LNER Advance tickets (Newark - Lincoln)

[High Dyke]

LNER have now introduced Advance purchase tickets for journeys between Newark and Lincoln (LNER only). As a comparison EMR set the fare from Newark - Lincoln. They have they Anytime single at £6.20 (BR Fares option shows Newark Castle - Lincoln fare). however, there is also an LNER Only Anytime Day Single @ £5.30

Source: BR Fares


Sadly one chap fell foul of the cheap ticket option last night trying to use such a ticket on an EMR service from Newark Castle.

The question is why have they introduced this? Are they trying to confuse the travelling public even more? How many unsuspecting victims will be charged a new ticket on an EMR service?

Source: LNER

 

[Tetchytyke]

The question is why have they introduced this? Are they trying to confuse the travelling public even more? How many unsuspecting victims will be charged a new ticket on an EMR service?

1. They may as well.

2. TOC-specfic tickets and train-specific tickets are not new.

3. Only those who aren't paying attention, given you need to select a specific service to buy an advance.

Sounds like your man was trying it on tbh.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Advance tickets are only available on the train the customer chooses, this is fairly obvious by column title "Fixed Tickets" what's the problem? How many people complain about cheap fares.

 

[Haywain]

Not only are the tickets only available/valid on the specified train, the journey would only be from Newark Northgate, not from Newark Castle!

 

[High Dyke]

1. They may as well.

2. TOC-specfic tickets and train-specific tickets are not new.

3. Only those who aren't paying attention, given you need to select a specific service to buy an advance.

Sounds like your man was trying it on tbh.

1. "And why not", as Barry Norman would say.
2. Agreed
3. Funny you should mention that...

Seemingly the poor fellow didn't realise what he had done, much to the amusement of his mates. The Mem says he had a genuine look of bewilderment when she explained his ticket wasn't valid on her EMR service.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Not only are the tickets only available/valid on the specified train, the journey would only be from Newark Northgate, not from Newark Castle!

Certainly be a surprise if the TVM at Newark Castle offers the route "LNER only" Newark Northgate -> Lincoln anytime ticket. Definitely more of a potential problem if travelling from Newark Northgate to Lincoln, where both EMR and LNER offer direct services.

 

[LowLevel]

Advance tickets are only available on the train the customer chooses, this is fairly obvious by column title "Fixed Tickets" what's the problem? How many people complain about cheap fares.

It's a local route of 16 miles. It doesn't require 3 different pricing options when for the previous however many decades it had 1 until LNER appeared.

I loathe these short distance advances with a passion and they are a source of much time wasted and lost dealing with angry passengers who don't see the problem.

The existing fare is not expensive. I've now got to explain to people why it is suddenly 3 times more than they paid the other day, or why having already bought a ticket they now need to pay 3 times as much for another one.

I already spend half my life on Manchester to Liverpool trains fighting with Northern Only or Northern Advance ticket holders "because they're in the North".

People don't function in the way pricing managers decide they do and there is no data collection mechanism that indicates how many tickets are resold for misused advances, or how many guards simply can't be arsed with having the discussion for the 15th time in 5 minutes and just wave everything past, in which case the belligerent train operator wins because people will just keep buying their cheap tickets thinking there's nothing wrong.

I suppose the local charabanc will now have to suffer the plague of the Intercity operators pre departure announcements - IE "if your ticket says LNER only or LNER Advance, you're not allowed on here unless you cough up another 6 quid, so prepare for that or get off - taaaaaa!"

 

[ainsworth74]

It's a local route of 16 miles. It doesn't require 3 different pricing options when for the previous however many decades it had 1 until LNER appeared.

I loathe these short distance advances with a passion and they are a source of much time wasted and lost dealing with angry passengers who don't see the problem.

The existing fare is not expensive. I've now got to explain to people why it is suddenly 3 times more than they paid the other day, or why having already bought a ticket they now need to pay 3 times as much for another one.

I already spend half my life on Manchester to Liverpool trains fighting with Northern Only or Northern Advance ticket holders "because they're in the North".

People don't function in the way pricing managers decide they do and there is no data collection mechanism that indicates how many tickets are resold for misused advances, or how many guards simply can't be arsed with having the discussion for the 15th time in 5 minutes and just wave everything past, in which case the belligerent train operator wins because people will just keep buying their cheap tickets thinking there's nothing wrong.

I suppose the local charabanc will now have to suffer the plague of the Intercity operators pre departure announcements - IE "if your ticket says LNER only or LNER Advance, you're not allowed on here unless you cough up another 6 quid, so prepare for that or get off - taaaaaa!"

