

 

[Max]

That's insane, surely it now means certain whole routes cannot be done on the rover. :?

 

[yorkie]

This was first mentioned at uk.railway, but only because someone read the fares manual, which is not a public document, so it's not enforcable until the changes are made public.

The fares manual does not form the Contract that a Passenger has with the train companies, so any 'secret' clauses in the fares manual are not legally enforcable unless they are stated clearly to the passenger, either in the NCoC or stated clearly at the time the ticket is purchased as a condition of the ticket.

That's insane, surely it now means certain whole routes cannot be done on the rover. :?

It will be interesting to see what's printed on the ticket.

Unless the ticket clearly states "NOT GNER" then I am sure there won't be a problem using it on GNER. If it does state "NOT GNER", I would expect the price to decrease dramatically.

Tickets are valid on all advertised passenger services, unless specified otherwise.

B VALIDITY OF TICKETS
10 The trains on which you can travel
Some tickets are only valid for the trains of a particular Train Company or
Train Companies. This is shown clearly on the tickets. If you have bought
such a ticket you may not use it on any other Train Company’s trains.

If it's not clearly shown, it's not enforceable.

GNER once took someone to court for combining a North East Rover (which counts as a season ticket) and a ticket to Retford, on a non-stopping train, when he refused to pay the fare they demanded. I am happy to report that GNER lost the case, as the NCoC was in the persons favour. A memo was then sent in Newsrail Express reminding all staff to accept Rovers as season tickets when combining tickets.

So, it's a case of 'wait and see'!

 

[voyagerdude220]

This was first mentioned at uk.railway, but only because someone read the fares manual, which is not a public document, so it's not enforcable until the changes are made public.

The fares manual does not form the Contract that a Passenger has with the train companies, so any 'secret' clauses in the fares manual are not legally enforcable unless they are stated clearly to the passenger, either in the NCoC or stated clearly at the time the ticket is purchased as a condition of the ticket.

That's insane, surely it now means certain whole routes cannot be done on the rover. :?

It will be interesting to see what's printed on the ticket.

Unless the ticket clearly states "NOT GNER" then I am sure there won't be a problem using it on GNER. If it does state "NOT GNER", I would expect the price to decrease dramatically.

Tickets are valid on all advertised passenger services, unless specified otherwise.

B VALIDITY OF TICKETS
10 The trains on which you can travel
Some tickets are only valid for the trains of a particular Train Company or
Train Companies. This is shown clearly on the tickets. If you have bought
such a ticket you may not use it on any other Train Company’s trains.

If it's not clearly shown, it's not enforceable.

GNER once took someone to court for combining a North East Rover (which counts as a season ticket) and a ticket to Retford, on a non-stopping train, when he refused to pay the fare they demanded. I am happy to report that GNER lost the case, as the NCoC was in the persons favour. A memo was then sent in Rail Express reminding all staff to accept Rovers as season tickets when combining tickets.

So, it's a case of 'wait and see'!

Well in that case I simply won't get the GNER HST between York & Newcastle (I think that's what I was planning to do in future), and will simply get a 220/221 - Not that I mind going Voyagers! :P

But by the sounds of what people are saying, If i turned up at York next week, and jumped on a GNER HST, with the NW rover ticket that was valid on GNER, the company can't complain if they haven't made it public.

 

[yorkie]

But by the sounds of what people are saying, If i turned up at York next week, and jumped on a GNER HST, with the NW rover ticket that was valid on GNER, the company can't complain if they haven't made it public.

If you buy it before such restrictions are imposed, or if such restrictions are not detailed on the ticket (see quote above) then yes you can take GNER, and they cannot (legally) stop you.

The vast majority of GNER conductors are great, and wouldn't attempt to impose unfair and unenforcable restrictions, but it has been known for the odd one to refuse to accept valid tickets. These incidents have been well documented on uk.railway and in all known, reported cases (that I can recall) GNER had to admit they were wrong in the end. Unfortunately these incidents have caused GNER a lot of bad publicity on the newsgroup.

