> In message <yY6dnf9EZov7HD_NnZ2dnUVZ7sedn...@bt.com>, at 17:20:31 on Tue, > 13 Nov 2012, Paul Scott <pmnotscottva...@btinternet.com> remarked:
>>>> 'Third class' rail travel could return for first time since 1950s, >>>> unions claim
>>>> [snip article]
>>>> We already have a fucking third class railway!!!
>>> Do we really?
>>Was this also the considered opinion when that nice Mr Branson ordered all >>those shiny new trains that were supposed to have three classes?
> On the assumption that a "third" class (as opposed to Third Class) is > actually an upgrade for people who have dared to pay the walk-up (rather > than Advance) fare, I'm all in favour.
and it's particularly wrong that those who have paid the advanced fare get a guaranteed reserved seat and those who have paid the "full" fare don't
(and it isn't just here that does this, I got ****ed over by that rule in Sweden)
> and it's particularly wrong that those who have paid the advanced fare
> get a guaranteed reserved seat and those who have paid the "full" fare
> don't
The easiest way to "solve" that might be to stop walk-on travel. Or maybe do DB style advance tickets with train but not seat reservations.
> (and it isn't just here that does this, I got ****ed over by that rule
> in Sweden)
Last year I travelled from Stockholm to Copenhagen. An advance ticket only cost ~10 quid, which is less than two pints there(!). But the window seat didn't actually have a window. Fortunately the guard was sympathetic, and found us other seats.
Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> I only used it once, and spent most of the 1hr journey arguing with the
> staff about whether my open ticket qualified me. Eventually they agreed
> it did, but not before they had done incalculable damage to their brand.
That being to some extent a problem with officious GNER (good riddance),
not the concept per se...
Neil
-- Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK. Put first name before the at to reply.
In message <1633886335374570087.973946wensleydale-pacersplace.org...@news.individual
.net>, at 07:26:23 on Wed, 14 Nov 2012, Neil Williams <wensleyd...@pacersplace.org.uk> remarked:
>> I only used it once, and spent most of the 1hr journey arguing with the
>> staff about whether my open ticket qualified me. Eventually they agreed
>> it did, but not before they had done incalculable damage to their brand.
>That being to some extent a problem with officious GNER (good riddance),
>not the concept per se...
The current operator has reinvented a similar stick for their own (and passengers') backs with the "free food in First Class, but only if you are on the train long enough". Grantham-London is right on the edge, and my test-purchase was almost as unhappy an experience as the Standard Plus episode.
-- Roland Perry
> > 'Third class' rail travel could return for first time since 1950s, unions claim
> > [snip article]
> > We already have a fucking third class railway!!!
> Do we really?
> Anyway, anyone else think three classes is too few?
AFIK UK Railways generally have two classes, 1st and 3rd. I know
there are exceptions. And sometimes they are given other names. But,
2nd was abolished and 1st & 3rd is they norm.
>> > 'Third class' rail travel could return for first time since 1950s, unions claim
>> > [snip article]
>> > We already have a fucking third class railway!!!
>> Do we really?
>> Anyway, anyone else think three classes is too few?
>AFIK UK Railways generally have two classes, 1st and 3rd. I know
>there are exceptions. And sometimes they are given other names. But,
>2nd was abolished and 1st & 3rd is they norm.
>No?
No, Third Class was renamed Second Class over 50 years ago.
>>> 'Third class' rail travel could return for first time since 1950s, unions claim
>>> [snip article]
>>> We already have a fucking third class railway!!!
>> Do we really?
>> Anyway, anyone else think three classes is too few?
> AFIK UK Railways generally have two classes, 1st and 3rd. I know
> there are exceptions. And sometimes they are given other names. But,
> 2nd was abolished and 1st & 3rd is they norm.
> No?