Completely agree. And I think these are the sorts of cases that help give rise and real ammunition to the "railway ticketing is too complicated!" argument. My own local line has seen this "fare type inflation" in recent years.

Redcar Central to Middlesbrough is a journey a little under eight miles taking around twelve minutes. About six or seven years ago there were four fares. A single, a day return, a Duo and a season ticket. Nice and simple. Then Northern introduced off-peak fares so there six fares (two different flavours of single and return along with the Duo and season) and passengers had to start worrying about if their journey was peak or off-peak (difference of less than £1 and currently only 40p for the single and 80p on the return) but not insurmountable. Then Northern introduced three tiers of APs onto the route as well which are dirt cheap (currently between £1.60 and £1.80 at 10p increments) but added a further ticket type taking us to seven different types of tickets. Then TPE arrived on the scene and added TPE only Anytime and Off-Peak singles and returns along with TPE Only seasons taking us to having twelve different types of fare for our passenger to considering. Then most recently flexi-seasons were added including a TPE Only flavour taking us to the present situation where our eight mile, twelve minute journey has fourteen different fares. Fourteen! The most expensive return (Anytime Day routed Any Permitted) is £5.10 and the cheapest (Off-Peak Day routed TPE Only) is £3.50 in between are the other flavours of return described above. That's the range of price we're talking about.

Madness. Absolute total madness. I'm far from convinced that the passenger is actually well served by having fourteen ticket types now rather than the four they had previously. And yet this seems to the be the direction of travel that TOCs have been going in.

 

[David Burrows]

It is surely not unreasonable for LNER to have their own fares for Newark Northgate to Lincoln since the current (from December) Mon-Fri for the line has NO EMR trains after 1039 until 2315, the only services are by LNER. The only EMR services during most of the day are from are from Newark Castle. Thus, with 6 trains a day between Newark NG and Lincoln (all between the 1039 and 2315) LNER have as many trains a day as EMR.

 

[alistairlees]

It is surely not unreasonable for LNER to have their own fares for Newark Northgate to Lincoln since the current (from December) Mon-Fri for the line has NO EMR trains after 1039 until 2315, the only services are by LNER. The only EMR services during most of the day are from are from Newark Castle. Thus, with 6 trains a day between Newark NG and Lincoln (all between the 1039 and 2315) LNER have as many trains a day as EMR.

All the TOCs are directed by (and, in some cases, such as LNER, owned by) the DfT. Does the DfT want many more fares, or does it simply have no idea what is going on, or what the solution is?

Customers travelling between Newark NG and Lincoln will not give a toss who the operator is - this is a local journey with little room for differentiation in the short time it takes to travel (I appreciate the rolling stock used is different). In any case, there is a monopoly provider for over 12 hours every day; it is not as if the customer can make any meaningful choice.

There really should be no Advance fares on journeys like this - just good value walk up fares.

Ainsworth74's example above is shocking, and shows how little train operators understand what makes for a good product that customers will understand, buy and trust.

 

[Haywain]

All the TOCs are directed by (and, in some cases, such as LNER, owned by) the DfT.

And, I’m guessing, all on contracts which have fare box revenue as part of the performance criteria, doing nothing to encourage the simplification you suggest.

 

[Starmill]

I don't think there are many journeys that you can actually make with LNER for which an Advance is not now on sale, subject to the usual availability. You can even buy Haymarket to Edinburgh should you wish to...

The once per week stations (Carrbridge, Blair Atholl, Dunkeld & Birnam, Dunblane) don't have them to other Scottish stations, but the once per day or more frequent all do; even combinations which will have exceedingly low sales such as Kingussie to Aviemore and Stonehaven to Montrose.

The recent addition of Wakefield to Doncaster is fairly welcome too given the Anytime Day Single is a crazy price.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I don't think there are many journeys that you can actually make with LNER for which an Advance is not now on sale, subject to the usual availability. You can even buy Haymarket to Edinburgh should you wish to...

The once per week stations (Carrbridge, Dunkeld & Birnam, Dunblane) don't have them to other Scottish stations, but the once per day or more frequent all do; even combinations which will have exceedingly low sales such as Kingussie to Aviemore and Stonehaven to Montrose.

The recent addition of Wakefield to Doncaster is fairly welcome too given the Anytime Day Single is a crazy price.

I've just finished updataing RCS for all the new Advances in the last fares round. You really wouldn't believe where we have Advances from/to

 

[Starmill]

I've just finished updataing RCS for all the new Advances in the last fares round. You really wouldn't believe where we have Advances from/to

I probably would given I've just pointed out ones where you still don't what about the poor old dears going from Carrbridge to Aviemore for a coffee on a Sunday morning??? Can't believe you've overlooked them

 

[Wallsendmag]

I was thinking of the LNER only route Advances to Huddersfield.

