Posts Tagged ‘ First Great Western ’

It has been a while since I travelled by train on a Sunday afternoon. I had forgotten how dreadful it is.

Will Adrian be serving up an old fashioned Christmas meal of oyster stew this year? Probably not. Gingerbread- yes and that covers just two of the stories in his round-up of the week.

Adrian hears both critiscism and praise from readers about recent holidays, wonders why only 8 people travel by train to Durham Tees Valley Airport and prepares for English Tourism Week.

Yet again the time approaches when rail fares rise again. We moan, we complain, the media highlight how much annual season ticket costs but rarely do we consider the effects on tourism.

This is not my normal method of travel. Second class suits me fine usually but there were two reasons why I wanted to do this trip. The first is that East Coast re-launched their first class service in May promising all sorts of things and, secondly, I found a first class fare for £25 each way from Kings Cross. Is the service worth it? And how easy is it to get £25 tickets? How is to compared to other train providers?

I was travelling by train from our office in Leatherhead to Leamington Spa. Simple you might have thought. Not a bit of it. It turned into a long drawn out affair that has demonstrated the complexity of ticket buying, the confusion in the minds of railway staff and why people often end up with the wrong ticket.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Leamington Spa is an ideal place for a day out as readers will find out when I’ve finished writing the story.

It’s that time of the year again when ScotRail reintroduce special fares for the over 55’s. It began yesterday, May 1st,and operates until June 20th (be careful of the dates, a few people get it into their heads that it lasts for the whole of June.)
During that time you can travel anywhere in Scotland for £15 single or £19 single if you want to travel first class so it becomes ideal for days out and shortbreaks. . Obviously it isn’t worth buying the ticket if the fare is less than £15 but above that it is a good bargain. Last year I went from Glasgow to Aberdeen and back to Edinburgh for £30 which gave a saving over the time I wanted to go of about £25. But do check the fares. Even on that route, it is possible to buy an advance ticket for just over a tenner to Aberdeen.

Nearly five years ago a railway station opened linking Cardiff with the airport. A 2 mile ride on a courtesy bus then takes passengers from the station to the terminal. The link was designed, quite obviously, to provide a public transport alternative to taking your own car to the airport. As well, there is a bus link generally running about every hour.
Now the BBC is reporting that the courtesy bus system may be withdrawn because it is costing £100,000 per year to keep open. But although it is called a courtesy bus service, train passengers probably pay for it in their ticket. According to the First Great Western website, the bus part of the ticket is valued at £3.70. Arriva who operate the train quote a fare of £3.30 from Cardiff Central to the airport station which includes the complementary bus service. Both can’t be right.

It is hard to believe that there has been no new railway route for a century. Yes, the occasional new station has opened but a new route? Chiltern Railways operates lines out of Marylebone in London to the commuter suburbs of north west London and on into Oxfordshire and Birmingham. For the first time they are going to operate a line to Oxford from Marylebone via High Wycombe and Bicester which will take just over the hour.
But, you will say, there are trains already linking Oxford and London using First Great Western out of Paddington via Reading which also take about an hour. What’s different?