Mcr Warrior
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That's as may be, but for Leeds supporters travelling back to Yorkshire next Wednesday, the 2333 from Kings Cross could well be like the last helicopter out of Saigon.
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LNER London - Leeds £220 single on Social Media/Yorkshire Evening Post
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Adam Williams
Established Member
Since I looked this up elsewhere, these were the availabilities left on this return service at ~ around the time of the original Twitter post (half an hour before):
You can see exactly what's happened here. No availability in standard class en-route, only a handful of very expensive walk-up first class fares. I can confirm no splits were available too - standard class appeared to be completely full up. Young people are disproportionately affected too, because they're not able to use their railcard on walk-up first class tickets. The total price on Trainline is likely a combination of a Standard class Advance for the outward (which may be split somewhere, and is probably railcard-discountable), and one of the tickets above.
The mandatory reservations flag then means that instead of flogging the walk-up prices in standard that have previously been identified at the start of this thread:
customers are instead mis-sold these eye-wateringly expensive fares (when they frankly don't want to travel in 1st), which are the only ones a compliant TIS is allowed to sell before simply showing a service as "Sold Out". Meanwhile if they go to a ticket office they'll pay £44.20 with their 16-25 railcard. That's a deliberate policy leading to overcharging to the tune of £152.60.
Edit: re-hosted image.
You can see exactly what's happened here. No availability in standard class en-route, only a handful of very expensive walk-up first class fares. I can confirm no splits were available too - standard class appeared to be completely full up. Young people are disproportionately affected too, because they're not able to use their railcard on walk-up first class tickets. The total price on Trainline is likely a combination of a Standard class Advance for the outward (which may be split somewhere, and is probably railcard-discountable), and one of the tickets above.
The mandatory reservations flag then means that instead of flogging the walk-up prices in standard that have previously been identified at the start of this thread:
customers are instead mis-sold these eye-wateringly expensive fares (when they frankly don't want to travel in 1st), which are the only ones a compliant TIS is allowed to sell before simply showing a service as "Sold Out". Meanwhile if they go to a ticket office they'll pay £44.20 with their 16-25 railcard. That's a deliberate policy leading to overcharging to the tune of £152.60.
Edit: re-hosted image.
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Great racket for LNER though if they can screw £196.80 out of someone who should have only paid £44.20. You can see why they don't want to be honest about the reservation status.Since I looked this up elsewhere, these were the availabilities left on this return service at ~ around the time of the original Twitter post (half an hour before):
You can see exactly what's happened here. No availability in standard class en-route, only a handful of very expensive walk-up first class fares. No splits available - standard class appeared to be completely full up. Young people are disproportionately affected too, because they're not able to use their railcard on walk-up first class tickets. The total price on Trainline is likely a combination of a Standard class Advance for the outward (which may be split somewhere, and is probably railcard-discountable), and one of the tickets above.
The mandatory reservations flag then means that instead of flogging the walk-up prices in standard that have previously been identified at the start of this thread:
customers are instead mis-sold these eye-wateringly expensive fares (when they frankly don't want to travel in 1st), which are the only ones a compliant TIS is allowed to sell before simply showing a service as "Sold Out". Meanwhile if they go to a ticket office they'll pay £44.20 with their 16-25 railcard.
Yes, as it doesn't use a journey planner interface.
I've no doubt that's true, but the comment I replied to was talking about the effect on those who had already bought First Class tickets.
paul1609
Established Member
Megabus have tickets on their late night service to Leeds for £14.99, National Express £ 30.
Adam Williams
Established Member
The headlines write themselves really.
"Getting back after the match? £15 on the coach, or £220 with the UK's railway"
What a massive own goal (pun unintentional).
The railway could just turn round and say that its service is full, and the coach services aren't, which shows how popular rail travel is.
Thing is, the train isn’t full, because you can stand, or sit in an unreserved seat (Coach C).
There was a post on here that suggested that LNER have reduced the amount of unreserved seating on their trains. There have also been suggestions made that LNER don't want to see passengers standing for long distances.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Nobody wants to see passengers standing for long distances. Views just differ on how to achieve that.
