The Ticket Collector

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.

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.

Speed Restrictions in Potters Bar Area

Services which have been going through Potters Bar on the Fast Lines have been affected by 2 seperate Emergency Speed Restrictions of 20MPH.

At the moment TheTicketCollector.co.uk has no ideas as to why these have been implemented.

These Speed Restrictions will add around 5 miniutes delay to your journeys.

It just gets worse.

Ok so what a day its been today, there has been some overhead wire damage in the Huntington area.

A train was reported as having hit an insulator, shortly afterwards another train reported that the wires were down on all three lines at Wood Walton (Google Maps).

As a result of this all GNER services were terminating at Peterborough with replacement bus services from Peterborough to Stevenage (fast).
FCC services were running normally from Kings Lynn/Cambridge to London Kings Cross. Kings Cross to Peterborough services were terminating at St Neots for a replacement bus service to and from Peterborough calling at Huntington.

Staff were deployed in various areas mainly Stevenage, Kings Cross and Peterborough. There were some staff at St Neots and these staff were very helpfull from what my contacts have been saying.

The lines are expected to re-open Tomorrow (saturday) but as with all journeys at weekends double check before you travel.

Have a great weekend.

Snow and Icey conditions predicted from early 08Feb

Update at 23:55
People should be prepared for severe disruption to all services tomorrow if the snow falls.

In preparation for this First Capital Connect are running empty trains throughout the night to stop rails and power lines from freezing over, treating train doors and other equipment to ensure they don’t freeze over.

At stations, each station will have ice thawing granules laid along the platforms and extra staff have been mobilised to clear station platforms. Special announcements are being prepared for stations and trains tonight to warn customers of the potential disruption.

12:03
Snow is predicted to fall in most of England from 01:00 tomorrow morning.

Passengers are advised to check and double check there journey, and consider is it worth going into work today and then call in sick, or work from home.
Current indications are that the snowfall will be heaviest across the midlands and East of England, including routes via Stevenage, Peterborough and Cambridge.

The snow is currently forecast to start falling from approximately 01:00 on Thursday, with the heaviest falls expected during the morning peak hours. The snow is then expected to clear by the late afternoon / evening peak of Thursday, although this is followed by a risk of widespread icy conditions, which may cause problems with electrical supplies and line-side equipment, leading to further train service disruption. All snowy and icy conditions are expected to clear early on Friday morning.

As soon as we have any further information I will update this blog entry.

Save 20% on most items from station shops.

Thanks to a comment on a fellow bloggers site GNER Commuter, you are able to get 20% off on items from most stores on railway stations.
The Card is called a BITE card and can be ordered from http://www.bitecard.co.uk.

This gives 20% most items from retail outlets on Railway Stations, The site has a list of what accepts the card.

“Crowded trains are safer in crashes” - ORR

Was reading somthing of interest to regular visitors of this blog in the Evening Standard yesterday. The Standard/Daily Mail are continuing on there “Campaign” for a seat for every commuter. Well we all know that this will never be possible.
What defines a commuter? Someone who travels every day including weekends? Someone who travels 3 days a week? Prehaps someone who travels on the overnight trains once a week in both directions, are they classed as a commuter?

Now this is what really pisses me off about the Evening Standard, yeah we will moan and complain but what we wont tell you is we couldnt even run a train service, we barley run a newspaper.

But anyway onto the main reason for this blog posting.

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) yesterday stated that “Packed trains are safer”, “Research in the late 1990’s found that where there was a crowded or overcrowded train carriage there was no detrimental effect to people involved in crashes”. “In a lot of cases people were better off in train carriages where there was overcrowding”

The Evening Standard continued to moan about how commuters are getting a raw deal, but did they mention that fact that most companies offer you a 5% refund on your ticket if you dont get a seat? No because that would go against their unwinnable campaign “a seat for every commuter”.

There is actually no legal limit to how many people can travel in any given carriage at any given time, there is also no safety law regarding the maximum number of people in a train carriage.

FCC are planning to increase their services between Cambridge and London to 12 carriages, this is dependant on Network Rail and the DfT upgrading the power supply between Cambridge and Letchworth. Some platforms are going to have to be lengthened.
Also there are rumors and these are only rumors at the moment that FCC will be getting some new trains to replace the extra carriages which will be taken from other routes to lengthen the Cambridge - London services. These could be HST’s, 180’s or the trains which silverlink use.