It amuses me that those of us who work for/on/about the railway but not for a TOC don't get some sort of PRIV Railcard, I just get a residential pass for 70 miles (valid for leisure use)...Alexia wrote:I should have just looked on FGW's site!
https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Tra ... l-Railcard
Public Transport in your particular part of the region
How exactly does it do that?WillPS wrote: The Network Railcard pretty nicely illustrates what a total mess privatisation has been as far as everyday passengers are concerned.
Another unsung bargain - 1/3 off all off peak fares. Saves me a fortune each year. Possibly the only rail card which is cheap to start with and doesn't see a price hike every couple of years - it's only £10 and has been since it's introduction 7 years ago.Alexia wrote: West country folk - does the Devon & Cornwall railcard still exist?
I do think though it would make sense to add on a couple of extensions on the area to let you go up to Taunton on the GWML and Yeovil Junction on the WOEL - They may both be in Somerset but they are only just so and are major towns, it seems a bit silly that you can only go as far as Tiverton Parkway/Axminster and then need to pay a premium just to travel the extra 10 minutes to these towns.
Before the D&C card there were two separate cards for Devon and Cornwall, and you could travel to Plymouth on a Cornish railcard even though Plymouth is in Devon, they didn't make you get off at Saltash!
Of course I also think that by now there should be some sort of national railcard available to all, on the lines of the 16-25 card but without the age restriction. Or failing that at least a greater variety of regional railcards for regular travellers - I think I'm right in thinking that the Devon & Cornwall card is one of the only regional railcards to exist isn't it?
The brand makes is nonsensical (in fact I'd go as far as to say it's a complete misnomer) and the restrictions are complicated and/or inconsistent (with harsh penalties and threats of legal action for any mistakes).cwathen wrote:How exactly does it do that?WillPS wrote: The Network Railcard pretty nicely illustrates what a total mess privatisation has been as far as everyday passengers are concerned.
What kind of a "Network" excludes the vast majority of the National Rail network but includes the self-contained Island Line and the entire TfL map with all its various modes?
EDIT: there you go, I've made a mistake - turns out the Network Railcard is not valid in conjunction with any Oyster cards but the [NSE] Gold Card (valid "within the Network Railcard Area") is.
EDIT 2: but yet you can buy Off Peak travelcards with a Network Railcard. I think this basically proves my point.
Your points about the nonsensical nature of it are true, but they are in no way attributable to privatisation; the Network Railcard was introduced by Network SouthEast in 1986 well before privatisation, covering almost the same area that it does today.WillPS wrote:The brand makes is nonsensical (in fact I'd go as far as to say it's a complete misnomer) and the restrictions are complicated and/or inconsistent (with harsh penalties and threats of legal action for any mistakes).cwathen wrote:How exactly does it do that?WillPS wrote: The Network Railcard pretty nicely illustrates what a total mess privatisation has been as far as everyday passengers are concerned.
What kind of a "Network" excludes the vast majority of the National Rail network but includes the self-contained Island Line and the entire TfL map with all its various modes?
EDIT: there you go, I've made a mistake - turns out the Network Railcard is not valid in conjunction with any Oyster cards but the [NSE] Gold Card (valid "within the Network Railcard Area") is.
EDIT 2: but yet you can buy Off Peak travelcards with a Network Railcard. I think this basically proves my point.
Network SouthEast itself was a brilliant exercise in slick branding but it made no sense at all; it was a bizarre creation in that the routes it operated did not particularly lend themselves to being a distinct self contained network nor even was it contained within the South East. In actuality it was a common brand name applied to a large number of disparate and unrelated routes of wildly varying nature. Everything from secondary Intercity routes which were not important enough to get HSTs and be branded as such, to London commuter services to regional services and everything in between was all operated as Network SouthEast. Whilst we're at it, lets not forget that the Waterloo & City line - a tube line - was also part of Network SouthEast before privatisation.
They also operated routes well outside of the South East to as far afield as Milton Keynes and Exeter. Stations as far west as Exeter and going north into the midlands were operated and branded as Network SouthEast stations up until privatisation.