 

[voyagerdude220]

But by the sounds of what people are saying, If i turned up at York next week, and jumped on a GNER HST, with the NW rover ticket that was valid on GNER, the company can't complain if they haven't made it public.

If you buy it before such restrictions are imposed, or if such restrictions are not detailed on the ticket (see quote above) then yes you can take GNER, and they cannot (legally) stop you.

The vast majority of GNER conductors are great, and wouldn't attempt to impose unfair and unenforcable restrictions, but it has been known for the odd one to refuse to accept valid tickets. These incidents have been well documented on uk.railway and in all known, reported cases (that I can recall) GNER had to admit they were wrong in the end. Unfortunately these incidents have caused GNER a lot of bad publicity on the newsgroup.

Sounds like Virgin as well. The only bad experience I had with a TM, was when me & my Mum where trying to board an earlier service at Bristol Temple M, with Value tickets which we didn't relise wern't valid on it, a few years ago. All the TM did was tell us in a rude, unhelpful manner that we should go over to platform 3, and get it sorted there. Just a shame I didn't catch his name badge, because I would have been straight to VT's complaint area. It was nice though that the 2 TMs on our booked service were very freindly, and showed it with a very good value FC upgrade to Tamworth.

 

[Techniquest]

yorkie, that's the sort of thing you shouldn't be telling us in the Western Region, gives us ammunition to use against GNER. Or at least it is for me. Puts me more off GNER. To be honest, my only reason for travelling with GNER any time soon will be to do the HST to Inverness. I won't be going for the on-board service, that's for sure. Expect a full-on report of my trip with GNER and then one with FSR. I'm expecting huge differences in FSR's favour...

voyagerdude220, how did your FC upgrade come about? If you got on a train your ticket wasn't valid for, how did you get an FC upgrade out of it? :?

 

[voyagerdude220]

voyagerdude220, how did your FC upgrade come about? If you got on a train your ticket wasn't valid for, how did you get an FC upgrade out of it? :?

Please note I said the upgrade on my booked service, not the earlier direct one we attempted to board.

These days though, I simply purchase VT1st tickets. I have noticed though, that there's an increase in value fares now. Especially for services which never used to get VT value fares, just because they were to/from Bournemouth.

 

[Guinness]

I've noticed an increase of 25p. So its now £6.25 to get to London Euston. Still its over 200miles for over a Fiver.

Be interested into see how much GNER fares have risen.....

 

[TicketMan]

Not sure how you expect to fit all the T&Cs on a little piece of card...

Howeve the information IS publicly availabe. Fares Manuals are available to buy -they are published abnd distributed by The Stationary Office.

Information is also on the National Rail website - see here for Freedom of the North East - clearly states 'not available on GNER services'

The ticket is promoted by Northern - if you are unhappy with the services try contacting their customer relations dept.

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/promo...Promotion&id=03490e24c35ce741015b3401d9b4137d

Hope that clears the matter up

 

[yorkie]

Not sure how you expect to fit all the T&Cs on a little piece of card...

I don't, but the one regarding which TOCs it can be used on must be stated on the ticket, in accordance with the NCoC (which forms the contract between customer and the railway companies).

Howeve the information IS publicly availabe. Fares Manuals are available to buy -they are published abnd distributed by The Stationary Office.

The NFMs are not public documents, therefore don't (and indeed cannot) form part of the contract.

Information is also on the National Rail website - see here for Freedom of the North East - clearly states 'not available on GNER services'

Yes, but they can't sell you a ticket and say "Refer to the web"

The ticket is promoted by Northern - if you are unhappy with the services try contacting their customer relations dept.

Good for them, I didn't know they promoted it. I'm not going to complain to them at promoting it though, I think that's a good thing. I will complain to the RPC about GNER refusing to accept them. These rovers are pre-privatisation and are (were?!) not TOC-specific.

