New evening ticket restrictions from King's Cross to Cambridge
 

In article ,
says...
In message .com, Paul
Oter writes
Journeys entirely within the travelcard area are not affected, it
says...

Indeed, as there have never been time limits on use of travelcards (once
they start to be valid after the morning peak).

But this brings in some other silly anomalies, e.g. on a slow train you
could use a 1-day travelcard bought, say, from Luton quite validly on
the crowded section from King's Cross to Elstree, but not on the section
from Elstree to Luton, where the passenger loadings will be
significantly lower.

Yes they are valid on this section as the FCC leaflet states:

"The return portion of these tickets is restricted if you join a
northbound train within area B of the London Travelcard Area
on the route map overleaf, but is unrestricted if you join a
northbound train in area C or D."

Elstree is in Zone C.

Could be interesting to see how they can enforce these restrictions,
since a passenger holding a Travelcard may use the service until Elstree
without restriction and passengers joining from Cricklewood travelling
North can travel without restriction.

http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk...DL_Leaflet.pdf

Duncan

New evening ticket restrictions from King's Cross to Cambridge
 

Duncan wrote:

"The return portion of these tickets is restricted if you join a
northbound train within area B of the London Travelcard Area
on the route map overleaf, but is unrestricted if you join a
northbound train in area C or D."

Which should probably have read as follows:-

"The return portion of these ticket types is restricted if you hold the
return half of a ticket with the outward destination[1] within area B
of the London Travelcard Area on the route map overleaf, and the origin
within area D (or whatever it was), but is unrestricted if you hold the
return half of such a ticket with the outward destination within area C
or D."

I do not believe there is any scope within the fares system to
implement precisely what is being described above, as there may exist
Saver fares over which FCC have no control which may nonetheless be
valid on their services. I suspect they have simplified it to make it
easier to understand, but have instead introduced confusion and
theoretical loopholes.

The way restrictions work, the flow (origin and destination) is
important as restrictions are defined in those terms.

[1] I cannot think of a better wording. Hopefully you know what I
mean...

Neil

New evening ticket restrictions from King's Cross to Cambridge
 

Interestingly, it also states that travelling south is not affected at
all. So you can still get use a CDR to travel back to East Croydon or
Gatwick between 4pm and 7pm. This is due of course to 'keeping
consistency with other operators who run south of London'...
effectively saying that they can't implement it, otherwise everyone
would go on Southern instead!

New evening ticket restrictions from King's Cross to Cambridge
 

Peter Masson wrote:
As I read the leaflet you can use any ODTC, including an out-boundary one,
for an evening peak journey entirely within the Travelcard zones.

Yes, and there is no way they can ever change this. You can always use
an off-peak travelcard, irrespective of the origin point, on any train
for any journey within the travelcard zones.

So yes you CAN use a Luton or Bedford to London all zones off peak
travelcard between London and Elstree & Borehamwood, without
restriction, and there is no way they can ever stop you.

New evening ticket restrictions from King's Cross to Cambridge
 

Stewart Brodie wrote:
So we've had the removal of the refreshments services

Silly, as it wasn't costing First anything to have and seemed like a
good customer benefit!

removal of the onboard announcements from the lovely lady

Not sure we can blame them for this. Sure, they haven't been able to
re-record the 'West Anglia Great Northern' bit, but it seems the issue
is with drivers too lazy to set the system up (and, they're the same
drivers from before). The 317's now have screens, but they're yet to be
enabled to do anything more than tell the time (badly in many cases).

and now bans on actually travelling by train.

A silly one too, as you can get around it in a number of ways (well,
not so easily to Cambridge, but certainly other stations just outside
the Travelcard area).

I wonder what other improvements First have lined up?

A move to diesel stock to solve problems with stock? If they bid for
the Central Trains franchise, they would then continue north of
Peterborough with diesel too, which might be considered a good thing.
Shame, then, that's it all just rumour at the moment.

I notice that they've made a start on their number one priority: repainting
the trains or putting stickers on the side.

Actually, they've done one Thameslink train and one GN train.. the rest
all being stickered up (except 317's which First have forgotten about
completely).

Are they allowed to change the terms & conditions of tickets that have
already been issued? e.g. if I'd bought my Saver ticket 3 weeks ago (it
allows the return journey up to 1 month from the ticket date)

I'd guess not. I wouldn't worry though. They're not allowed to issue
penalty fares, so can only charge the difference. Just travel as normal
and you'll probably find the grippers won't have time to deal with all
the problems they're going to have. Fare evaders will get off scot free
meanwhile.

