Restriction code C4

[Birmingham]

An additional restriction has been added to restriction code C4, which applies to many Off-Peak Day Return tickets between the Thames Valley and other parts of the South East via London:

Not valid on trains timed to depart after 16:00 from London Paddington on Great Western Railway services until 19:01

Due to the time taken to cross London, this effectively forbids many day return journeys between places like Oxford and Kent from returning at a reasonable time (you already had to arrive in London after 10:00) without a much more expensive Anytime Day Return.

 

[jfollows]

So does this mean that instead of training its staff properly, Great Western found it easier to get the fare rules changed so that tickets like Didcot-Ashford now have restrictions in line with what the barrier staff at Paddington think they ought to be?
Thank you for the intelligence, in any case.

 

[Haywain]

That’s horribly restrictive and will make an evening visit to Reading (for football, for example) rather expensive.

 

[Watershed]

There are still other restriction codes without Paddington restrictions. However, the list of tickets using such restriction codes is now much shorter.

 

[Birmingham]

There are still other restriction codes without Paddington restrictions. However, the list of tickets using such restriction codes is now much shorter.

Please may I DM you a ticket I’d like to check?

 

[hkstudent]

Which means forcing people to Thames Valley on Elizabeth Line services, and to Didcot/Oxford on Crosscountry

 

[JonathanH]

This does the tick the simplification box though.

 

[Watershed]

Please may I DM you a ticket I’d like to check?

Sure.

 

[30907]

As far as I can see, this restriction affects
- Offpeak Day Returns
- within the former NSE as far as Oxford or thereabouts.
- so nowhere where you would need to be travelling beyond 2000-2030.

PS if it encourages people to stay in Kent till tea-time, what's not to like?

 

[Haywain]

so nowhere where you would need to be travelling beyond 2000-2030

Are people not allowed evenings out in your world?

 

[Hadders]

This is not good but I fear there will be more to come.7

Interestingly these flows are priced by Southeastern not GWR. I've identified some GTR priced flows that also appear to have had their restrictions changed in an unfavourable manner.

I wonder who has requested these changes....

 

[4COR]

Interestingly these flows are priced by Southeastern not GWR. I've identified some GTR priced flows that also appear to have had their restrictions changed in an unfavourable manner.

Is there resource available for the historical changes to restriction codes at all?

 

[Class800]

What would be the position if the details of the restriction code change between ticket purchase and travel?

 

[Hadders]

Under contract law he restrictions at the time you purchased the ticket would apply, although I would not necessarily expect a hassle free journey.

 

[Watershed]

Is there resource available for the historical changes to restriction codes at all?

It's possible that the page is archived somewhere such as archive.org. But otherwise - no, AFAIK, there is no public record held of historic wordings/electronic restrictions.

What would be the position if the details of the restriction code change between ticket purchase and travel?

The restriction code that applied at the time of purchase would be the one that matters - of course any itinerary would be issued in accordance with this, as evidence of the state of the restriction code. Where you'd be in a trickier situation would be if you had (say) selected a 15xx departure from Paddington, but knowing that you could take a 16xx departure if need be. You'd find it harder to prove that the "not between 16:00-19:00 on GWR from Paddington" restriction didn't exist at the time of your booking.

Under contract law he restrictions at the time you purchased the ticket would apply, although I would not necessarily expect a hassle free journey.

Unfortunately this is correct.

 

[Class800]

It's possible that the page is archived somewhere such as archive.org. But otherwise - no, AFAIK, there is no public record held of historic wordings/electronic restrictions.


The restriction code that applied at the time of purchase would be the one that matters - of course any itinerary would be issued in accordance with this, as evidence of the state of the restriction code. Where you'd be in a trickier situation would be if you had (say) selected a 15xx departure from Paddington, but knowing that you could take a 16xx departure if need be. You'd find it harder to prove that the "not between 16:00-19:00 on GWR from Paddington" restriction didn't exist at the time of your booking.


Unfortunately this is correct.

For flexible tickets, I personally always would select on the itinerary a 'debatable' service if there's any chance I might be using one - to provide an itinerary

 

[30907]

Are people not allowed evenings out in your world?

They are. I was responding to the OP who commented about people not being able to do day trips to Kent.

Interestingly these flows are priced by Southeastern not GWR. I've identified some GTR priced flows that also appear to have had their restrictions changed in an unfavourable manner.

Fares to GA territory from GW are also affected.

In both cases, C4 is the long-standing "Cheap Day Return to London" restriction which logically NSE (and BR(S)?) also applied to fares via London.

 

[Haywain]

I was responding to the OP who commented about people not being able to do day trips to Kent.

What was the point you were trying to make then? I would expect a day out could quite easily involve travel during the evening.

 

[30907]

What was the point you were trying to make then? I would expect a day out could quite easily involve travel during the evening.

