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TfL Rail to Reading Fares

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class717

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So, I'm going to go back and forward a few times from Paddington to Reading on the 15th Dec, when TfL take over the GWR service. My best option would be to buy a Thames Valley Branches Day Ranger, which I have tried to do, but so far have been unsuccessful as I'm trying to get a 16-17 Saver discount on it. I've tried this at a ticket office and on the GWR website with no success.

- Does the 16/17 Saver discount apply to this specific ranger? (National Rail site says 16-25 does, but doesn't say anything about 16/17, not sure if it just hasn't been updated or if it's not applicable. GWR say they go by this webpage and won't sell me one with the discount because it doesn't appear on the page.)

Any replies will be much appreciated

Thanks
 
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cactustwirly

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So, I'm going to go back and forward a few times from Paddington to Reading on the 15th Dec, when TfL take over the GWR service. My best option would be to buy a Thames Valley Branches Day Ranger, which I have tried to do, but so far have been unsuccessful as I'm trying to get a 16-17 Saver discount on it. I've tried this at a ticket office and on the GWR website with no success.

- Does the 16/17 Saver discount apply to this specific ranger? (National Rail site says 16-25 does, but doesn't say anything about 16/17, not sure if it just hasn't been updated or if it's not applicable. GWR say they go by this webpage and won't sell me one with the discount because it doesn't appear on the page.)

Any replies will be much appreciated

Thanks

It probably hasn't been updated yet, you've still got 2 months until you travel anyway.

If you're traveling to Reading from London, you'll want to travel with GWR on the fast services
 

ess

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How will the GWR 15 minutes delay repay and 30 minutes TfL rail version work?
 

hkstudent

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If you're delayed on GWR you claim from them, or else you claim from TfL
Sadly, it would be a downgrade in delayed customer protection when more GWR services are transferred to TfL, especially for delay repay thershold raised from 15 to 30, and not including any connecting journeys (unless delayed more than an hour, minimum requirement by NRCOT).
 

Kite159

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Sadly, it would be a downgrade in delayed customer protection when more GWR services are transferred to TfL, especially for delay repay thershold raised from 15 to 30, and not including any connecting journeys (unless delayed more than an hour, minimum requirement by NRCOT).

And a transfer from "any reason for delay" to "within control of rail industry" for paying out on claims?
 

ess

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So if a GWR train is delayed by 15 minutes but you could have made the journey on TfL rail and arrived before the 15 minutes would have passed, do you still get compensation with GWR?
 

Joe Paxton

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So if a GWR train is delayed by 15 minutes but you could have made the journey on TfL rail and arrived before the 15 minutes would have passed, do you still get compensation with GWR?

Unless you have a ticket that only affords travel on GWR, then I'd say the answer to the above should be no.
 

matt_world2004

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£24.40 peak to reading with contactless and £10.60 off peak to reading from January

From this date, TfL Rail fares will be aligned with the National Rail fares to Reading, which have now been confirmed as £24.40 for a peak adult pay as you go journey between Reading and London Paddington (with the off-peak fare of £10.60). Daily and weekly capping are expected to be introduced in spring 2020
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/p...-operate-services-to-reading-from-15-december

Off peak seems about 50% cheaper.
 
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JonathanH

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£24.40 peak to reading with contactless and £10.60 off peak to reading from January


https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/p...-operate-services-to-reading-from-15-december

Off peak seems about 50% cheaper.

Interesting stuff - £35 for a one-way off-peak and one-way peak return and then travel in the zones on top. £24.40 peak single is not far off what was expected.

I hope no one thinks touching in after 0930 is a good idea unless they really are making a one-way journey.

What does the following entail?
While TfL is working to deliver capping, customers who should have benefitted from daily capping will automatically be reimbursed to ensure they pay the best fare for their travel.
 
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autotank

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So to clarify you can travel Reading - Paddington on a fast train before 0630 for £10.60? If so, I can see lots of people travelling a bit earlier into town and saving quite a fair bit of money!
 

MikeWh

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So to clarify you can travel Reading - Paddington on a fast train before 0630 for £10.60? If so, I can see lots of people travelling a bit earlier into town and saving quite a fair bit of money!
Which would probably be a good thing if it makes later trains more comfortable.
 

Paul Kelly

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So to clarify you can travel Reading - Paddington on a fast train before 0630 for £10.60? If so, I can see lots of people travelling a bit earlier into town and saving quite a fair bit of money!
There is also an interesting interaction between the contactless and paper fares at the end of the evening peak. I always imagined when these fares were introduced, that there would be some sort of gradual synchronisation between the validities, but the opposite appears to be happening.

Returning to Reading on an off-peak day fare, currently the first train you can get is the 1922 to Hereford, but that is withdrawn in the new timetable, making the first train the 1930. An off-peak (period) return, which currently allows return travel a little earlier than the off-peak day fare (from approx. 1900 onwards, although it's hard to know what's really intended as there are so many errors in GWR's restriction data these days) is also having it's return barred times extended right up to 1930 as well. On both these fares it won't even be possible to use the 1920 semi-fast service (which is remaining unchanged in the new timetable), which I always thought was intended to relieve overcrowding on the 1922. All these changes seem to point to a sneaky tightening of peak restrictions by GWR to coincide with the new timetable (which was also mentioned by Barry Doe in his most recent RAIL article, regarding fares on the Berks & Hants Line).

