How I got 100% off my train travel • Hacker News Board

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#41

Post by naming_the_user » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 3:34 PM UTC

thebruce87m wrote: post #24

djhworld wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you travel in and around the South East, inc. London the service is pretty good, regular although still very very expensive. In the north though it’s a mixed bag, frequently delayed, huge underinvestment, expensive etc.

Note that when an English person says the north, they expect everyone to know they are talking specifically about the north of England, not the north of the UK even if everyone else is talking about the UK.

Every country does this, the US south, midwest etc are nonsense geographically.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#42

Post by Tomte » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 3:38 PM UTC

sebtron wrote: post #27

> Avanti West Coast offers customers: > 15 minutes — 25% off > 30 minutes — 50% off > 1 hour + — 100% off To me they look like very generous refund policies. I checked Italy's Trenitalia and what they offer is[1]: > 30-119 minutes: 25% > 120+ minutes: 50% I suppose anything below 30 minutes is consideres "on time". [1] https://www.trenitalia.com/it/informazioni/indennizzo_per_ri...

Deutsche Bahn: 1hr+ --> 25%, 2hr+ --> 50%

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#43

Post by HPsquared » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

sksksk wrote: post #35

sarreph wrote: post #8

The UK train system is a dire, expensive mess. Attempting to avoid getting directly political here, but I strongly believe it’s one of the lowest hanging fruit a political party could act on to curry favour with the electorate. Would be amazing to see this productised à la the way split ticketing works.

I agree that it's a dire , expensive mess. But it doesn't seem like low hanging fruit at all... Anything that will improve the situation will be expensive and/or take a long time to achieve.

And "short-term cost, long-term benefit" is kryptonite to the average politician. "We get the blame, the next guy takes the credit"

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#44

Post by crowselect » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

sksksk wrote: post #35

sarreph wrote: post #8

The UK train system is a dire, expensive mess. Attempting to avoid getting directly political here, but I strongly believe it’s one of the lowest hanging fruit a political party could act on to curry favour with the electorate. Would be amazing to see this productised à la the way split ticketing works.

I agree that it's a dire , expensive mess. But it doesn't seem like low hanging fruit at all... Anything that will improve the situation will be expensive and/or take a long time to achieve.

I mean there’s pretty low hanging fruit mentioned in the article. If rail strikes are frequent enough to feature in the formula, end the strikes by paying the workers well.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#45

Post by dendodge » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 3:42 PM UTC

thebruce87m wrote: post #24

djhworld wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you travel in and around the South East, inc. London the service is pretty good, regular although still very very expensive. In the north though it’s a mixed bag, frequently delayed, huge underinvestment, expensive etc.

Note that when an English person says the north, they expect everyone to know they are talking specifically about the north of England, not the north of the UK even if everyone else is talking about the UK.

Similarly, Americans expect people to be aware that California is not "the South", despite being on the southern border, and that the Midwest is actually in the eastern half of the country.

Basically the names of geographical regions don't always make sense.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#46

Post by reedf1 » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 3:43 PM UTC

thebruce87m wrote: post #24

djhworld wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you travel in and around the South East, inc. London the service is pretty good, regular although still very very expensive. In the north though it’s a mixed bag, frequently delayed, huge underinvestment, expensive etc.

Note that when an English person says the north, they expect everyone to know they are talking specifically about the north of England, not the north of the UK even if everyone else is talking about the UK.

Did you know that most people outside the US do not intuitively understand the arbitrary US delineations for North, South, West, Midwest? And yet, "they expect everyone to know they are talking specifically about..."

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#47

Post by monkey_monkey » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 3:44 PM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #39

I'd heavily caution people against this. The railway operators are both litigious and invested in fraud detection technology. And they love going on fishing exercises Consistent 100% delay repay will absolutely get flagged

What's fraudulent about this?

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#48

Post by kevinventullo » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 3:47 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #32

sebtron wrote: post #27

> Avanti West Coast offers customers: > 15 minutes — 25% off > 30 minutes — 50% off > 1 hour + — 100% off To me they look like very generous refund policies. I checked Italy's Trenitalia and what they offer is[1]: > 30-119 minutes: 25% > 120+ minutes: 50% I suppose anything below 30 minutes is consideres "on time". [1] https://www.trenitalia.com/it/informazioni/indennizzo_per_ri...

> I suppose anything below 30 minutes is consideres "on time". sounds about right for the stereotype. it's the 'murikans that are the ones so uptight about time

Japan would like to have a word.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#49

Post by tonyedgecombe » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 3:48 PM UTC

moomin wrote: post #18

controlledchaos wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a North American who travels in the UK multiple times per year, I really need you to elaborate. My experience has been nothing less than amazing, in comparison to the complete lack of rail options at home.

America has much more serious problems with rail, but the UK experience still isn't great. The broad root cause is that back in the day we had the genius idea of paying multiple private companies to run trains on shared lines. We set up metrics to measure their performance that, bluntly, do not work. They underinvest and when there's any sign they're not making money, they hand the contract back. All in all, we get a…

>The broad root cause is that back in the day we had the genius idea of paying multiple private companies to run trains on shared lines.

Train travel has doubled since the privatisation.

The main problem is we don't know how to build out infrastructure in a cost effective manner (see HS2 and the electrification of the Great Western Main Line). This isn't surprising as we do it in a stop/start manner rather than a continual process.

Re: How I got 100% off my train travel

#50

Post by bonobocop » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 3:51 PM UTC

celticninja wrote: post #2

There is a slightly less ethical way to do this, you buy a ticket that mows you to travel at any time of day. Then when you have made your trip log on to realtimetrains to find a train on your route that was delayed and then claim that as your journey. Now your ticket is sometimes scanned when you enter or leave a station but this is rare and even less likely to be scanned on the train by a conductor. Anyway that is…

The DR system doesn’t look at ticket scans alone. It also builds a profile per customer based on a number data points.

It will flag up quite quickly if you are “sniping” delayed trains at different times.