The Ticket Collector

NXEC tickets are a rip-off.

On the May 18th many of the UK’s Train Companies tickets will increase in price. We have been looking at the new fares and have noticed that many of National Express East Coast’s (NXEC) advance purchase tickets will just disappear and become just “advance”.

NXEC have 8 advance tickets all charged at different prices. 4 First Class singles and 4 Standard Class singles. Each of these are charged at varying levels and of course there are only so many of each available to buy on each train. Now come the 18th May there will be a ticket name change and of course NXEC are using this as an excuse to reduce the availability of each of the above tickets, forcing you to buy a more expensive ticket.

We have many visitors from Peterborough on this site so we have also compared prices with NXEC’s tickets and First Capital Connect (FCC), and came to a shocking discovery.
In one case a Peak Return from Peterborough to London Kings Cross was £80 with NXEC. It is £40 with FCC. That is 50% cheaper and if you catch the FCC express service from Peterborough there is not a lot of difference in time.

Peterborough to Kings Cross Comparison
Peak Single
NXEC £40.00 FCC £23.20

Peak Return
NXEC £80.00 FCC £40.00

Weekly Season
NXEC £139.00 FCC £112.00

Cheap Day Return
NXEC £24.60 FCC £20.00

Peak Travelcard
NXEC £85.90 FCC £46.00

Off Peak Travelcard
NXEC £27.80 FCC £25.00

Weekly Travelcard
NXEC £151.40 FCC £135.00

NXEC have refused to reply to our various Emails, which based on their past incompetent customer service, seems to be the norm.

Fares ‘revision’ 18th May.

On the 18th May the new revised fares will be coming into effect on the National Network. Some companies have withdrawn some tickets and replaced them with more expensive tickets.

In January 2008 the overall allowable average increase for regulated fares Peak day and Season Tickets was 4.8%, with variations by flow and ticket type up to a maximum 9.8% increase.

Some Train Companies did not use the full yearly increase and therefore will be increasing the tickets to the yearly maximum this time around.

National Express East Coast (NXEC) will be increasing their already expensive tickets some more in May. We have also received reports (from an unnamed travel centre clerk) that they will charge everyone without an advance ticket a seat reservation charge of £1 for each seat reserved. Is this to stop the season ticket holders reserving seats, or is it to pay for for a new seat reservation printer so they can finally put out reservations 07:20 at Peterborough and late night services out of Kings Cross?

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New Rail Forum Launched.

A new rail forum for employees and enthusiasts working on and around the East Coast Mainline has recently been launched by our friends at Eastcoastchat.co.uk. Launched only in March the site has seen steady growth with a solid user base.

The forum has something for everyone whether you’re a steam enthusiast or working on a station platform. If your interested in anything to do with the East Coast Mainline we would strongly suggest you pay our friends at at Eastcoastchat.co.uk a visit.

Ticket names to change.

As if you were not already confused by the huge number of different ticket names, the powers that be have decided to change the names yet again.

So say goodbye to the SuperSaver, the Saver, the Cheap Day Return, the Standard Day Return and say hello to Super Off-Peak and Anytime.

The new ticket types are as follows.

Notwork Rail York to strike Easter Weekend

Update: We are now currently hearing reports that Notwork Rail have been told to make an 11th hour agreement. Furthermore if the strike does go ahead NXEC do not have an Emergency timetable ready.

Staff in Network Rail’s electrical control room at York are to strike for five days from 18:59 next Wednesday, March 19, over the company’s plan to cut the number of operators there by a third, from 18 to 12.

The union’s ten members in the control room, who voted unanimously to take action, will not book on for shifts that commence between 18:59 on March 19 and 06:59 on Monday March 24.

The electrical control room controls the current from York to Doncaster so services through that area will be effected. It also controls the current from Bedford to Moorgate West (TL). So FCC and EMT services could be affected.

NXEC cockup continues.

So another really bad day for the new owner of GNER, National Express. NXEC seems to have a serious problem at admitting when they are doing rubbish and further more pretend that everything is hunky-dory when it obviously isn’t.
Take today for example. Notwork Rail slapped 50 MPH Emergency Speed Restriction on all lines between Stevenage and Berwick. First Capital Connect knew this around 12hours before it came into effect. So it sent text messages out to all the staff pagers and mobiles. It also sent out text messages to its text alert service. It updated its website admitting a problem and possible delays THE NIGHT BEFORE.

National Express East Coast however did nothing, even though it knew of the speed restriction. It could not even be bothered to update its website. Apparently according to their customer fob-off centre they added a message at 0616 this morning. Well theticketcollector.co.uk never saw it when leaving the house this morning while checking the NXEC website. The fob-off centre goes on to say they updated it at 0900 to state delays. Well done, sod the commuters which had to be into work by 0900. But where is the amended timetable it promised? No where to be found. Good old National Express purveyors of information distribution.
AN HOUR later a major botch up of an ‘amended’ timetable was added on the National Rail website, it took NXEC until 1100 to update its website to state there even was a timetable to be downloaded, but it did not admit they cancelled half the services. At 12:45pm they admitted there was a revised timetable and half the normal services were running.
Archived ‘amended’ timetable.

As at 2000 NXEC updated the website to say they would not be running a through service from London to/from Scotland, there is no reason for this stated on the site. However National Rail states this is due to overhead wire damage at Doncaster. Why the hell can’t NXEC say this on their own site? Maybe because it was one of their trains that took the wires down in the first place?
We are still waiting for the promised amended timetable. Perhaps there is a timetable already but its not going to be made public until half way through the day or maybe NXEC are so incompetent that they cant be bothered about customers?

50 MPH speed restriction on East Coast Mainline

Notwork Rail have issued a 50MPH Emergency Speed Restriction for all trains between Stevenage and Berwick, and Between Stevenage and Royston as from 0900 to 1500hrs”A blanket 50mph ESR will be imposed from Stevenage north to Peterborough and from Stevenage north to Royston on Wednesday 12th March from 09.00 to 15.00hrs. National Express East Coast and First Hull Trains will be further affected by the restriction which runs as far as Berwick. ”

The following trains have currently been confirmed as Cancelled on Wednesday 12 March.

09.15 Kings Cross to Cambridge
10.15 Cambridge to Kings Cross
10.15 Kings Cross to Cambridge
11.15 Kings Cross to Cambridge
11.15 Cambridge to Kings Cross
12.15 Kings Cross to Cambridge
12.15 Cambridge to Kings Cross
13.15 Kings Cross to Cambridge
13.15 Cambridge to Kings Cross
14.15 Kings Cross to Cambridge
14.15 Cambridge to Kings Cross