Thank You Transport for London
On the 31st May 2015, Transport for London take over the lines out of Liverpool Street to Enfield Town, Cheshunt, Chingford and Shenfield and two days ago they published this press release on their web site, which is entitled Passengers set to benefit as key commuter rail services transfer to TfL.
So what does that mean?
1. The services currently operate with National Rail pay as you go fares, which are generally higher than TfL fares. When services transfer, over 80 per cent of current rail journeys will reduce in price and TfL concessions will apply – giving customers substantial savings. The remaining 20 per cent of fares will remain unchanged.
2. All TfL concessions and discounts that currently apply to London Underground, the Docklands Light Railway, and London Overground will apply on the rail services transferring to TfL. I think that means I can travel free to Brentwood and Shenfield using my Freedom Pass.
3. There are a few other technical things that seem beneficial, like Brentwood being moved into Zone 9.
4. I suspect too, that the level of customer service will be better under TfL than Abellio Greater Anglia.
I can’t see any average passengers complaining about this package. Except perhaps those who commute on lines like c2c into London, where there are no fare reductions.
So it’s probably a big thank you to Transport for London.
Three Days In Preston
It may seem strange to go for a holiday in Preston. But I had time to spare and so I went to Liverpool last Wednesday and then spent the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights in the Premier Inn at Preston, with the extension of exploring the area using the trains and then seeing Ipswich at Blackburn on the Saturday.
I have visited Preston several times and I stayed in the hotel once, because it is an easy walk from the rail station.
The council are sorting out the town with new pavements, road layout and maps on liths.
It is a great improvement and will be even better when it is completed.
It would be good if Preston station was improved, especially as it will become an electric hub for local services all over the North West, with new electric services to Blackpool, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester and possibly a few others like Colne in the next few years.
Would I use Preston as a base for a tour of the North West again?
I have one problem with Preston and that is the bad provision of gluten-free food in the town. There is only the one Pizza Express that I would trust and the Marks and Spencer doesn’t stock any gluten-free sandwiches.
Perhaps to stay near the station in Carlisle, Liverpool or Manchester would be better!
I used one of UK rail’s Rover tickets, which is called a Freedom of the North West 4 in 8 Day Rover. This is the rough availability.
The rover allows travel to Carlisle from Barrow, Dumfries, Lockerbie and Hexham.
It also covers the area bounded by the Settle-Carlisle, Barrow, Morecambe, Blackpool, Southport, Shipley to Bradford, Leeds, Halifax, Oldham, Manchester, Liverpool, Warrington Bank Quay to Helsby, Chester, Shotton, West Kirkby and New Brighton.
Available any 4 days within an 8 day period.
And you can use it on all the franchised train companies like Merseyrail, Northern, Virgin and TransPennine! It’s a two part ticket.
My Rover Ticket
No ticket inspector seemed to give it more than a cursory glance.
I actually didn’t know the ticket existed, when I went North to Liverpool. So I should have bought the ticket at Lime Street and saved myself about a tenner. I returned via Manchester, so I used the ticket to get from Blackburn to Manchester Victoria after the match.
These tickets are certainly a good way of having a few days away and seeing the country. This map of the north west part of Northern Rail’s franchise.
Northern Rail NW Map
The southern boundary of the ticket I used is roughly defined by Liverpool, Chester, Warrington and Manchester.
Know Your Ticketing
My trip yesterday illustrated one thing, in that you can save pounds and pence by being smart with ticketing. This picture shows my six tickets from yesterday.
Tickets To Huddersfield
I travelled virtually along to Sheffield on the 07:24 for £17.15 and back on the crowded 20:49 for £19.15. Both tickets were for use with a Railcard in First Class and bought on-line from East Midlands Trains.
If I wanted to do that journey today, the cheapest ticket I can find on the web is £48.85
My Return from Sheffield to Huddersfield was bought from the ticket machine in Dalston Junction for £6.20, which was incidentally ten pence cheaper than one of my tavelling companion’s ticket bought on-line some days earlier.
When No Doesn’t Mean No!
I hate spam e-mails, cold calls and text messages I don’t need.
I am very careful, to whom I give my communication details.
No-one gets my mobile phone number since I gave it to John Lewis, so they could deliver a parcel and an hour later I got a call on it trying to sell me a service to check my PPI status. I only had one issue on that and I sorted it myself.
Courier companies do get annoyed I won’t give them my mobile phone number, but as I’m generally in, what’s wrong with a landline?
What really annoy me are companies, where I’ve bought something on-line and despite saying I want no marketing calls or e-mails, the e-mails keep coming through in a flood.
One of the train companies is a bad serial offender and as I sometimes buy long-distance tickets with them, I have to give them my e-mail and other details. They recently sent me two e-mails; one of which said I might like to travel with my partner and the other that I might like to go and see my mother or other family. The first would have been offensive and truly hurtful to some and as my only family is in Walthamstow, which is Freedom Pass territory, the company did themselves more harm than good.