Jonathan

New evening ticket restrictions from King's Cross to Cambridge
 

Stuart Bell wrote:
... and if you do that it's always worth bearing in mind that your 'gold
card' season ticket *counts* as a network rail card, so gives you a
third off for off-peak travel.

If I buy three people a discounted travelcard with my Gold Card (and
their ticket is marked GOLDC), I wonder if they can travel with me
during the restricted evening period?

Logic says no, as it's an off peak ticket, but surely if they haven't
implicitly mentioned discounted/gold card tickets then they can't
enforce the ruling as it is technically a different ticket?

Jonathan

New evening ticket restrictions from King's Cross to Cambridge
 

In message .com, at
15:21:44 on Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Jonathan Morris
remarked:
I wonder what other improvements First have lined up?

A move to diesel stock to solve problems with stock? If they bid for
the Central Trains franchise, they would then continue north of
Peterborough with diesel too, which might be considered a good thing.
Shame, then, that's it all just rumour at the moment.

FFC's leaflet about evening restrictions appears to rule out any stock
enhancement on the KX-Cambridge line.

The CT franchise is being split up, and the Cambridge services will form
part of two *different* new franchises. First can't cherry-pick just one
service to run, it's the whole new franchise or nothing.

Stansted/Cambridge/Peterborough/Birmingham will be part of the new
Cross-Country franchise (which is losing Reading-Brighton and
Manchester-Glasgow).

Liverpool/Nottingham/Peterborough/Ely/Norwich will (in addition to the
other ex-CT services in the east) become part of a much enlarged new
Midland Mainline franchise.

Apparently, if 'one' agree to run an additional train from Norwich to
Peterborough every two hours, then every other Liverpool-Norwich train
will be sent to Cambridge instead.

So there's a possibility that Cambridge will end up with trains from
'one', FCC, Sucessor-to-Virgin-XC, and successor-to-MML. Whatever
happens, I won't get my direct Nottingham-Stansteds back, though :(
--
Roland Perry

New evening ticket restrictions from King's Cross to Cambridge
 

In message , Duncan
writes
Could be interesting to see how they can enforce these restrictions,
since a passenger holding a Travelcard may use the service until Elstree
without restriction and passengers joining from Cricklewood travelling
North can travel without restriction.

http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk...DL_Leaflet.pdf

The small print has been fairly carefully worded to restrict travel
according to the journey you are making, not just the type of ticket you
use. This is presumably intended to cover the case of passengers from
the outer zones (say Bedford) buying (a) a cheap day return
Bedford-Elstree, and also (b) a London one-day travel-card from Elstree.
My understanding is that these could legally be combined on a train
which did not stop at Elstree, since one is a zonal ticket and the other
is not, and the combined cost would not be much more than the London one
day travel-card from Bedford. But the "journey" restrictions might
prevent returning from London to Bedford in the peak-period. (I have
used examples on the Bedford line, but similar remarks would apply to
the other FCC lines affected by the new restrictions).

On the other hand if you got a train which actually stopped at Elstree,
alighted for a moment, and then boarded the same train again, could you
claim to be making two separate journeys, each one not subject to the
evening peak restriction? I suspect that the train companies would
claim that this was just one journey not two, but how they would prove
that you boarded the same train and not another one, I don't know. The
matter will probably have to be tested in court. I just hope I'm not
the first one to have to test it that way.


--
Clive Page

New evening ticket restrictions from King's Cross to Cambridge
 

Jonathan Morris wrote:
If I buy three people a discounted travelcard with my Gold Card (and
their ticket is marked GOLDC), I wonder if they can travel with me
during the restricted evening period?

Logic says no, as it's an off peak ticket, but surely if they haven't
implicitly mentioned discounted/gold card tickets then they can't
enforce the ruling as it is technically a different ticket?

Is it not a Gold Card discounted off peak Travelcard? In which case you
could ask for a GC discounted peak Travelcard instead, which would be valid.
(Just like you can buy Network Card discounted Standard Day Singles as well
as Cheap Day Singles, in some cases paying extra for no benefit) Or does
using a GC make it a different ticket type and so not a normal Travelcard at
all?

Theo

New evening ticket restrictions from King's Cross to Cambridge
 

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 15:46:03 +0100, Clive Page wrote:

This is presumably intended to cover the case of passengers from
the outer zones (say Bedford) buying (a) a cheap day return
Bedford-Elstree, and also (b) a London one-day travel-card from Elstree.
My understanding is that these could legally be combined on a train
which did not stop at Elstree, since one is a zonal ticket and the other
is not,

Nope - the rule you are thinking of says that *both* tickets must be
zonal.