I think the key to the oddity of the lack of 2nd class in the UK has its roots in the Railway Regulation Act 1844. This act enforced certain minimum standards for 3rd class passengers (fares not more than 1d/mile, enclosed carriages with seats, at least 1 train per day each way calling at all stations, averaging not less than 12 mph). Later in the C19th/early C20th, railways generally (in other counries as well as the UK) eliminated the standard of accommodation that had been 3rd class. Because the law made explicit demands on the provision of facilities for 3rd class passengers, the railways had to continue offering 3rd class. The solution was to eliminate what had been 3rd class and re-designate what had been 2nd class to 3rd class. BR officially redesignated 3rd class to 2nd class in 1956 and later (1980s?) to "standard" (note, not "standard class").
>> 'Third class' rail travel could return for first time since 1950s, unions claim
>> [snip article]
>> We already have a fucking third class railway!!!
> Do we really?
> Anyway, anyone else think three classes is too few?
Sleepers generally have quite a range of accommodation on offer. On City Night Line, you can get a seat, a berth in a 4 person or a 6 person couchette, a berth in a 3, 2 or 1 person plain sleeper compartment or a 3, 2 or 1 person en-suite "deluxe" sleeper compartment (the 3 berth compartments are only available on limited routes, where the older single deck sleepers run). That makes 9 distinct grades of accommodation for the same train. On various occassions I have used 4 of them, depending on budget and availability (I've never done the seats).
>I think the key to the oddity of the lack of 2nd class in the UK has its >roots in the Railway Regulation Act 1844. This act enforced certain >minimum standards for 3rd class passengers (fares not more than 1d/mile, >enclosed carriages with seats, at least 1 train per day each way calling at >all stations, averaging not less than 12 mph). Later in the C19th/early >C20th, railways generally (in other counries as well as the UK) eliminated >the standard of accommodation that had been 3rd class. Because the law >made explicit demands on the provision of facilities for 3rd class >passengers, the railways had to continue offering 3rd class. The solution >was to eliminate what had been 3rd class and re-designate what had been 2nd >class to 3rd class. BR officially redesignated 3rd class to 2nd class in >1956 and later (1980s?) to "standard" (note, not "standard class").
The abolition of 2nd class began with some railways, among them the Great North of Scotland, which only offered 1st and 3rd from the start. But the impetus took off when, in 1875, the Midland Railway abolished 2nd class and reduced its 1st class fares to the previous 2nd class level. It also redesignated its 2nd class coaches/compartments as 3rd, so offering a step change improvement in comfort for 3rd class ticket-holders. This spread, so that on most railways by WW1 and all by WW2 2nd class had been abolished, leaving only 1st and 3rd. The exception was Continental Boat Trains which retained three classers until 1956. When they became two class only the opportunity was taken to redesignate 3rd as 2nd.
>>>> 'Third class' rail travel could return for first time since 1950s, unions claim
>>>> [snip article]
>>>> We already have a fucking third class railway!!!
>>> Do we really?
>>> Anyway, anyone else think three classes is too few?
>> AFIK UK Railways generally have two classes, 1st and 3rd. I know
>> there are exceptions. And sometimes they are given other names. But,
>> 2nd was abolished and 1st & 3rd is they norm.
>> No?
>I think the key to the oddity of the lack of 2nd class in the UK has >its roots in the Railway Regulation Act 1844. This act enforced >certain minimum standards for 3rd class passengers (fares not more than >1d/mile, enclosed carriages with seats, at least 1 train per day each >way calling at all stations, averaging not less than 12 mph). Later in >the C19th/early C20th, railways generally (in other counries as well as >the UK) eliminated the standard of accommodation that had been 3rd >class. Because the law made explicit demands on the provision of >facilities for 3rd class passengers, the railways had to continue >offering 3rd class. The solution was to eliminate what had been 3rd >class and re-designate what had been 2nd class to 3rd class. BR >officially redesignated 3rd class to 2nd class in 1956 and later >(1980s?) to "standard" (note, not "standard class").
That seems to be the Wonkypaedia claim. AFAIAA the designation
remained as Third Class rather than Second Class as it was deemed
equivalent to Third Class accommodation (i.e. standard/ordinary) in
ferries and trains elsewhere in Europe with three classes
consequentially lasting longer on boat trains. Through-ticketing did
not start with the Common Market.
