Tag: Fares

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Government Minister Lied in Parliament about Fare Reductions for Redhill Route Passengers

Jo Johnson then Minster for Transport stood up in Parliament on 18th October 2018 and promised to Redhill Passengers and Crispin Blunt the local MP “Today, I can make a commitment that we will see this issue [Redhill Hump] resolved by the end of the current franchise in 2021, with a reduction in fares coming into effect from this coming January.”

This has proven to be a lie when London Terminals Fares from Redhill, Reigate, Nutfield and Earlswood on the Redhill route have risen by 3% in line with all the other Fare Increases across the country.

A few hardly used fares have gone down for Horley and Salfords passengers, but their most regularly used London Terminals fare has gone up.

This follows last January where there was a 14% Stealth Fare Increase in January 2017 as services were swapped from cheaper Southern trains to more expensive Thameslink ones.

The Department for Transport set their Minister up to lie in parliament to avoid embarrassment about the continuing of the unfair Redhill Hump – where fares raise as you cross the M25 leaving London before going down at Gatwick.

What is worse it is our understanding that the DfT revised their instructions to GTR after Jo Johnson left the department which we can only suspect was to remove many of the fare reductions planned.

This follows a series of let downs by the DfT towards Redhill route passengers:

  • Unreliable Thameslink Timetable
  • Removal of South Coast Trains
  • Extended journeys to Victoria (40% longer)
  • Badly designed station rebuild at Redhill that has failed passengers

After 5 years of constant lies and spin over the Redhill Route, RRDRUA is today calling for the senior managers in the Department for Transport to be removed from office and the department split up with transport being managed regionally, with a focus that puts Rail users and have their interests at the heart.

Antony Simm, Chairman of the RRDRUA said

For years now Redhill route passengers have been promised improvements only for them to be taken away when major projects like London Bridge and the May Timetable actually deliver. The service being delivered, the communication to passengers, and the routes on offer fall significantly short on value based on the price of travel. Topped now with the Transport Minister and the department for transport telling lies about fare reductions. Something has to change

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Important information for 2019 Season Ticket pricing

Season Ticket Prices 2019

Some very important information for season ticket pricing on the Redhill Route.

If you have the ability to renew your season ticket before the 2019 Pricing comes into place we strongly recommend you do. With the exception of one set of fares everything has gone up for 2019 on the 2 January.

Passengers travelling from Horley who would purchase an annual season ticket to ‘London Thameslink (no tube)’ or ‘London Zones 1-6 (any permitted) will see a reduction in their fare. It may no longer be cheaper to buy your annual ticket from Gatwick so please check.

From various stations if your ticket includes a London underground travel card it may have stayed the  same.

Southern /Thameslink / Gatwick have produced posters and leaflets that are available in ticket offices – These include weekly, monthly, and annual prices for 2019. We also have digital copies below.

We haven’t been provided with a version of the above for Nutfield of Godstone. You can check your own personal journey and season ticket on the National Rail Enquiries website.

The promised reductions in fairs to tackle the Redhill Hump appear not to be present, and we are not letting it go either. We’ll have more on that shortly.

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FARES FROM REDHILL ROUTE

For Daily Tickets our best understanding to date follows:

Redhill Route stations don’t generally have “return” tickets to Victoria or London Bridge but a London Terminals ticket instead. So it is normally better to buy a Gatwick Southern only ticket to just one terminal. If you need the flexibility of multiple stations then buy the standard Redhill ticket.

However there is one ticket the Redhill Route to Victoria Super off-peak return at £9.00 is very cheap but only allows travel to Victoria off-peak and is nit usable between 16:00 and 19:03 from Victoria (19:10 Horsham is first train it is allowed upon after peak).

Also use on Thameslink is tricky question, some say they are valid as Thameslink and Southern are the same train operators but some say not. I think it would be a very mean inspector that prosecutes considering our trains have turned Thameslink only in December.

Oyster has added to this complexity. Single fares to Victoria are cheaper than Redhill to London Terminals tickets and Gatwick tickets. So if you are going just to Victoria or London Bridge Oyster works and is cheaper. If you are going to add more travel like a tube and a bus you have to think carefully.

However once you The caps seem to be £29.80 Peak and £19.00 off peak. If you are travelling off-peak it seems best to buy a paper ticket at £16.00 All-Zone travelcard from Redhill Route stations (Salfords/Horley is £17.00, same as Gatwick), especially as all but the Victoria one mentioned above would allow you to travel from 16:00 to 19:00 whereas Oyster makes that Peak time. Oyster would cap your fares at £16.00 unless you travel on anything between 16:00 and 19:00 when it’ll cap at £29.80.

It appears that Oyster also has a higher cap than Contactless for off-peak

Oyster can save you if you do limited journeys and one of your journeys is off-peak.

Also you can cut fares by avoiding Zone 1 and touching the pink readers. However on a journey I planned I found that via Zone 1 was cheaper than using the pink readers at West Brompton for off-peak journeys only : so confusing

I think you need a degree in Maths and logic to really understand all this. So that’s my best explanation as I understand it all currently. I’m sure many will find cheaper hacks – please post them if you do so everyone can use them