Oops! A typo. Yes the GWR day return is £18/70.
However the thread is about the cost of day trips to London on Saturdays and Sundays, so the other fares are not relevant to the discussion.
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Woking weekend day travelcard restrictions
- Thread starter AnkleBoots
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Oops! A typo. Yes the GWR day return is £18/70.
However the thread is about the cost of day trips to London on Saturdays and Sundays, so the other fares are not relevant to the discussion.
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R
RailUK Forums
Thanks for that. Intretsing. Some of the trains are certainly faster.
AnkleBoots
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Interestingly an Child Off Peak Single is now £3 if booked before midnight.
globetrotter
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It is correct, because I was replying to the question by the OP who was only concerned with PM restrictions for return travel. I therefore selectively quoted only the restrictions that affected the return journey.
Since the original posting, the discussion strayed off topic into a very much wider discussion about all these weekend restrictions.
The text I used came from BRFares.com and I see that the information posted there has now been substantially changed. My reply to the OP is still correct.
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RJ
Established Member
National Rail is the definitive source of information for things like this. Best to go by the text on there as you won't have much of a leg to stand on by quoting external websites in a dispute.
globetrotter
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Yes, a good point RJ.
I'm not really sure what you are talking about? Your post says 'outbound and return travel'; moreover the outbound and return restrictions are identical, so it doesn't make any difference which you posted.
No, your reply is wrong. The text from brfares.com is the same as when you first posted and it was completely wrong then and is completely wrong now.
http://www.brfares.com/#faredetail?orig=WOK&dest=1072&grpd=0035&tkt=SOI
The correct restriction is located on the National Rail website
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/UR
globetrotter
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The return travel restrictions on BRFares as they applied to the OP's situation, wishing to return PM from London to Woking are identical to and use the exact same wording as National Rail :
Return Travel
[Not valid on trains arriving: London Terminals: 09:31 11:59 - irrelevant here, as OP return travel is in opposite direction and he was not asking about outward travel]
If boarding at the stations below, not valid on trains departing:
London Terminals: 04:30-10:59 & 16:00-18:30
Vauxhall: 04:30-11:05 & 16:03-18:35
Queenstown Road: 04:30-11:05 & 16:03-18:35
Clapham Junction: 04:30-11:05 & 16:09-18:40
Any other station in London Zones 1-6 not listed above: 04:30-10:59.
[Not valid on trains arriving: London Terminals: 09:31 11:59 - irrelevant here, as OP return travel is in opposite direction and he was not asking about outward travel]
If boarding at the stations below, not valid on trains departing:
London Terminals: 04:30-10:59 & 16:00-18:30
Vauxhall: 04:30-11:05 & 16:03-18:35
Queenstown Road: 04:30-11:05 & 16:03-18:35
Clapham Junction: 04:30-11:05 & 16:09-18:40
Any other station in London Zones 1-6 not listed above: 04:30-10:59.
The OP's question was :
I bought a Super Off Peak day travelcard from Woking ticket office yesterday and the staff said that I could not use it to come back before 6:30pm. This seems surprising for a weekend.
I then played with the ticket machine to find out more and it seems that this restriction only applies from Waterloo or Clapham or Vauxhall.
To get round this could I have boarded at Waterloo eg at 5pm on a train stopping at Surbiton, get off and on the same train there, and would be able to honestly tell the Woking barrier people that I had boarded at Surbiton? Or is this fraud.
I then played with the ticket machine to find out more and it seems that this restriction only applies from Waterloo or Clapham or Vauxhall.
To get round this could I have boarded at Waterloo eg at 5pm on a train stopping at Surbiton, get off and on the same train there, and would be able to honestly tell the Woking barrier people that I had boarded at Surbiton? Or is this fraud.
My reply, I believe correctly, suggested that the OP could travel to Wimbledon by District Line then board there, avoiding PM restrictions boarding on trains leaving from London and as far as Clapham Junction that extended past 6:30 PM.
Whether the complete restrictions on BRFares are or were incorrect seems to be irrelevant here because National Rail, if my eyes are not deceiving me, has exactly the same PM restrictions using the very same wording. I already stated that I accepted RJ's suggestion to quote National Rail rather than third party sites.
It's just unfortunate that I included the incorrect wording from from BRFares, "OUTWARD AND RETURN TRAVEL", but nevertheless it is absolutely clear from the context that we were talking about the OP returning PM from London to Woking and maybe wanting to leave before 6:30 PM.
To reiterate, AM restrictions are totally outside the context here and the direction of return travel (from London) is also totally clear.
I received a reply from SWT.
Their points:
* Super Off Peak now covers the whole network as well as trains from London.
* Weekend Super Off Peak fares on longer fares (e.g, Poole) are cheaper than daily off peak fares
* SWT has offered discounted promotional fares on medium and long-term routes in response to passenger surveys about VFM, resulting in increased demand on medium and long-distance routes, however this has caused overcrowding, which they have addressed in part by increasing weekend capacity on the main line.
