Splitting fares on Chiltern

I am grateful to +Ranbir Sahota of Vitis PR for pointing out that splitting the fare for a +Chiltern Railways  journey to London at Banbury can reduce considerably the £50 off-peak return fare when returning from Marylebone during the Monday-Friday evening peak (4pm-7pm).

The trick is to buy a Network Railcard (£28 per annum from Banbury and stations south thereof) and use the trains south that call at Banbury post 10am (ie the 0912 Snow Hill departure onwards).

The Birmingham to Banbury Chiltern Only Anytime Day return is £13, and the Network Railcard Off-Peak Return from Banbury to Marylebone is £25.50 making a grand total of £38.50, a saving of £11.50. NOTE that you cannot use the 1715 Silver Set back to Birmingham as this does not stop at Banbury.

So, a minimum of 3 journeys a year will save you money and give a better journey pattern and, of course, you get the additional benefits in the London & S-E area that the Railcard brings.

+Ranbir Sahota  of Vitis PR emailed me in August (apologies for the delay!) to add:

I have now used this journey combo a number of times now and would suggest that travellers carry a set of used tickets with them in their rail card wallet, as sometimes the ticket office struggles on finding the fare!

Fares, profits, and overcrowding - viewpoints from Rail 714

Barry Doe Fare Dealer column in Rail 714 carries his annual comparison of percentage changes in walk-on fares to / from London since privatisation.

For the period June 1995 - January 2013, he states that (RPI) inflation has risen by 66% so it will perhaps surprise regular commuters to learn that +Chiltern Railways and Virgin Trains standard seasons have risen by 65%, whilst +London Midland has risen by 80%. Hardly the outrageous increases over the period that the media make a meal over each January...

However, walk-on single and return fares for the three companies have all increased markedly.Virgin Trains standard singles lead the way with a 210% increase whilst +Chiltern Railways off-peak day returns have increased by 140%. Only +Chiltern Railways Super Off-peak return matches the 'inflation' increase.

Elsewhere in the issue, Paul Prentice 'delves deep into the controversial world of rail fare increases'. He points out that season ticket holders actually get very steep discounts and that the rail fares policy is largely driven by the Treasury. However, he does suggest that the TOCs could help themselves in PR terms by offering direct debit facilities for annual season ticket purchases, and by making the Carnet system (12 tickets for 10 etc) more visible on their web sites.

Of the three TOCs that I cover, +Chiltern Railways does offer a 12 months for 11 months payment scheme (see http://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/seasonw) whilst routes of +London Midland and Virgin Trains wholly within the West Midlands are covered by the Centro scheme (see http://tickets.networkwestmidlands.co.uk/directdebit/Index_DD.aspx)

As for the 'discount'... the figures for the cheapest standard class annual season are:

+Chiltern Railways Birmingham-London c66% (£7320 / 230 days as compared to £95 anytime return)
+London Midland Birmingham-London c66% (£5240 / 230 days as compared to £69 anytime return)
Virgin Trains Birmingham-London c75% (£9384 / 230 days as compared to £158 anytime return)

Meanwhile, Philip Haigh's report on the Rail 2020 inquiry by the Transport Select Committee is headlined MPs report train operating company profits halved Certainly the table showing net operating profits and Overall Subsidy makes salutary reading.

Finally, Christian Wolmar has a wheeze for solving +London Midland three most overcrowded departures from Euston. Simply make the Virgin Trains 'pick-up' only stops at Milton Keynes into 'open' stops. Simple...

Compare and contrast part 2 - LondonMidland and Chiltern Railways once more

Courtesy of my wife's journey to London yesterday, I am able to compare the morning services from Birmingham experienced recently, and add something to the saga of the splitting 1915...

My wife travelled on the 0733 +London Midland 4 car Desiro from New Street using a Rail Sale First Class Advance ticket priced at £15. She went prepared with refreshments, a dongle in case she needed WiFi, and loads of work as the journey to Euston is timed for 2 hours 12 mins... The First Class compartment had nine passengers on leaving New Street (from where it starts) of whom six were going to Milton Keynes. Naturally, the curse of the WCML struck so that her train was 19 mins late into Euston due to signalling problems at Wolverton - she had built this eventuality into her journey plans...

Last week, I took the 0751 +Chiltern Railways 3 car Clubman from Snow Hill. This train is a prime commuter service into Birmingham so was crowded upon arrival at Snow Hill. Fortunately, most got off at Snow Hill and then Moor Street so actually getting to a table to work proved not to be the problem I feared. My advance standard class ticket cost £40 for which I got free WiFi and the promise (which didn't materialise) of a refreshment trolley. Timing for the Snow Hill - Marylebone run is 104 mins but as the approach to Marylebone is so congested the actual timing was more like 110 mins. From the resigned look on the faces of regular commuters, this was not unusual.

Of course, we both could have used the 0810 Virgin Trains Pendolino from New Street. However, to do so would have cost £63.50 advance standard fare (plus another £4 for the WiFi) and subjected us to the cramped seating and lack of power points that Virgin seem to feel is appropriate for those who don't travel First. So, if travelling on Advance tickets in the morning peak, +London Midland or +Chiltern Railways it is...