 

[Starmill]

I was thinking of the LNER only route Advances to Huddersfield.

I will watch and wait with great interest to see if Northern respond by adding their own to, for example, Horsforth to Leeds.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I will watch and wait with great interest to see if Northern respond by adding their own to, for example, Horsforth to Leeds.

Given that we don't run to Huddersfield I found that one quite surprising.

 

[Starmill]

Given that we don't run to Huddersfield I found that one quite surprising.

Avanti have never run between Wrexham and Shrewsbury either but their Advances have been available for that journey for at least a decade.

 

[LowLevel]

An anecdotal find from my recent first working of a Northgate train since these fares were introduced.

Just under 40 passengers, 6 of whom were on incorrect LNER tickets boarded at Northgate. 6 instances of having to explain that LNER have chosen to introduce these tickets, then the unpleasant demanding of more money when they think they've already paid - particular when you're asking 4 times more than they've just paid. "But you've always been able to use any train from Newark to Lincoln, there's not even an Off Peak ticket!". Hope LNER enjoy their around a tenner for the 10 minutes of nonsense they caused me.

 

[Class800]

An anecdotal find from my recent first working of a Northgate train since these fares were introduced.

Just under 40 passengers, 6 of whom were on incorrect LNER tickets boarded at Northgate. 6 instances of having to explain that LNER have chosen to introduce these tickets, then the unpleasant demanding of more money when they think they've already paid - particular when you're asking 4 times more than they've just paid. "But you've always been able to use any train from Newark to Lincoln, there's not even an Off Peak ticket!". Hope LNER enjoy their around a tenner for the 10 minutes of nonsense they caused me.

What was the ticket and for what reason was it invalid? An advance? Routing?

 

[JonathanH]

What was the ticket and for what reason was it invalid? An advance? Routing?

Passengers using a 'LNER only' advance between Newark and Lincoln, booked for a specific LNER service, on an EMR local service, worked by the OP, by the looks of things.

Obviously invalid but the kind of thing passengers do when they see the cheapest fare and don't look at its conditions.

 

[ainsworth74]

What was the ticket and for what reason was it invalid? An advance? Routing?

@LowLevel is an EMR guard so they'll have either been LNER APs or the LNER Only Anytime on one of his trains.

 

[Class800]

@LowLevel is an EMR guard so they'll have either been LNER APs or the LNER Only Anytime on one of his trains.

Advances understood. TOC specific anytimes - these can be a bit confusing, as people are more used to route specific anytimes. But it's a tricky situation for all concerned.

 

[LowLevel]

What was the ticket and for what reason was it invalid? An advance? Routing?

On this occasion they were all Advances booked for LNER trains travelling with a different TOC at a different time. Consequently replacement tickets sold at the cheapest available rate to replace them, so the anytime day single with railcard discount, or without for those who didn't have one.

It's a matter of a few quid but the passengers still become very grumpy over it.

I am perhaps overly bitter about it since Northern made working trains between Manchester and Liverpool a total nightmare a few years ago. Trying to take 16 quid off someone when they've paid 4 quid for what the Trainline describes as *Cheapest!* on a train scheduled 4 minutes behind your own results in a lot of heated conversations, or, if you stop bothering as a result and just wave them all by or choose to tidy the train instead, a lot of lost revenue instead.

Advances understood. TOC specific anytimes - these can be a bit confusing, as people are more used to route specific anytimes. But it's a tricky situation for all concerned.

They can indeed be confusing - however no one asked LNER to pollute the simple local service pricing with a 60p saving on a £7.00 SDR as an ORCATS raid.

 

[Starmill]

The LNER only flexible fares are very poor value for money in most cases, offering only a small % discount. However at least they have a reasonable service level between Newark and Lincoln, unlike the two per day between Edinburgh and Falkirk. The Advance tickets make more sense.

 

[ainsworth74]

They can indeed be confusing - however no one asked LNER to pollute the simple local service pricing with a 60p saving on a £7.00 SDR as an ORCATS raid.

Crackers isn't it? This sort of thing has often felt like the industry shooting itself in the foot. Sometimes the aggro of the confused passengers can be worth it (the occasional price war that breaks out on my bit of the ECML can often lead to some reasonable priced flexible tickets with decent savings) but on these local flows like yours and the one I illustrated it's total madness. That's quite apart from having APs on local journeys (why does Newark to Lincoln need APs at all? Why does Redcar to Middlesbrough?)!