* In view of said overcrowding they have restricted weekend fares as far Salisbury and Beaulieu Road only.
So a weekend return on the first train from Beaulieu Road, which gets trains every two hours, will cost £47.80, whereas the first train from Brockenhurst is £41.80.
Note that the 'unrestricted' fares have 8A a 'no BoJ on outbound' restriction.
Their points:
* Super Off Peak now covers the whole network as well as trains from London.
* Weekend Super Off Peak fares on longer fares (e.g, Poole) are cheaper than daily off peak fares
* SWT has offered discounted promotional fares on medium and long-term routes in response to passenger surveys about VFM, resulting in increased demand on medium and long-distance routes, however this has caused overcrowding, which they have addressed in part by increasing weekend capacity on the main line.
* In view of said overcrowding they have restricted weekend fares as far Salisbury and Beaulieu Road only.
So a weekend return on the first train from Beaulieu Road, which gets trains every two hours, will cost £47.80, whereas the first train from Brockenhurst is £41.80.
Note that the 'unrestricted' fares have 8A a 'no BoJ on outbound' restriction.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Why have they restricted the ticket in this flawed way, when "not valid outside the Travelcard area on trains that departed Waterloo, Clapham Junction or Vauxhall before X" would express what they actually want (barred trains) without such a flaw?
David Goddard
Established Member
By the restriction quoting "London Terminals" this has also created a barr on these tickets into other termini. For example AP tickets from Wokingham and Earley, which are valid into Waterloo or Paddington (via Reading) are also restricted in and out of Paddington at the same times.
Have you raised this with them? They probably didn't intend this to be the case, unless Paddington is also heaving at those times.
Is it a flaw? They're concerned about the mainline and semi-fast trains, no? Not such an issue for all-stations services?
RJ
Established Member
I work on a different line where SWT have made these fares available to. We got a brief from our retail department confirming that the restriction applies to trains going into our London Terminal, which isn't Waterloo. Seems like SWT very much intended this to be the case. Perhaps weekend morning trains out of Waterloo are just as busy as those going into London.
PhilipW
Member
A highly misleading reply. While it is technically correct that weekend Super Off Peak fares are cheaper than daily Off Peak fares, this has always been the case. They need to compare like with like.
What they fail to mention is:
a) weekend Super Off Peak fares are exactly the same as the previous Supe Off Peak fares.
b) For large number of weekend travellers they will have pay 20% more than previously and buy Off Peak fare instead.
Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky
Kite159
Veteran Member
And one slight issue is that not all flows which previously had super off-peak fares available at weekends haven't had a weekend fare added
For example Andover to Bedford, weekday super-off peak is £41.30 without discount, if you want to travel at the weekend that fare isn't available 'forcing' anybody without the knowledge to split on route to pay £49.30
(http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=ADV&dest=BDM)
No I meant that the weekend super off peak fares are cheaper than daily super off peak fares.
Poole - London weekend super off peak return is £51.10, daily super off peak £53.80
Well not quite. The new weekend super off peak fares on less popular routes (which are still ridiculously expensive, and I'm not sure how many people pay them) are cheaper than before.
But the prices for more routine flows like Woking - London are in many cases more expensive.
PhilipW
Member
So for some stations there are no new restrictions and there are actually fare reductions for weekend Super Off Peak fares while for others, like Fareham near me, the fares remain the same. It is just that restrictions now apply.
How confusing. Even too confusing for its own good, I would argue. All rather badly, or even misleadingly, explained by South West Trains. If we on this forum have trouble in understanding what is going on, there is little hope that the general public will either.
In the past I have travelled up to Waterloo from both Fareham and Southampton Parkway many times in what are now the restricted times. I can't say that I was ever aware of any problem that needed fixing.
How confusing. Even too confusing for its own good, I would argue. All rather badly, or even misleadingly, explained by South West Trains. If we on this forum have trouble in understanding what is going on, there is little hope that the general public will either.
In the past I have travelled up to Waterloo from both Fareham and Southampton Parkway many times in what are now the restricted times. I can't say that I was ever aware of any problem that needed fixing.
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This is the nub of the issue. I frequently use SWT on Saturday mornings heading towards Waterloo, either from Farnborough, Guildford or Ash Vale (so, on 3 different sets of services), and have not noticed any crowding problem whatsoever. That said, I tend sit in the back of the trains - plenty of seats there!
This is just a gouge that was set up by SWT eight (?) years ago, when they created a new Super Off Peak fare set with morning and evening restrictions (using the old Off Peak fares) and the prices of existing Off Peaks ticket were increased by 20-25%. They've now managed to swing this at weekends too thanks to a compliant DfT.
As a consequences the rates per mile are extremely high compared with similar off peak tickets offered by the other southern TOCs. In my case, there are now new splitting and alternative start and end station opportunities to avoid the Waterloo tax, so they will get less of my custom.
Perhaps given a choice between keeping your custom and keep fares the way they were, they'd rather lose your custom.
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