But if you're using contactless, you can pay only the £10.60 off-peak price on the prime departures to Bristol, Plymouth, Bedwyn and Swansea at 1902, 1904, 1907 and 1918 respectively, as well as on the semi-fast at 1920. I can see that being very tempting to a lot of people.
 

Tw99

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Where is it documented that these contactless fares are valid on GWR trains (apologies if this is an obvious question to those who know more about fares...) ? And if they are, how would it work practically at the GWR gate line?
 

matt_world2004

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Where is it documented that these contactless fares are valid on GWR trains (apologies if this is an obvious question to those who know more about fares...) ? And if they are, how would it work practically at the GWR gate line?


From the press release.

All TfL Rail fares will be in line with GWR fares with contactless pay as you go accepted on both operator's services from 2 January 2020.
 

JonathanH

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TfL's fare finder has now been updated for 2020 fares so the full set of Reading fares is now available.

Reading to Gatwick Airport is £37.30 peak, £17.80 off-peak which I think is as expensive as it gets.

Interestingly, peak fares don't appear to apply in the evening peak (ie 1600 to 1900) from Reading to any destination which seems perverse (from a revenue loss point of view) given the 'simple' principles of Contactless fares.

Peak fares do apply in the Reading direction in the evening peak.

Slightly cheaper to travel from Iver to Ealing Broadway in the evening peak (where peak fares don't apply) than from West Ealing to Ealing Broadway (where they do).
 
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Hadders

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Interestingly, peak fares don't appear to apply in the evening peak (ie 1600 to 1900) from Reading to any destination which seems perverse (from a revenue loss point of view) given the 'simple' principles of Contactless fares.

Reading to London in the evening isn't peak and charging peak fares would be totally wrong. Similar thing happens all over the place, no evening peak from Zone 2 into Zone 1 for example.
 

matt_world2004

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Reading to London in the evening isn't peak and charging peak fares would be totally wrong. Similar thing happens all over the place, no evening peak from Zone 2 into Zone 1 for example.
No evening peak in the Watford junction to London on contactless either .
 

JonathanH

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Reading to London in the evening isn't peak and charging peak fares would be totally wrong. Similar thing happens all over the place, no evening peak from Zone 2 into Zone 1 for example.

No evening peak into Zone 1, yes (as a sop to Central London's evening economy), but all other Oyster / Contactless fares (apart from the Watford line) have an evening peak.
 

matt_world2004

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Cheaper to travel to shenfield from Reading than to Paddington. I can't work that one out.
 

Paul Kelly

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It looks like there's a killer saving to be head for travelling from Reading to Heathrow Airport using Heathrow Express, doubling back from Paddington? Currently an Off-Peak Day Single for this journey is £45.60 but with Contactless it's only £13.10: https://www.ltfares.com/!fares?orig=NRRDG&dest=NRHWV

I can't see how the Heathrow Express gateline at Paddington can be segregated either (like the Gatwick Express gateline is at Victoria), now that for most of the day Heathrow Express is going to be using only Platform 7, with regular fast trains from Reading coming in on Platform 6 twice an hour for most of the day and a +3 cross-platform change to HX; looks very convenient indeed.
 

JonathanH

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It looks like there's a killer saving to be head for travelling from Reading to Heathrow Airport using Heathrow Express, doubling back from Paddington? Currently an Off-Peak Day Single for this journey is £45.60 but with Contactless it's only £13.10: https://www.ltfares.com/!fares?orig=NRRDG&dest=NRHWV

I can't see how the Heathrow Express gateline at Paddington can be segregated either (like the Gatwick Express gateline is at Victoria), now that for most of the day Heathrow Express is going to be using only Platform 7, with regular fast trains from Reading coming in on Platform 6 twice an hour for most of the day and a +3 cross-platform change to HX; looks very convenient indeed.

Yes, seems like it would be in the interest of the operators to only run trains into platform 6 that don't stop at Reading. I'm a bit surprised they haven't, particularly if the platform 6 / 7 gates are set up like the ones at Victoria 13 / 14 to not have out of station interchange.

Isn't it just easier to put a barrier down 6 and 7 and have access to 6 from the 2-5 gates and access to 7 from the current 6/7 barriers?
 

317362

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Regular traveller on this line. What is about to happen seems to make very little sense to me, and there is virtually nothing being flagged up by operators (other than big timetable change coming, check the website) the fares, the timetable changes, the Reading-Oxford issue and the fact that GWML Reading-Padd falls apart a lot, I think that week before Christmas is going to be lousy.

I now have no real sense of how the peaks work, what is valid on what train and what we should be doing. Good for the casual user then. And gate line staff are going to be in the firing line.
 

JonathanH

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I now have no real sense of how the peaks work, what is valid on what train and what we should be doing. Good for the casual user then. And gate line staff are going to be in the firing line.

Having passed through Paddington a few times recently I am amazed that there isn't greater publicity about the increased level of fare restrictions which will apply next week. There isn't really anything about it on their website either.
 

MarlowDonkey

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It looks like there's a killer saving to be head for travelling from Reading to Heathrow Airport using Heathrow Express, doubling back from Paddington? Currently an Off-Peak Day Single for this journey is £45.60 but with Contactless it's only £13.10:

Is that likely to be assuming GWR/TfL from Reading to Hayes and then TfL/Connect? I would have thought not much in it time-wise on the half hourly GWR semifast which will only call at Twyford, Maidenhead, Slough and West Drayton before Hayes.
 
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