New ticket restrictions have been announced with effect from next
Monday to services which depart from King's Cross to Cambridge in the
evening peak. This was expected but this is the first time I've seen a
definitive announcement.

According to a new leaflet "Ticket Changes from 11th June 2006", from
that date "the return portion of Cheap Day return, One (sic) Day
Travelcard (off-peak), Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from [King's Cross and Moorgate]
between 1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday. In addition to this Network
AwayBreaks and Saver tickets are not valid on services which depart
from these services between 1730 and 1830 Monday to Friday."

These restrictions apply to passengers returning from a variety of
inner London stations to stations between Potters Bar to Waterbeach
inclusive. The leaflet explicitly states that passengers returning to
Ely and points north thereof are not affected.

Similar restrictions have been introduced to Peterborough and on the
Thameslink route to Bedford.

PaulO

"Paul Oter" wrote:

New ticket restrictions have been announced with effect from next
Monday to services which depart from King's Cross to Cambridge in the
evening peak. This was expected but this is the first time I've seen a
definitive announcement.

So we've had the removal of the refreshments services, removal of the
onboard announcements from the lovely lady, and now bans on actually
travelling by train. I wonder what other improvements First have lined up?

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


According to a new leaflet "Ticket Changes from 11th June 2006", from
that date "the return portion of Cheap Day return, One (sic) Day
Travelcard (off-peak), Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from [King's Cross and Moorgate]
between 1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday. In addition to this Network
AwayBreaks and Saver tickets are not valid on services which depart
from these services between 1730 and 1830 Monday to Friday."

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)


--
Stewart Brodie

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

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

In message gemini.j0epiy000rv9r03k8.stewart.brodie@ntlworld. com,
Stewart Brodie writes
So we've had the removal of the refreshments services, removal of the
onboard announcements from the lovely lady, and now bans on actually
travelling by train. I wonder what other improvements First have lined up?

On the ex-Thameslink line, the new pocket timetables no longer show by
shading which morning trains count as 'peak hour' so requiring expensive
tickets. When I complained, the reply was that this was to impose
uniformity with their other lines, where they have, apparently, never
bothered to show such useful information.

This reveals quite well, I think, the quality of the management of this
company. I thought that it would be impossible for any company to make
one hanker for the days of Thameslink, but I was wrong. On the
Brighton-Bedford service, as well, the reliability has gone down a lot
since First Capital Connect took over.



--
Clive Page

In message .com, at
14:17:31 on Mon, 5 Jun 2006, Paul Oter
remarked:
According to a new leaflet "Ticket Changes from 11th June 2006",

The new timetable starts then.

from that date "the return portion of Cheap Day return, One (sic) Day
Travelcard (off-peak), Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from [King's Cross and Moorgate]
between 1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday.

Are Network Card discounted tickets still OK?

Similar restrictions have been introduced to Peterborough and on the
Thameslink route to Bedford.

MML still accept off-peak Travelcards in the evening rush, so this may
shift even more of the Luton/Bedford crowd off Thameslink and onto MML.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
According to a new leaflet "Ticket Changes from 11th June 2006",

The new timetable starts then.

from that date "the return portion of Cheap Day return, One (sic) Day
Travelcard (off-peak), Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no
longer valid on services departing from [King's Cross and Moorgate]
between 1630 and 1901 Monday to Friday.

Are Network Card discounted tickets still OK?

I tried to look this up, but weirdly, the FCC website doesn't seem to
have the new restrictions loaded - if you search for tickets from
Cambridge to London on Fri June 16, it's happy to sell you CDRs and
SVRs on FCC with the return leg during the 'banned' hours.

(I recommend taking advantage of this if you need to make the relevant
journey - while the tickets will technically be invalid, there is
absolutely no way the company could get away with enforcing this).

AFAIK every other peak-evening restriction does still allow Network
Card tickets, although of course you need to buy a Network Card SDR not
a CDR.

Similar restrictions have been introduced to Peterborough and on the
Thameslink route to Bedford.

MML still accept off-peak Travelcards in the evening rush, so this may
shift even more of the Luton/Bedford crowd off Thameslink and onto MML.

....although possibly not for very long; certainly if I were an MML
manager I'd be looking at bringing my rules into line with FCC's.

It seems a bit of a draconian restriction set for a surburban operator
- the FGW rule where cheap tickets can only be used on slow trains
(effectively also the case on the WCML with the Virgin/Silverlink
split) is more reasonable.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

In message .com, at
00:45:01 on Tue, 6 Jun 2006, John B remarked:
Similar restrictions have been introduced to Peterborough and on the
Thameslink route to Bedford.

MML still accept off-peak Travelcards in the evening rush, so this may
shift even more of the Luton/Bedford crowd off Thameslink and onto MML.

...although possibly not for very long; certainly if I were an MML
manager I'd be looking at bringing my rules into line with FCC's.

There's something funny going on, either a change of policy or a bug
(surely there's not a rule that you can't buy a Travelcard more than a
month in advance?).

Currently (and until 5th July) you can get a Kettering-London Offpeak
Travelcard for £30, but on 6th July and after the cheapest ticket to
return in the evening peak is apparently a SOR at £57. (A Saver,
restricted in the evening of course, is £32.70)

If that's a permanent change, not a hiccup, the cost of most of my trips
to St Pancras has just gone up thirty quid.

It seems a bit of a draconian restriction set for a surburban operator
- the FGW rule where cheap tickets can only be used on slow trains
(effectively also the case on the WCML with the Virgin/Silverlink
split) is more reasonable.

We seem to have reached a "tipping point" where the rule that you can
use off-peak tickets on suburban, but not the long distance, is blown
apart.
--
Roland Perry

John B wrote:

It seems a bit of a draconian restriction set for a surburban operator
- the FGW rule where cheap tickets can only be used on slow trains
(effectively also the case on the WCML with the Virgin/Silverlink
split) is more reasonable.

Depends on capacity constraints - it may well be that the commuter
trains are more overloaded than the ICs.

There is a precedent to all this; off-peak tickets were not allowed
between 1600 and 1800 in the Merseytravel area for a long time. I have
a feeling, but might be wrong, this only applies to the City Lines
these days, as the Northern and Wirral Lines have a lot more capacity.

That said, all this could lead to an interesting fares anomaly, in that
an off-peak travelcard and a peak single back, or a SDR and an off-peak
travelcard bought separately, may now be cheaper than the available
through ticket.

Neil

In message . com, at
01:54:20 on Tue, 6 Jun 2006, Neil Williams
remarked:
all this could lead to an interesting fares anomaly, in that
an off-peak travelcard and a peak single back, or a SDR and an off-peak
travelcard bought separately, may now be cheaper than the available
through ticket.

For years it was cheaper to buy a SOS from Royston to London (for use in
the morning peak) and a Network Card SOS back (which was valid in the
evening peak). That's because the route didn't have a Peak Travelcard
(only the more common off-peak ones). Eventually they [WAGN] did
introduce the peak Travelcard (for the right price), and saved a lot of
paper and ticket office queues.

--
Roland Perry