Returning from London, my wife took advantage of the Super Off-Peak £27.50 return from Marylebone to use the 1915 service to Snow Hill. As has been noted, this now consists of two Clubman units making 7 cars in all. Monday to Thursday the Units split at Snow Hill and I had questioned Chiltern's information policy about this element of the journey.

Chris Bates (@chrisbates3)has tweeted a photo of the information poster that he says is at Marylebone. Clearly the poster exists but neither my wife last night nor I last week spotted it.... Interestingly, it claims that the split occurs at Moor Street! However, Chiltern are making efforts on board to repeatedly remind passengers that the split will occur. Note that on Fridays, the 7 cars apparently go through to Kidderminster.

One final point on the 1915. Now that the Bicester North stop has been dropped, this service has gone from being regularly overcrowded upon departure to being almost deserted! Definitely worth using at present.

Chiltern Railways / LondonMidland / Virgin Trains round-up

+Chiltern Railways tell me that the following range of meals is being made available on the Silver Set Mainline services for £3.50 each:

Chinese Style Chicken Curry with rice;
Chicken Tikka Masala with rice;
Meatball in tomato sauce with pasta;
Chilli Con Carne with rice;
Sweet Chilli Chicken with noodles;
Vegetable Chow Mein.

More details to follow.

Chiltern's 'Tweet the Manager' and 'Tweet the boss' session dates can be found at http://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/tweet-us The 2013 Meet the Manager dates are at http://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/about-us/meet-the-managers

+London Midland have a Rail sale on their Crewe-Euston services until the end of January which might benefit those living in NE Birmingham and on the Nuneaton, Tamworth, Lichfield or Rugeley routes - see http://www.londonmidland.com/your-journey/faster/ Also, Greenmotion car and van rental are offering LM customers a discount on bookings picked up at Birmingham New Street - quote LM12

Virgin Trains has a Standard class seat sale on until Saturday (19th January 2013) for travel between 21st January and 17th march (excluding 14th-24th February) - see http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/january-sale/

Compare and contrast... LondonMidland and Chiltern Railways

One of the stranger side-effects of the December 2012 timetable changes has been the speeding up of one of the thrice hourly southbound +London Midland Desiro services between Birmingham New Street and London Euston. Regular readers will know that, by changing at Rugby, passengers on the xx.54 services from 0854 through to 1854 can now arrive around 20 minutes earlier into Euston.

So, on Tuesday, I forsook my favourite train (the 1055 +Chiltern Railways Silver Set) to try out the 1054 from New Street. The Desiro unit was waiting at the Platform as I arrived a few minutes early. First Class was empty apart from a LondonMidland senior manager who was busy reading Rail - now that's something you don't see in Chiltern's Business Zone... - so no problem settling down at a table with my trusty laptop. Power point working ok.

Of course, one problem with changing at Rugby for those of us not yet in the tablet age is the loss of working time. Given the time my laptop takes to close down, I had to finish upon leaving Coventry so although the journey time might be shorter working time is considerably lessened too. Otherwise, changing at Rugby is fairly painless (same platform), especially with the reassurance from an App that the connecting Desiro was running on time. A distinct advantage of the change is that Rugby has a Travellers Fare (hadn't realised they were still going) so the lack of refreshments on LM services is overcome.

From Rugby, the First Class was almost busy (10 passengers) but a table still available. Alas, from a timing point of view, although the Class 350/1 from Rugby did the 110mph run to Milton Keynes, post Watford  a signal failure at Bushey meant we were 18 mins late into Euston. At least, LondonMidland couldn't be blamed for that and the Twitter team were most apologetic!

Coming back, I joined the 1913 two-set Desiro service which, although it goes via and divides at Northampton, is timed at only 9 mins longer than the journey time up to London. First Class in the Birmingham portion was relatively quiet (and empty after Birmingham International) so again no problem setting down to work. The only downside - apart from the usual ones of no refreshments and no WiFi - was the 10 minute late arrival into New Street after a delay at Coventry caused by late arriving crew.

So, overall impressions? Well, I love travelling on the Desiros and sometimes it is useful to arrive at Euston rather than Marylebone. BUT to get a fare near to the £27.50 walk-on Chiltern Super Off-peak return I had to book in advance and use the LM Rail Sale 25% discount. Even then, I got a slower service with no refreshments (admittedly only available on Chiltern on the way to London)  and no WiFi. One day, LM, one day...

Chiltern Railways - this is where the fare money goes...

Hats off to Thomas Ableman, Commercial Director of +Chiltern Railways , for being prepared to go on Sky yesterday to explain about the January 2013 fare increases.

According to Thomas, for every £1 that Chiltern takes in the fare box, the following expenditure is incurred:

30p to Network Rail
30p on staff costs
20p on the rolling stock - 12p for leasing and 8p for fuel
16p on other operational costs
4p to the Government in premium payments - Chiltern does not get a direct subsidy

Therefore, Thomas argues, Chiltern does not make a profit and so the regulated fare increases are necessary. He says that Chiltern is on track to make a profit in 2014/2015 when the line to Oxford is open...