🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 18:26:47 UTC, David Marsh 
<ThereIsNoAttachment@your.newsreader.may.be.broken> wrote:

: [Outlook error: message invisible. See http://viewport.co.uk/outlook ]
: begin  Ian Johnston's quote in scot.general 
:
 > Where do you want the money to come from? Would you be happy so see

: > the cost of advance-purchase tickets rise to meet the shortfall?
: 
: There must be some kind of balance point between having some cheap*er*
: fares for advanced booking versus reasonably-priced fares for
: turn-up-and-go, but, in short, yes.
: 
: I'd much rather know *for certain* that I can get a ticket for, say, 
: 40 quid, than having virtually no chance of getting one of a very
: limited number of tickets for 20 quid (big deal) coupled with the 
: dubious pleasure of being robbed blind of 100 quid for a standard ticket.

I'm afraid there's a bit of a contradiction in there. 

If there really are only 2 advance purchase seats available per train 
- which I don't believe, and I believe Virgin now claim that well over
50% of passengers are using advance purchase tickets - then the amount
of money saved by abolishing these fares would be negligable, and you 
are affectively asking for an extra subsidy to the operators.

If, on the other hand, Virgin are right and most passengers are happy 
to book in advance for a cheaper deal, it seems potentially a little 
mean for you to ask them to pay more in order to subsidize your 
preferred travel patterns.

I don't blame you for wanting cheaper tickets, but someone is gong to 
have to pay the money you don't ...

: Some railway companies seem to forget that they are an everyday mode of
: transport and not infrequently-used airlines..

But surely advanced purchase savings only apply to long distance 
routes, or at least the savings are only significant long distance? 
And for everyday short-distance travel there are season tickets. Mind 
you, should season ticket discounts be abolished to bring down the 
price for occasional travellers?

Ian