The point I was trying to make that a day out in Canterbury or wherever leaving Paddington after 7 for Bedwyn or Oxford doesn't get you home ridiculously late.
(Maybe not with small children, on reflection.)

 

[andylikestrain]

Hi
so could you take any train from Paddington under the ‘old’ C4 restriction?

thanks

 

[Watershed]

Hi
so could you take any train from Paddington under the ‘old’ C4 restriction?

thanks

Yes (subject to the general 'not before 10:00' restriction that applied to all London Terminals).

 

[JonathanH]

Are people not allowed evenings out in your world?

The direction of travel with the PAYG extension and the fares reforms that RDG suggested a few years ago is for exactly that - a peak band in the evening that would act to make evenings out a bit more expensive.

 

[Haywain]

The direction of travel with the PAYG extension and the fares reforms that RDG suggested a few years ago is for exactly that - a peak band in the evening that would act to make evenings out a bit more expensive.

And astonishingly so if you’re travelling from further away.

 

[Hadders]

This really is digraceful but predicatble. The TOCs aided and abetted by the DfT have been doing this sort of things for years. Far from simplification it actually complicates things and is nothing more than a huge fare increase via the back door.

Thankfully I think there's a way round the worst of this for my journeys (for now anyway).

 

[andylikestrain]

This really is digraceful but predicatble. The TOCs aided and abetted by the DfT have been doing this sort of things for years. Far from simplification it actually complicates things and is nothing more than a huge fare increase via the back door.

Thankfully I think there's a way round the worst of this for my journeys (for now anyway).

Just having a look at journeys and codes & I might be wrong, but it looks like the restrictions have been changed for tickets which used to allow any train to be taken from Paddington in the afternoon ‘peak’. For example Cambridge to Bristol off peak return.
Would this mean the only tickets where there are now no such restrictions are Peterborough to Bristol, for example ( both outside the network area)?

 

[Hadders]

Cambridge to Bristol has always had restrictions out of Paddington in the evening peak, as has Peterborough to Bristol.

The issue appears to be journeys wholly within the Network Railcard area, for example Cambridge to Reading, Stevenage to Didcot. Some of these jpurneys had evening restrictions out of Paddington in the evening but the vast majority did not. It seems that the train companies are now working together to put blanket restrictions on everything (some exceptions where stopping services are used).

This is concerning because:

1. It represents a significant price increase, and that's before this year's annual fares increase!
2. It makes many journeys difficult to do with an Off Peak ticket
3. Many of these flows are not priced by GWR, yet restrictions are being applied that affect the GWR portion of the journey. I'm not an expert in this area but I wonder what conversations have been had about this and whether or not it is anti-competitive. I'm sure @yorkie or @Watershed will have a view.

Some people will claim that this simplifies the fares structure. It does no such thing. It actually makes it more complicated for passengers who can legitimately start a journey at a particular time but have to stop it half way through because of an evening restriction that only applies to part of the journey.

As with any restriction like this there will be ways around it for those prepared to do some research. But the majority of passengers will sadly end up paying up.

 

[Watershed]

Peterborough to Bristol is valid from Paddington in the evening peak - the Network 'Rule' refers (though sadly even this is nowhere close to being a guaranteed rule you can rely on, as it used to be).

I'm reluctant to say that what has happened is necessarily anti-competitive, even though it's clearly anti-passenger. The change hasn't actually been to the fares priced by other TOCs, but the content of the time restriction those fares used. I'm not 100% sure how restriction codes are managed but it's possible that GWR simply asked RDG to change code C4. With neither party being subject to FoI (only Southeastern is, in this part of the world) it may be difficult to find out much behind this change.

As others have said, this is simply a huge price rise by the backdoor. GWR may try and claim some moral justification, such as that it's to correct "oversights", but these CDRs haven't had evening restrictions from Paddington for 25 years or more, so this is a difficult position for them to legitimately hold.

 

[Haywain]

I wonder if this actually at the behest of TfL so the Elizabeth Line contactless fares are not somehow undermined by paper tickets.

 

[Watershed]

I wonder if this actually at the behest of TfL so the Elizabeth Line contactless fares are not somehow undermined by paper tickets.

The thing is that GWR-priced CDRs for travel within the contactless PAYG area now uniformly have restriction code O9 - which allows use of all Elizabeth Line services out of Paddington in the evening peak, only listing GWR fast and semi-fast services on which travel isn't permitted. Therefore I can't imagine this being the reason.

I imagine it's just another example of knee-jerk changes to fix an alleged "anomaly" that has led to an incorrect refusal of travel and resultant complaint. This has happened multiple times over the last decade or so.

 

[cygnus44]

They just don’t want passengers on the trains any more, we are just an inconvenience now, look what they are planning at Christmas for us.