> Some of us think that two classes is one too many. Many of the > overcrowding problems could be solved by converting all first class area > to standard. Yes, it might mean some affluent people stopped using > trains, but it would give the vast majority a better chance of getting a > seat.
> The "Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" principle worked well for some > shopping chains until they lost their way in recent years. Given a > chance, it could work on railways.
Most supermarkets (especially the biggest most successful ones) have three
classes of products these days: There's the expensive Truly Irresistible,
Taste the Difference or The Best range, the normal range and the cheap
Basics, Savers or Value range.
>AFIK UK Railways generally have two classes, 1st and 3rd. I know
>there are exceptions. And sometimes they are given other names. But,
>2nd was abolished and 1st & 3rd is they norm.
>No?
No.
On the Midland in 1874, who pioneered the change, in terms of the rate
per mile the First class fare was abolished and Second and Third class
fares remained.
In terms of stock, Third Class stock was abolished and First and Second
class stock remained.
In terms of numbering on the carriage doors, Second Class compartment
numbers were abolished and First and Third remained.
So in one or other respect, every class was changed around.
According to F.S.Williams though the real change seems to have been in
1872, prior to this re-classification, when all Midland trains started
to carry third class carriages instead of just the slow and inconvenient
Parliamentary stopping trains.
As a result of this change, which had itself proved extremely worthwhile
in receipts versus operating costs, Williams says significant numbers
of second class passengers traded down to save money, whilst in many
areas first class passengers were (I think) already only being charged
at the second class rate. The last clause is not clear, he could have
meant first class passengers were also trading down.
Anyway, he states that including cost savings from the abolition the
Midland's calculations predicted a loss of only £25,000 on their gross
passenger receipts of £1.4 million even before allowing for any increases
in patronage resulting.
I have digressed somewhat but you can see the actual situation was,
as so often, much less simplistic than your question suggests.
Nick
-- "The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996
> I only used it once, and spent most of the 1hr journey arguing with the
> staff about whether my open ticket qualified me. Eventually they agreed
> it did, but not before they had done incalculable damage to their brand.
I used it a lot on GNER and it was good. I recall free (non alcoholic) drinks and biscuits served at your seat, free newspapers and a steward who would fetch orders from the buffet. Run off his feet on a morning with bacon baps. A nice bit of recognition for passengers who had paid for a full, non discounted open ticket
> Like most "new" ideas, this isn't new at all. They have left it just
> long enough since GNER's demise for most people - but not all - to
> have forgotten about Silver Standard.
One solution might be to allow full fare standard ticket holders to
travel in first class off peak.
I believe that was tried before at weekends.
Or just go the whole hog and fill that rather unfathomable gap in the
market, namely the lack of an off-peak turn up and go first class
fare.
I've never understood why such a fare makes sense to the marketeers
for standard class but not for first class.
In message <2c0ccccf-0384-4e19-9696-9a9f30906...@q1g2000vbx.googlegroups.com>, at 05:07:20 on Thu, 15 Nov 2012, allantracy <allanbintr...@ireland.com> remarked:
>> >Like GNER's Silver Standard?
>> Like most "new" ideas, this isn't new at all. They have left it just
>> long enough since GNER's demise for most people - but not all - to
>> have forgotten about Silver Standard.
>One solution might be to allow full fare standard ticket holders to
>travel in first class off peak.
>I believe that was tried before at weekends.
Usually for a small fee like 5. And even if it was one of the shrinking number of routes with any catering in FC, there wouldn't be any at the weekend.
>Or just go the whole hog and fill that rather unfathomable gap in the
>market, namely the lack of an off-peak turn up and go first class
>fare.
>I've never understood why such a fare makes sense to the marketeers
>for standard class but not for first class.
They must have "done the math" and decided the revenue abstracted from the current FC passengers who are clearly funded/prepared to pay for Anytime-only tickets (and who in future could travel most of the day at a substantial discount) outweighs the revenue from the number of Standard passengers who would be tempted to upgrade.
