On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 19:48:34 GMT, "Martin Underwood"
wrote:

and tickets should be valid for
all TOCs - none of this "valid only on Thames Trains and not on First Great
Western" lark. Why should passengers be forced to use certain trains in
preference to others?

OTOH why should passengers have to pay full price for an
interavailable ticket, if a company is willing to offer a specific
ticket which it can afford to sell at a lower price as it gets more of
the revenue from it? I'm often quite happy to get a Hull Trains* only
ticket and save the money on an GNER/Arriva/MML/[& more contrived
trips] interavailable ticket.

I met the then-MD of WAGN some years ago, who said they had introduced
a WAGN only (ie not GNER) season ticket from Peterborough to London,
at a substantial reduction in price. Some people objected that the
WAGN season tickets was less flexible than under BR (even though the
"any permitted" still existed as before!), but many passengers were
willing to save a few hundred quid and bought them.

There is also the issue of stopping short-distance passengers
cluttering up inter-city trains.

*Yes, I know HT isn't a TOC.
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK