Viking Supporters Co-operative
Viking Chat => Viking Chat => Topic started by: silent majority on September 10, 2013, 03:27:57 pm
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We, the FSF, have been talking to the East Coast train people about resurrecting football specials on the East Coast route. We have met and discussed how we can operate this without impacting on supporters desires to travel as independently as they can.
So far, and its still in its early stages, we have selected DRFC as the club to attempt to formulate a scheme that works for the benefit of everyone. It will work something like this; we purchase contract rated tickets from East Coast when they go on sale approx 6 weeks before any fixture. Those tickets will then be resold to individuals as they purchase a match ticket for that away game. We will be allocated certain carriages on a choice of a couple of trains to allow some flexibility.
The benefits will be thus; you get the opportunity to take advantage of cheap train tickets without the mad scramble when they are initially put on sale. You'll get the chance to sit in carriages full of DRFC fans and a little leeway will be given in terms of behaviour. That means we could restore the bar service and other restrictions could be lifted. If matches are postponed then your ticket will still be valid for the rearranged game.
We still have the details to work on, but our target game would be against QPR on New Years Day. Meanwhile if anybody would be interested in using this method of travel it would help if you indicate that here, we would like some indication of numbers.
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I'd definitely have an interest but I think for me and most the cost is the main thing. If it's sensible then definitely sounds a great idea. Good stuff.
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Sounds good to me, few of us would be interested.
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Other priorities for me this year I'm afraid but that's a brilliant idea. I'd encourage everyone who can to take advantage of this, the train down to London is so much better than the coach or driving. Great work by the FSF if this comes off!
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I would be very interested except I'm in Edinburgh for the Hogmanay.
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I'd be very interested in this, as of tomorrow I will no longer have a car and will probably travel to most away games on the train therefore the easier it is, the better.
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Great idea take my hat off to all involved
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I'd be very interested in this, as of tomorrow I will no longer have a car and will probably travel to most away games on the train therefore the easier it is, the better.
Sacrificing your wheels?
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I'd be interested. I'd be able to meet friends down there then instead of have to worry about getting back for the coach.
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I'd be definitely interested, brilliant idea. I know a lot of my mates would be too.
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Interested for myself plus around 8 others who don't post on here, dependent on price/times.
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Great idea, lets hope it catches on. I would be interested and estimare another 3 mates.
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Great idea, i'd be interested plus at least half a dozen mates who i go to most away games with
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Me too cost dependant
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Great idea
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Brilliant idea! :clapping: :thumbsup:
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'All aboard '
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Great idea and depending on cost could be upto 8 of us interested but don't cheap east coast tickets go on sale 12 week in advance
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I don't think I could make the QPR game, but if this is successful and catches on, then I would definitely be interested plus one other who I travel with.
Great idea
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at least 4/5 of people who i travel with go on train anyway, as long as train times are do able and don't have to sacrifice 5 or 10 mins of game to leave early just to get back. id rather pay a little extra travel if the experience was better i.e sat with other fans, little sing song and few beers on way. QPR would be a good test as many already use the train for london based journeys so if tickets were cheap and were guaranteed a carriage for rovers fans then there would be an increase in sales.
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yes interested
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could add me+ 1 to that
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I know people are questioning certain aspects of this service, i.e its price and whether will they be running at reasonable times etc. The answer to all those questions is simply that we have discussed all of those issues. As football fans we know what suits and what doesn't so we wont be signing up to things that won't be acceptable.
We have the support of DRFC in what were trying to do and they will more than likely be involved in the next meeting so that we can put the flesh on the bones so to speak.
As somebody pointed out cheap tickets do go on sale about twelve weeks in advance. Apologies for that but I'm not a rail travel expert, but my colleague from the FSF is and he'll ensure that we get this right from that viewpoint.
Once we get this up and running with DRFC we should then be able to offer this to all supporters who use the East Coast route, i.e Newcastle, Leeds etc
For now we just need an indication of numbers who would travel on this dedicated service, apparently a carriage holds 76 people, or thereabouts, so we would hope to attract that many.
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I prefer travelling to all London matches by train so would be very interested in this initiative.
I suspect that there will be a reduced service on this particular day though so it may not be possible for me to get to and from Doncaster from the North East to utilise it?
For "normal" weekend games it would be a definate though.
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As somebody pointed out cheap tickets do go on sale about twelve weeks in advance. Apologies for that but I'm not a rail travel expert, but my colleague from the FSF is and he'll ensure that we get this right from that viewpoint.
The problem you've got is that tickets bought 12 weeks in advance cost about £20 but leave it until 6 weeks in advance and you're typically looking at something north of £40 - but you'll need to leave it that late to ensure that the fixture doesn't get moved (like Crawley did last season, which left quite a few with worthless train tickets).
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Muttley,
You need to read my earlier post, I got the time scale wrong, plus under this deal we've already asked East Coast if the tickets will still be valid for a rearranged fixture and they've agreed to that. As I say I'm no expert on the workings of the train network but my colleague is.
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I'd be very interested in this, as of tomorrow I will no longer have a car and will probably travel to most away games on the train therefore the easier it is, the better.
You intend trashing it today then, Jen?