-- Roland Perry
> They must have "done the math" and decided the revenue abstracted from
> the current FC passengers who are clearly funded/prepared to pay for
> Anytime-only tickets (and who in future could travel most of the day at
> a substantial discount) outweighs the revenue from the number of
> Standard passengers who would be tempted to upgrade.
I would love to see the maths that arrived at the conclusion that book
ahead discount first class fares make sense but not off peak turn up
and go ones.
Some of the TOCs are even offering book ahead first class in the peaks
nowadays.
At the end of the day, the only maths that should count are empty
seats i.e. revenue going begging.
Maybe discount turn up and go single fares would be the answer,
allowing for much more prescriptive journey times.
The railway's obsession with return tickets dates back to BR, one way
booking is king nowadays with the airlines and indeed the book ahead
value tickets offered by the likes of Virgin.
In message <7c3c7dd5-c5dc-4bf1-8792-dde636096...@h16g2000vby.googlegroups.com>, at 06:40:59 on Thu, 15 Nov 2012, allantracy <allanbintr...@ireland.com> remarked:
>> They must have "done the math" and decided the revenue abstracted from
>> the current FC passengers who are clearly funded/prepared to pay for
>> Anytime-only tickets (and who in future could travel most of the day at
>> a substantial discount) outweighs the revenue from the number of
>> Standard passengers who would be tempted to upgrade.
>I would love to see the maths that arrived at the conclusion that book
>ahead discount first class fares make sense but not off peak turn up
>and go ones.
Because the people happily paying walk-up FC Anytime fares are doing it because they can, and because of the flexibility. They would not be prepared to organise their lives around AP tickets.
>Some of the TOCs are even offering book ahead first class in the peaks
>nowadays.
>At the end of the day, the only maths that should count are empty
>seats i.e. revenue going begging.
Absolutely not. You must also look at the revenue lost to people who are sat in those seats but would have paid more.
-- Roland Perry
allantracy <allanbintr...@ireland.com> wrote:
> One solution might be to allow full fare standard ticket holders to
> travel in first class off peak.
> I believe that was tried before at weekends.
VT still do it I believe.
> Or just go the whole hog and fill that rather unfathomable gap in the
> market, namely the lack of an off-peak turn up and go first class
> fare.
> I've never understood why such a fare makes sense to the marketeers
> for standard class but not for first class.
I don't think the marketeers on IC like it, it's required by law. I think
without the marketeers it'd be full fare or Advance style, nothing in
between.
It makes more marketing sense on local services, where it does exist
commercially.
But I agree, at the right fare (about 1.5 of Standard) I might well default
to these. Another option might be to turn weekend first into off-peak
first, but then that's not as good for short or cross TOC journeys.
Neil
-- Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK. Put first name before the at to reply.
> In message > <7c3c7dd5-c5dc-4bf1-8792-dde636096...@h16g2000vby.googlegroups.com>, at > 06:40:59 on Thu, 15 Nov 2012, allantracy <allanbintr...@ireland.com> > remarked:
> >At the end of the day, the only maths that should count are empty
> >seats i.e. revenue going begging.
> Absolutely not. You must also look at the revenue lost to people who are > sat in those seats but would have paid more.
There's a story that British Airways once asked their first class
passengers on subsonic trans-atlantic flights how much they'd pay to do
the same journey on Concorde. They where (pleasantly) surprised to
discover that the average guess was much higher than they where actually
charging, and hence upped their Concorde fares!
-- These opinions might not even be mine ...
Let alone connected with my employer ...
> In message
> <7c3c7dd5-c5dc-4bf1-8792-dde636096...@h16g2000vby.googlegroups.com>, at
> 06:40:59 on Thu, 15 Nov 2012, allantracy <allanbintr...@ireland.com>
> remarked:
>>> They must have "done the math" and decided the revenue abstracted from
>>> the current FC passengers who are clearly funded/prepared to pay for
>>> Anytime-only tickets (and who in future could travel most of the day at
>>> a substantial discount) outweighs the revenue from the number of
>>> Standard passengers who would be tempted to upgrade.