As soon as privatisation happened, the NSE area was not advertised as a self contained franchise because such a franchise would have made no sense. Instead it was just ignored as if it had never existed and today it's former patch forms part of the route map of numerous individual TOCs.
You can't blame everything on privatisation!
It was indeed a separate business unit with separate management and everything. Indeed, so independent were NSE that they would deliberately specify their trains such that they could not run on other parts of the network without modification; and when they ended up buying a bunch of trains originally destined for Regional Railways they had the couplers altered so they could not work in multiple with their identical sisters in the North.
The point was, "Network [SE]" was a customer facing brand. Most stations had it right beneath the station's name on signage. You couldn't miss it. The expectation that a customer arriving at, say, Worcester Shrub Hill is supposed to understand that the "Network Railcard" is only valid on journies which start or end within the "Network Railcard Area" (which includes their station but nothing further north) is mental. It's an utterly meaningless brand.
OK, so there were oddballs - that line which was basically an LUL service but not and the Isle of White services being the two obvious examples; but they were all visibly branded at Network South East services.
By the way, express services were just that, not "secondary intercity" services - and certainly not peculiarities. Regional Railways (and ScotRail) had several 'express' routes, and to this day we have a visible distinction between real CrossCountry InterCity services and mere CrossCountry services (not to mention the many express services which, well, cross the country - Liverpool - Norwich etc.).
The Midland Main Line was a secondary InterCity service; as was Gatwick Express.
The point was, "Network [SE]" was a customer facing brand. Most stations had it right beneath the station's name on signage. You couldn't miss it. The expectation that a customer arriving at, say, Worcester Shrub Hill is supposed to understand that the "Network Railcard" is only valid on journies which start or end within the "Network Railcard Area" (which includes their station but nothing further north) is mental. It's an utterly meaningless brand.
OK, so there were oddballs - that line which was basically an LUL service but not and the Isle of White services being the two obvious examples; but they were all visibly branded at Network South East services.
By the way, express services were just that, not "secondary intercity" services - and certainly not peculiarities. Regional Railways (and ScotRail) had several 'express' routes, and to this day we have a visible distinction between real CrossCountry InterCity services and mere CrossCountry services (not to mention the many express services which, well, cross the country - Liverpool - Norwich etc.).
The Midland Main Line was a secondary InterCity service; as was Gatwick Express.
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scottishtv
- Posts: 743
- Joined: Thu 01 Apr, 2004 15.36
- Location: Edinburgh
Good luck Scottish train passengers - you'll certainly need it! Abellio 'serves' us in East Anglia and it consistently comes bottom in consumer satisfaction polls as the service is awful. I've spent many a journey on the London Liverpool Street - Norwich service trapped in-between carriages as the train is packed, the next one cancelled and my reserved seat in some abyss. And I believe they've been granted a franchise extension...
Abellio also play a part in Northern, as mentioned previously, which is bad (yet not ranked bottom despite the bus carriages) too, although this may not be entirely their fault. If ScotRail passengers are used to clean, on-time trains then I suggest they begin to lower their expectations. And then lower them again. Also if it's the kind of thing you like to moan about then Abellio is a dutch rail company, whilst I believe First are based in Aberdeen?
See @delayed_again for more details of the five star service Abellio provide.
Abellio also play a part in Northern, as mentioned previously, which is bad (yet not ranked bottom despite the bus carriages) too, although this may not be entirely their fault. If ScotRail passengers are used to clean, on-time trains then I suggest they begin to lower their expectations. And then lower them again. Also if it's the kind of thing you like to moan about then Abellio is a dutch rail company, whilst I believe First are based in Aberdeen?
See @delayed_again for more details of the five star service Abellio provide.
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Nick Harvey
- God
- Posts: 4147
- Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 22.26
- Location: Deepest Wiltshire
- Contact:
Does that mean you have to be in custody before you can travel on it? And do you have to escape somewhere up near Carlisle?thegeek wrote:Could be worse. The Scotrail sleeper franchise has gone to Serco.