But increasingly, I’ve found a way to get good priced tickets for shorter journeys, both in and out of London and say between two stations anywhere in the UK.
And that is to buy the ticket after 16:00 on the previous day at the ticket machine at my local Overground station. At least Transport for London only send you targeted e-mails on subjects you have requested like weekend engineering works. And of course no-one has developed an automatic machine that senses your mobile number or e-mail address!
What is needed is a site like the Telephone Preference Service, where you can register your e-mail to stop marketing e-mails.
There is also a marketing opportunity for someone to see up a train ticketing site, for those who need to take trips out of London.
1. Such a site would generally sell out and return tickets from London.
2. It would also sell extension tickets from Zone 6 for Freedom Pass holders. At present you can only do this from a Ticket Office or one of London Overground’s excellent machines.
3. It could also find you a nice day out on say next Thursday, linking to the weather and the sort of place you’d like to visit.
4. It could be geared to Londoners and tourists alike!
In some ways the site would be a clone of the London Overground machines, which are Internet terminals anyway!
When will innovators realise that one person’s annoyance is another’s business opportunity?
Transport for London Is The Fastest Growing Contactless Merchant In The UK
The title of this post is the title of an article in Computer Weekly, which describes the enormous take-up of using contactless cards for payment on London’s transport system. This is the first two paragraphs.
Transport for London (TfL) has become the fastest growing contactless Visa merchant in Europe, and the fastest growing Mastercard and American Express merchant in the UK, a mere six months after it first launched contactless payments in September 2014.
TfL claimed 60 million contactless journeys had now been made on its system since September 2014, 20 million of those since mid-February 2015, and 14% of all journeys made on the system were now contactless.
Perhaps, the most surprising thing, is why so few other transport operators in the UK, Europe and the wider world, have disclosed plans to go to a similar system.
Perhaps, what is most remarkable about London’s contactless payments system, is that there seem to have been no adverse media reports on the system, whereas before it started various political parties were saying it would be a disaster of Titanic proportions.
It probably says more about the average politician’s knowledge of technology, than anything else.
I believe that any city or region that doesn’t sign up for contactless ticketing will see a reduction in visitors and economic activity.
If you take Scotland as an example of a region, where several antique ticketing systems are still in existence, the total population is less than that of Greater London. So if it can be implemented in London, surely an appropriate system can be used in Scotland.
A Dreadful, But Totally Avoidable Train Journey
As a coeliac who avoids gluten and also because I’ve had a stroke and am on Warfarin, I have to be very careful about my diet. For this reason I plan my pit-stops well when I travel by train. If I do change trains, I usually arrange this at a station like Birmingham New Street, Cambridge or Leeds, where I know there is a good M & S Simply Food or a selection of restaurants that I trust.
The last couple of days, I have been in Scotland and on the way back I saw Ipswich Town play at Middlesbrough.
As Middlesbrough is a particularly difficult town for suitable food, I decided to come south as soon as possible after the lunchtime match. I did get lunch of sorts from the M & S in the town.
Quiche And Lemonade On A Bitterly Cold Day
It was bitterly cold and I ate it in the gardens in from of the Crown Court. But hey, two of my family’s bloodlines are Jewish and Huguenot and I reckon at times, they’d have found my simple lunch a veritable feast.
A couple of weeks before, I’d tried to book a First Class ticket from Middlesbrough to Kings Cross, but found the prices rather stratospheric, so in the end I bought a reasonably priced First Class ticket from Middlesbrough to Peterborough changing at York, from where I could get a Great Northern train into London.
I had assumed that the difficult availability of tickets was because of the England-Scotland match at Twickenham and at no time did the on-line booking process on East Coast inform me of the real reason for a ticket shortage.
It was only, when I caught the Virgin Trains East Coast train at York, did the staff inform me of the reason. The East Coast Main Line was subject to engineering work and we’d be using a diversion.
Unlike some other companies, East Coast’s gluten-free offering is non-existent, so I was getting hungrier by the hour, as we were shown the delights of the GNGE in the dark.
As the train was going on to Kings Cross and there were plenty of empty seats, I asked the conductor if I could buy a ticket to complete the journey on the train, rather than decamping at Peterborough to purchase a ticket for another train.
Astronomic prices were mentioned, which bore no relation to the twenty pounds or so, my phone said I would need to spend on-line for a Standard Class ticket. So I got off and bought a ticket in the Booking Office for around ten pounds for Great Northern. Incidentally, the Off-Park Single with a Railcard for East Coast is £14.75. So where did a price of three times that come from?
I finally arrived in London six hours after I left Middlesbrough. To cap it all, the only gluten-free food left in M & S at Kings Cross was one packet of sandwiches.
I could say the sandwiches were stale to add colour to this tale! But they were excellent!
If the works on the line had been flagged up when I tried to book the ticket, I would have only used East Coast as a last resort. After all, I could have gone via Sheffield or Manchester, where I can at least get something to eat. The Booking Office clerk at Peterborough had told me that they have to tell personal callers that there are problems! So why not on the web?
