The Ticket Collector

New Livery for East Coast (GNER)

So its finally been leaked/released. The new livery for the new operator of the East Coast Mainline - National Express East Coast. The picture below is a scan of a proposed livery from an internal staff magazine.

Sorry the photo has been taken down and made offline.

National Express are quoted as saying they want to have one brand for all of its operations, including bus, coach and rail. ‘One’ Railway is to be rebranded yet again as National Express East Anglia.It is reported that this rebrand will run into several hundred thousand pounds.

GNER £5 Singles! All Routes

GNER have decided to offer people a farewell by offering £5 singles on all of its network.

For example you can travel from London to Edinburgh for a fiver or from Newcastle to Peterborough for a fiver.

As per normal for these tickets you have to book in advance at GNER.co.uk/five and have to stick to the train times on the ticket.

We have found a new GNER easier to book ticket site at http://tickets.gner.co.uk/gner/en/journeyplanning/GnerWebTISHomePage

You can also only buy this ticket online. Please dont go to ticket offices asking for this fare as they will look at you as if to say “what are you on about”.

You can buy from other online ticket sellers but you must use the promotion code “MALLARD225″. The £5 fare will come up as “PROMO FARE” and will have a different coloured background. However please be aware that thetrainline.com charges £2 for credit cardbookings.

Tickets brought for travel after mid December will be vaild on the new operator National Express East Coast, even though they will say GNER on them.

Why not book for the new year?

The offer applies to Standard Advance fares, for travel from 30 October 2007 to 27 January 2008 inclusive.

This offer is bound to be devilishly popular. The sooner you book and the more flexible you can be in terms of your travel times and dates, the better your chance of bagging a £5 ticket.

If you’re cunning, you’ll also take advantage of the two frighteningly good offers on the right.

Bookings open on Monday, 29 October 2007 and close on Sunday, 4 November 2007 inclusive, subject to availability.

Please note that when the offer starts, tickets will be available for travel up to and including Friday 18 January. On 1 November, tickets for travel to Sunday 27 January will go on sale.

You can travel between Tuesday, 30 October 2007 and Sunday, 27 January 2008 inclusive.

Seats are available on off-peak services, with limited availability on Friday and Sunday afternoons. There will also be limited availability when major events are taking place.

Please note that engineering work will take place on some weekends during this promotion and may affect journey times.

You must book at gner.co.uk/five

Seats are subject to availability, so please book early to avoid disappointment. We expect the biggest demand for travel at weekends—if you can travel mid-week you will have more choice.

If you require space for a wheelchair or have access requirements during your journey, please call our dedicated Assisted Travel Team on 08457 225 225 before you book.

Major credit, debit and charge cards are accepted as payment. No booking fee with GNER.

© TheTicketCollector.co.uk - Copying permitted provided a link back to this article is included.

Good Bye GNER

Bye Bye GNER, I would say its been nice knowing you, but it hasnt. In this post we shall say what lasting legacies GNER has left.

• Towards the end of GNER, their trains have brought power lines down on the ECML, constantly failed in the worst area possible.
• Lack of information when problems do happen.
• Hiked up Car Parking charges.
• Created stupid advance purchase tickets, without any training for staff.
• Hiked up buffet prices, which you needed to have a footballers salary to buy anything. (Wheres Norton Finance when you need them)
• Created surly and aggressive Revenue staff (not all of them.)
• Charged for a WiFi service which never worked.

Have we missed any out? If so please do add them to the comments section.

National Passenger Survey - FCC responds

“We have not done well, and are very dissapointed with the results as we know that many people have worked hard to deliver improvements in the last year.
“All this hard work is not wasted as we know that if we continue to address the issues of performance, safety and capacity as well as making investments in customer facilities the results will improve.
“We believe we have the right plans for this business and you have a role to play in helping implement our plans. We want all our customers to know about the improvements we are making, please ensure you are up to date with these improvements for your area.”

“We acknowledge that the results do not meet our expectations and that we are dissapointed. It is clear that customers are telling us that they expect more improvements quickly and we are committed to meeting these expectations
“First Capital Connect has been working hard over the last 12 months to improve reliability, capacity and train and station facilities for our customers, Our franchise is for 9 years and our plans will deliver over time - there are no instant answers.
“FCC has always listened to our customers, and it is very clear to us from these results the areas where our customers want improvements. We are happy that our plans will deliver improvements over time.
“We will be continuing our programme of investment and improvements going forward. By 31st March 2007 we had invested £16.3m across our stations and trains and in this coming year we will be spending a further £27.9m.”

“It is worth remembering that at this time [the time the survey was done] we were experiencing some very poor performance on the routes, the winds at the end of January, problems with overhead wires on GN and some very poor Network Rail performance on the TL route. All of which could have impacted customer views.”

FCC is the worst Operator - National Passenger Survey

The National Passenger Survey was released yesterday and it comes up with some bad reading for many of the Train Companies mentioned.

The latest survey compared the passengers satisfaction levels for individual train operating companies with the survey carried out in Spring 2006. Since 2006 four Train Companies satisfaction levels have declined significantly (First Great Western, First ScotRail, First Capital Connect and Northern Rail), and three have significantly improved (Midland Mainline, Arriva Trains Wales and Heathrow Express). Fourteen have had no statistically significant changes in their overall satisfaction results compared with Spring 2006.

• The lowest ratings for overall satisfaction were given to First Capital Connect [First Group] (71%), First Great Western [First Group] (72%), One [National Express Group] (72%), Southeastern (74%), and Silverlink [National Express Group](76%).

• The highest ratings for overall satisfaction were achieved by Heathrow Express (94%), Gatwick Express [National Express Group] (92%), Chiltern Railways (90%), Midland Mainline [National Express Group] (90%), c2c [National Express Group] (89%), and TransPennine Express [First Group] (89%).

Should I keep this blog running?

I know this blog is popular what with all the visits from various people and employees of big major companies visiting on their company internets.

But the thing that is starting to nark me off, is the fact that I am not getting any reconigtion for doing this blog. I know big major newspaper companies do visit this site, more then likley to see what the latest thing thats been leaked is. But since The Times decided to steal the content of this site I have not listed anything which was not in the Public Domain. I have plenty of juicy documents sent to me from my contact in the DfT about the new railway franchises. Did you know for example that theyve already decided on the final 2 for the ECML?

Now I have not had any awards, have not had any big newspapers mention this site in their papers even though they obviously visit for the leaked documents. I spend a lot of time on this blog and am thinking why do I bother. Feel free to comment.

On another note well done to Disgruntled Commuter who has been shortlisted in the Metro blog awards.

Off Peak Fare Regulation?? Yes or No?

With South West Trains recent annoucment that they are adding a new off peak because too many people are using their service, would you want the Government to regulate all fares?

At the moment the Government regulates Savers and Cheap Day Returns and these cannot be increased more then around rpi+1 without the Governments consent. All other tickets can be increased any amount and in the case of SWT they have decided to add a third peak and increased fares 20%.

I have found a petition on 10 Downing Streets website at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/regulatefares/ Please sign it, if you think the fare increases are getting too much.