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ScottR96

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Not bothered about reserved seats as I don't have any friends. For a hypothetical group of 4 though, it would be nice to book a table for a long journey.
Is that fair on hypothetical group of 3 or 4 who get on several stations earlier than you, have a longer journey but for whatever reason, did not or could not book a specified train?

Not saying it is or isnt btw, just saying that this is where the system is a bag of shite tbh.
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How come this sort of thing seems to work fine in every European country other than our own? Go on a long distance train on the continent and it'll either be a train with compulsory reservations or they'll be recommended and people will move when asked to if they are in a reserved seat (even if you don't know the language you can usually make your point and they'll move, at least in my experience). It doesn't help that Scotrail always seem to have too few carriages on certain services mind you (my wife often gets the 2.49 or whatever train from Inverness to Perth and has a reserved seat but instead of 3 carriages it had always had 2 any time she's used it which mean that reservations are voided).

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Getting the train home late last night, I encountered the world's most cheerful and friendly ticket inspector. Making his way through the busy carriage, every single ticket he checked was accompanied by chat like "Alright mate, how's it going" ... "You have a good night" ... "Nice to see you, pal" ... "You look after yourself" and so on. 
When he left, people were smiling and laughing at his OTT performance.

Of course, it's entirely possibly he was taking the utter piss. But even if he was, he even went to the trouble of marking my ticket like this which made me laugh out loud when I found it in my pocket this morning. 

image.png.20898e8b50b98eb4615719c095fa423f.png

Edited by Cardinal Richelieu
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1 hour ago, Cardinal Richelieu said:

Getting the train home late last night, I encountered the world's most cheerful and friendly ticket inspector. Making his way through the busy carriage, every single ticket he checked was accompanied by chat like "Alright mate, how's it going" ... "You have a good night" ... "Nice to see you, pal" ... "You look after yourself" and so on. 
When he left, people were smiling and laughing at his OTT performance.

Of course, it's entirely possibly he was taking the utter piss. But even if he was, he even went to the trouble of marking my ticket like this which made me laugh out loud when I found it in my pocket this morning. 

image.png.20898e8b50b98eb4615719c095fa423f.png

Reminds me of a trip in Yorkshire where the ticket man had a comedy quip for everyone, depending on their destination. E.g. "Dewsbury? Be glad you have a return ticket!" Very funny, but became repetitive. Had the carriage in good spirits though.

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I suspect this is more a wider rail issue but for some reason you can't buy advance tickets on Scotrail routes between Inverness and the central belt beyond the 14th of December. Given these are meant to be available 12 weeks in advance to get the best fares and all that jazz it's pretty poor to only have advance tickets a fortnight ahead of the current date.

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3 minutes ago, RiG said:

I suspect this is more a wider rail issue but for some reason you can't buy advance tickets on Scotrail routes between Inverness and the central belt beyond the 14th of December. Given these are meant to be available 12 weeks in advance to get the best fares and all that jazz it's pretty poor to only have advance tickets a fortnight ahead of the current date.

It's because Inverness is being sold off to the Americans if the Tories get elected.

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1 hour ago, RiG said:

I suspect this is more a wider rail issue but for some reason you can't buy advance tickets on Scotrail routes between Inverness and the central belt beyond the 14th of December. Given these are meant to be available 12 weeks in advance to get the best fares and all that jazz it's pretty poor to only have advance tickets a fortnight ahead of the current date.

It's a bit weird, they're available according to the National Rail site right through to mid Feb, but when they switch you to Scotrail to buy a ticket for say, Dec 20th, they've disappeared. Sounds like they're trying to rake in as much as possible over Christmas, not sure if that's legal.

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Don't the train timetables get updated mid-December? They do in Europe and I'm sure it's still the case here. Could be that the new timetable hasn't been uploaded yet so the booking system isn't returning any available trains?
Aye, 15th I'm sure.
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9 minutes ago, Salvo Montalbano said:

Don't the train timetables get updated mid-December? They do in Europe and I'm sure it's still the case here. Could be that the new timetable hasn't been uploaded yet so the booking system isn't returning any available trains?

The trains are available, just not cheap advance tickets over Christmas.

Edited by welshbairn
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The trains are available, just not cheap advance tickets over Christmas.

 

Exactly. It’s annoying as needing to travel on 15th and 29th December and the cheap fares aren’t available yet.

 

I questioned this with their twitter team but they said they’re not privy to when the cheap fares will show up.

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8 minutes ago, The Naitch said:

 


Exactly. It’s annoying as needing to travel on 15th and 29th December and the cheap fares aren’t available yet.

I questioned this with their twitter team but they’d said they’re not privy to when the cheap fares will show up.

 

Looks like they won't be, advance fares are available up to the middle of February, just not around Christmas. You're probably better off booking a bus than paying up to 4x the rate.

Edited by welshbairn
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2 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Looks like they won't be, advance fares are available up to the middle of February, just not around Christmas. You're probably better off booking a bus than paying up to 4x the rate.

Looks like those advance fares through January and February have been put out today though the dates they are available don't match up with info on the Scotrail website. Citylink Gold for me then.

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Looks like those advance fares through January and February have been put out today though the dates they are available don't match up with info on the Scotrail website. Citylink Gold for me then.


If it weren’t for LNER, Citylink Gold would eat all of my travel business out of Inverness.
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Looks like they won't be, advance fares are available up to the middle of February, just not around Christmas. You're probably better off booking a bus than paying up to 4x the rate.


That’s the cheap fares for the 15th just gone up tonight. About time.
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