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