Adam Williams
Established Member
And for what definition of "long distance" is LNER's approach to reservations a justifiable measure to put in place?
I have to stand from time to time on Chiltern and LNWR. Sometimes that's necessary for the entire journey. Is it pleasant? No. But it got me to where I needed to be, and I didn't have to pay £220 for the train.
At least I can actually buy a walk-up ticket for my train, so I can make that decision as to whether to try and board or not myself.
I'm not convinced Leeds to London takes much longer than Brum (Moor St) to London, either.
Haywain
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Or on how to achieve it in current circumstances. I don't think anyone would disagree that more rolling stock is the best answer.
Silver Cobra
Member
One thing to place into consideration in this matter is that availability of Class 80x units for LNER is currently rather patchy, as a result of the ongoing industrial action at Hitachi. While this Wednesday is not an actual day of action for Hitachi, this Thursday is, so I would imagine that limits what LNER can do with regards to strengthening the service in question. Even now we are seeing 9-car and 10-car formations being substituted by 5-cars or outright cancelled due to the backlog on maintenance caused by previous industrial action.
paul1609
Established Member
That's not really fair to the coach service, if their service is full and they think they can sell another one they will provide a relief. I've seen the overnight national express service to Edinburgh with 8 relief coaches from Victoria during festival season before. The railway can't do that because its management isn't good enough, it's not reactive to passengers needs and it's costs are just way out of control.
Adam Williams
Established Member
Have you ever seen a coach operator charge £220 for a seat with surge pricing, even when the coach is nearly full and there's high demand?
That's what makes the rail industry look bad here.
"The railway" (albeit not LNER) does in fact sometimes provide extra capacity after events in Cardiff, though perhaps with more notice than was the case here and with an earlier finish time.
I believe the reason there's a daily return EMU GWR service between London and Cardiff is to maintain staff competence so that they can be used as relief services after Rugby matches and the like.
This seems to me like the management being good enough to take measures to allow them to be reactive to passenger needs.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I didn't refer to what methods should be used, but rather to the principle that standing should be avoided on long journeys where possible. Another method is providing enough capacity!
There is an official definition of how long it's appropriate to have to stand, isn't there? Wasn't it about 20 minutes? I can't find it now.
paul1609
Established Member
At 23.30 depots and stations all over London are full of rolling stock that won't turn a wheel until the next morning that is perfectly suitable for a football special to Leeds. It's just poor resource management and out of control costs.
Haywain
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Almost all of that stock won't meet the requirements of being available, having route clearance and having suitably qualified crew available, so is actually of little use.
My understanding is that a walk up standard class ticket without seat reservation does not legally guarantee you a seat.
Promote that more widely and just let people board if they wish.
If it puts people off travelling then that is a by product, whilst still enabling those who wish to travel to do so.
Joe Paxton
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I'm curious to know if that is what is happening if someone were to go to an LNER ticket office... or if the ticket office (and indeed LNER's ticket office TIS) might echo what the LNER online booking engine and app show, i.e. the train is 'Sold out' / "Not available" ?
185
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If walk-up tickets become unable to buy when walking up, the clueless MD should be out the door, along with his entire leadership team. Other operators run similar intercity services from other London Termini and seem to manage chaotically but adequate after footy. Running a 5-car TPE size set on the ECML, after a major event is simply an act of gross misconduct - bringing the business into disrepute by the exec team. If he wants to run little trains - usually full and standing, Mr Horn should have stayed at East Midlands.
To be fair the train would need to be serviced in Leeds at the end of the journey, and then covered on its next job by something else the following morning, while that train is in Leeds and not London. I agree this should be arranged for, but I don't think you can deny this will come at a cost.
paul1609
Established Member
Agreed that however is the mismanagement of resources.
Adam Williams
Established Member
Given recent
185
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Disagree. The MD has an extensive amount of wriggle room within his state run business and there is an expectation that they will cope with passenger numbers or adjust it's use of the substantial state funding to afford to meet this expectation.
Joe Paxton
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To be clear, my post above (#83) should be purely read as a genuine question, rather than as a statement of speculation.
Avanti West Coast plays a similar game with the mandatory reservartions flag these days does it not?