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I'm pretty sure if the price isn't too high you'd get the 75 no problem. I know if I could get to London for less than £30 return I'd be interested. But I'd say that would be the max and certainly would be for some of my mates, that's not being tight, it's a realistic value, some may not even be able to push to that. as we can find alternative methods for cheaper, for me it's all about the price, the train beats other methods hands down for me.
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Will definitely use it to come down from Newcastle if its available- would also be useful for home games!
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If its only going to be £20 return to London then think you will easily get the required numbers.be good to see if it can be done for say Ipswich Brighton or Bournemouth aswell although other networks would have to be used aswell
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Any news on this yet as cheap tickets are due on sale end of next week or so
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I spoke to my colleague a couple of days ago and he was due to speak to them again. I'll ring him again in the morning.
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Definitely, if not having to work
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How much are tickets likely to be? Usually pay 14 quid return with a railcard to London.
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The joys of young persons rail cards eh! I used to be able to commute between Doncaster and London for only slightly more than the cost between Doncaster and Leeds...
If you book in far enough in advance, an adult single to London is £10 - worth noting that there are still plenty of cheap tickets for the rearranged Charlton game in November too.
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Another forward thinking idea !
May I respectfully suggest you make sure you know the FULL ID of those that take up the offer to prevent the unseemly behaviour often associated with football specials in the past.Specials seem to attract cliques of yobs with cans .
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I got return to London next week for 11 quid. They are there if you look hard. Only booked it last week too.
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The joys of young persons rail cards eh! I used to be able to commute between Doncaster and London for only slightly more than the cost between Doncaster and Leeds...
If you book in far enough in advance, an adult single to London is £10 - worth noting that there are still plenty of cheap tickets for the rearranged Charlton game in November too.
Them persil washing power british Rail Ticket offers were the dogs b*llocks back in the mid 1980s.
Think it was you had to collect 3 tokens from the back Of persil washing power boxes,then fill in a form and take down to doncaster train station.
It meant that you could Get to kingsX for the normall fare £8.20 back then but yer mate went free.no age or status restrictions,it was a football lads Dream and everyone was asking Their mams to Get extra boxes Of persil washing from the big super market weekly shop.
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Jenny would you mind directing me the right way for these cheap charlton train tickets please?
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Jenny would you mind directing me the right way for these cheap charlton train tickets please?
http://www.railcard.co.uk/ go to 16-25. £30 but you get 30% off each journey. Pays for itself if you travel by rail a lot.
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I always use the east coast website when booking trains as they have no booking fees and generally the cheapest (plus you can earn loyalty points - 12 months between Doncaster & London resulted in lots of free journeys).
www.eastcoast.co.uk
The 15:53 down (and lots of trains before it) and the 23:30 back are still £10 as I type.
If you get a YP rail card it goes down to about £6.35 from memory.
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Yes, Jenny, I just priced it up with my senior Railcard and it comes out at £14-90 + booking fee on Trainline.com, I looked on there because that 2330 departure didnt show when I looked on East Coast site.
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Just booked 11 tickets for New Year's Day
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Do you mind saying how much you've paid?
The deal we were offered from East coast didn't look particularly attractive and we've gone back and complained. They initially offered to provide/reserve one carriage for the use of DRFC fans on one particular train. If memory serves me right it was a 10.30 train down and 20.35 train back but at a cost of £49.
That wasn't what we were negotiating when we started but they have used the fact it was a train on New Years Day as the reason to bump up the price I believe.
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£20 return I think
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Too much Martin.
You can do it for about £22 on the East Coast website at the minute.
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Yeah Martin £10 each way 2 single tickets 10.25 from Doncaster and 20.30 back from kings cross the return train is actually run by hull trains service aswell
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It's only my opinion, but is the fact that it is on New Year's Day only part of the reason for the price of £49? Could it also be that it is a football special, that the price you are quoted is higher?
Keep at 'em SM
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The prices are already going up - no £10 tickets on the 20:30 train now.
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Just looked again and although prices have gone up they have just put a few more later trains on back between 9 and half 11 at £10 but you can actually get a discount on a group booking now aswell,most you can book at one time is 9 people and is coming up at 176.85 at 19.65 each
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You can even get 9 back at the cost of £67 around 9pm train or later but around 110 getting down there
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There's also a train at 9.54 down to King's Cross for a tenner
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It's only my opinion, but is the fact that it is on New Year's Day only part of the reason for the price of £49? Could it also be that it is a football special, that the price you are quoted is higher?
Keep at 'em SM
The point was that we would encourage football supporters to use the train and self police by using the SLOs and ticket purchase through organised groups therefore taking the initiative in a positive way. They would relax the regulations they use against football supporters and provide reserved carriages at seat prices that would reflect the ones currently available. They haven't done that.
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Fair point, I understand where you're coming from
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I paid £26 today. Travel down 9:25 returning at 20:30.
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Just paid £60 for 4 return tickets. 2 Adults, 2 Juniors on a family railcard. Good times too.
Do us a favour you crazy kids. Don't buy all the match day tickets and leave me feeling deflated having to leave Gods Country for no reason.
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Would be extremely interested and so would 2/3 others I travel with.
Would be brilliant if the FSF can pull this off!
:thumbsup:
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Looks like the best option is to buy your tickets privately and then travel down to the match without the hassle historically associated with the old time "specials" from yesteryear. Why anyone would want to sit with people singing and lurching about on the way to the match is anyone's guess?
Footy is changing, despite what some people might want to think.