 

[86242]

yorkie, that's the sort of thing you shouldn't be telling us in the Western Region, gives us ammunition to use against GNER. Or at least it is for me. Puts me more off GNER. To be honest, my only reason for travelling with GNER any time soon will be to do the HST to Inverness. I won't be going for the on-board service, that's for sure. Expect a full-on report of my trip with GNER and then one with FSR. I'm expecting huge differences in FSR's favour...

And what about the time FGW kicked two kids off the train at Reading because there father with the fam railcard came back on his own. From what I have heard of that story it is a lot worse from that is happening with GNER.

GNER staff from what I have seen of them are a lot better than FGW staff... GNER take pride in there service FGW don't! (And before anyone asks I am not saying all FGW staff are bad there are saddly just certain members of staff which let the company down)

 

[yorkie]

GNER staff from what I have seen of them are a lot better than FGW staff... GNER take pride in there service FGW don't! (And before anyone asks I am not saying all FGW staff are bad there are saddly just certain members of staff which let the company down)

I've travelled a lot on GNER, and the vast majority of guards are fine, many are excellent, friendly and are not 'desperate'. It's a very small number, and yes I have met some of them, who cause the problems (which are very well documented at uk.railway). A small number of staff have got them a certain 'reputation' which is very unfortunate and not justified in the vast majority of cases.

As for FGW, it's difficult for me to comment as I have only travelled with them a few times, and yes there are one or two horror stories, but it was reported FGW did apologise about the incident in question, and they did investigate it, so that's not too bad is it? And on the few occasions I travelled FGW the staff were great.

For example, we were running late, dashed to Waterloo to get a diverted HST, only had travelcards and only just got to the train before the doors locked, so we asked the guard 'Can we buy onboard and still use our railcard?' and he said yes, which was very kind of him. We even got chatting to him on the train and I think he was a bit of an enthusiast himself! The other times I've travelled FGW the guards have been fine, no problems (by the way he couldn't find the excess fare from Boundary Zone 6, so issued the tickets from West Drayton instead).

You get one or two bad apples everywhere, in all walks of life. You just have to accept that. If the company apologises and puts it right, then that's good enough for me.

 

[Jonno2055]

Reminds me of the time I was double booked on a service!

He said he would go and get some one... ten minutes later the train went and he never came back, it's not very funny standing for two and a half hours!

 

[AlexS]

I haven't got time to read all 20 pages, but in case someone has, here is the URL for the NCOC for someone to check what is happening:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/system/galleries/download/misc/NRCOC.pdf

 

[yorkie]

Reminds me of the time I was double booked on a service!

He said he would go and get some one... ten minutes later the train went and he never came back, it's not very funny standing for two and a half hours!

Sorry, you've lost me, what/where/when?

 

[Jonno2055]

Well the conversation about FGW staff reminded me of the time when I was double booked on a train, great help he was, said he would get someone, he walked off and never came back!

 

[yorkie]

Well the conversation about FGW staff reminded me of the time when I was double booked on a train, great help he was, said he would get someone, he walked off and never came back!

What does double-booked mean?

 

[Jonno2055]

I booked a seat and another ticket office booked the same seat to someone else. So two people but one seat!

 

[yorkie]

I booked a seat and another ticket office booked the same seat to someone else. So two people but one seat!

OK, but I'm sure there would have been a seat somewhere on the train?

I would have got on the train anyway. If there were no other standard seats, they will let you in First Class to make up for their error.

But don't get off the train and wait at the platform, they can't delay despatching the train to sort out 1 seat.

If you encounter problems like that, seek the Train Manager on the train and they'll almost certainly be able to help you.

I hope that helps for future reference, but hopefully it won't happen again. I've never known that happen.

Probably wasn't FGW's fault, it may have been the national reservation system.

 

[Jonno2055]

I didn't get off on the platform and it was a very crowded train! I think its down to the new booking system, it doesn't work.