>> I would love to see the maths that arrived at the conclusion that book
>> ahead discount first class fares make sense but not off peak turn up
>> and go ones.
> Because the people happily paying walk-up FC Anytime fares are doing it
> because they can, and because of the flexibility. They would not be
> prepared to organise their lives around AP tickets.
And many of them probably get the fare paid by their employer. Civil servants of certain grades had (and may still have) a right to first class travel whilst on "official" business.
Once upon a time, Paul Cummins <useth...@stedtelephone.invalid> wrote:
>We were about to embark at Dover, when vicko_zoo...@hotmail.com (McKevvy)
>came up to me and whispered:
>> 'Third class' rail travel could return for first time since
>> 1950s,
>But it never went away.
>Second class disappeared initially, leaving First and Third as the
>options. Then in the 50's, Third got renamed second class, and finally in
>the 80's "Second Class" became Standard Class.
>So what we now call "standard class" is the direct descendant of Third
>Class.
Indeed, though generally with less comfortable seats which don't line up
with the windows, and glaring, undimmable lights. The last class of
stock actually designed to be 3rd class ended up being the most
comfortable ever to run, everything since has been a steady downgrade in
comfort and space.
>To put a Premier Standard into place would just return the original
>divisions as per 1844.
>> I only used it once, and spent most of the 1hr journey arguing with the
>> staff about whether my open ticket qualified me. Eventually they agreed
>> it did, but not before they had done incalculable damage to their brand.
> That being to some extent a problem with officious GNER (good riddance),
> not the concept per se...
I really can't understand that view of GNER. I used to travel with them all the time (living, as I do, on the east coast) in Standard Class - they always looked after their passengers far better than *any* TOC out there now.
Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message
> <2c0ccccf-0384-4e19-9696-9a9f30906...@q1g2000vbx.googlegroups.com>, at 05:07:20 on Thu, 15
> Nov 2012, allantracy <allanbintr...@ireland.com> remarked:
>> One solution might be to allow full fare standard ticket holders to
>> travel in first class off peak.
>> I believe that was tried before at weekends.
> Usually for a small fee like £5. And even if it was one of the shrinking
> number of routes with any catering in FC, there wouldn't be any at the weekend.
The £5-£15 Weekend First upgrade is available to anyone (except, sometimes,
Advance ticket holders). Certain TOCs, notably Virgin XC, used to offer
FREE Weekend First upgrade to holders of Open tickets.
As for catering, if the shop/buffet is sensibly positioned (ie between
first and standard) then it's not too much of an imposition to collect your
own free tea...
In message <29433068374757825.619113anna-noyd-dryver....@europe.newsdemon.com>, at 10:04:34 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012, Anna Noyd-Dryver <a...@noyd-dryver.com> remarked:
>The £5-£15 Weekend First upgrade is available to anyone (except, sometimes,
>Advance ticket holders). Certain TOCs, notably Virgin XC, used to offer
>FREE Weekend First upgrade to holders of Open tickets.
>As for catering, if the shop/buffet is sensibly positioned (ie between
>first and standard) then it's not too much of an imposition to collect your
>own free tea...
If the train still has a buffet. EMT (nee MML) have withdrawn theirs.
-- Roland Perry
Anna Noyd-Dryver <a...@noyd-dryver.com> wrote:
> The £5-£15 Weekend First upgrade is available to anyone (except, sometimes,
> Advance ticket holders). Certain TOCs, notably Virgin XC, used to offer
> FREE Weekend First upgrade to holders of Open tickets.
> As for catering, if the shop/buffet is sensibly positioned (ie between
> first and standard) then it's not too much of an imposition to collect your
> own free tea...
If the Pendolinos get a refurb I hope they shift it to that more sensible
position. (You couldn't just move the coaches around as the buffet is in a
pantograph car).
Neil
-- Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK. Put first name before the at to reply.