The conductor on the train, said it was all my fault, as I should have gone to Kings Cross, to read all the information about engineering works. Doesn’t that remove one of the advantages of booking on-line?
If you say you want to collect a ticket from a station that is not the starting point of your journey, the train purchase web sites ask you if this is what you want to do. Surely, a warning if there are works or likely delays on your route could be similarly indicated.
The real losers in this tale are Virgin Trains East Coast, as they had an empty seat between Peterborough and Kings Cross, for which I would probably have paid a reasonable amount. Next time I go to York or Doncaster where there is an alternative, I will also probably use it.
Rules For Using German Trains
Deutche Bahn is not the most difficult railway system to use, but from the German part of my trip, it is worthwhile following a few rules.
1. Learn to use the ticket machines
The standard DB ticket machines work well, and as well as issuing tickets are a good way of finding the train to do a later or next day journey.
2. Don’t expect the same frequency you get in the UK
I’ve just looked up Kassel to Frankfurt and compared to say Norwich to London, which is a similar journey, there are perhaps half the trains.
Because of this always make sure you plan the train you are going to use for the next leg of the journey before say you explore something you’ve come to see.
Turn up and go often means a two-hour wait for even the simplest journey.
As an example, at Darmstadt I checked and found the next-but-one direct train to Karlsruhe left in three hours, which was good for my break and explore in the city. So I bought the ticket there and then.
There were other trains, but they meant going back to Frankfurt to get an ICE. These tickets were more expensive.
3. Use the regional trains
As I did between Kassel and Frankfurt, don’t ignore the regional trains, as often they are cheaper and usually pretty comfortable, and often with a panoramic view from a top deck. They may be a bit slower, but often they are less crowded.
4. Take as little luggage as you can
Often German trains are not the level access we see so often in the UK, like on the Overground, so cut your luggage to a minimum, unless you want to lug cases up and down steps.
5. Be prepared for lots of steps
Some stations have lifts and escalators, but most just have steps and some are exceedingly long.
6.Plan your route in detail before you leave
7. Investigate the Bahn cards
If you do a lot of travel on German trains, a Bahn card may be a good idea.
8. Don’t expect to see helpful staff
You do occasionally, but usually you’re left to your own devices and the excellent ticket machines. And if things go really wrong, like they did for me last year at Osnabruck, you won’t get a hotel.
9. A warning about on-line ticketing
When you buy on-line there is no problem and I think it can sometimes be cheaper than a machine. But as in some UK machines for shorter journeys the machines now give a best price, if you discount a specific advanced purchase.
I bought my ticket for Brussels to Kassel on-line before I left and as Deutsche Bahn don’t accept Amex, which is my usual travel card, on-line, I used another credit card.
The ticket inspector needed to see this, as of course I didn’t have an identity card. I don’t think passports are acceptable, as your identity card must be entered in the on-line purchase.
These sort of rules, are perhaps a good reason to use the ticket machines for all shorter journeys.
Conclusion
Work out your methods and at least plan your route before you leave. But don’t bother to buy lads of individual tickets, as German trains do seem to drop me in it, more than say Virgin, East Midlands or First Great Western.
From Kassel To Frankfurt
I could have taken a German ICE train from Kassel to Frankfurt, but I took a regional train, hoping to get some good views from the top deck.
Unfortunately, as the pictures show, the weather wasn’t that good. But you do see the countryside better from the high position and the comfort and ride is of the same standard as something like the ubiquitous Class 377 in the UK.
One reason I took this train, was that I’d been told by the lady in the Tourist Office in Kassel to buy a Hesse Ticket.
My Hesse Ticket
I thought it was a bit steep at €33 for twenty-four hours, but it did include the buses and trams in Frankfurt and the train between the two cities.
The price actually included up to five passengers. But there is no similar ticket for a person like me, who usually travels alone.
How visitor-friendly is that?
Travel First Class For Less Than Standard
I’ve just booked my train ticket for the Rotherham Ipswich match next Saturday on East Midland Trains.
Coming back, the First Class ticket was actually four pounds less than Standard.
It’s actually costing me £38.25 with a Senior Railcard for the First Class Return. Typically, I pay £35.45 for a First Class Return to Ipswich, which is a journey that normally takes under half the time of one to Rotherham.
Musical Buses In Malta
Malta has an efficient bus network and as everybody speaks English and seem to believe in Old World courtesy and common sense, using them is very easy.
It is an ideal place to play musical buses, where you get on a bus see where it goes, explore the destination and then get another.
You pay a flat daily charge of €1.50 and the driver gives you a ticket, which you show on all future journeys. This fare system could in the future be modified with the appropriate reader, to accept bank cards as tickets.
The bus company is the same as that that runs the 38, I regularly use in London; Arriva.
Some bus systems are impenetrable to visitors, but in Malta, buses are easier to use than those in say Manchester or Sheffield.
