Rivals do not fear £1 London service
THE launch of a new service giving travellers in East Yorkshire the chance to get to London for just £1 has been welcomed as healthy competition.
Stagecoach has launched its Megabusplus.com service, allowing passengers to travel from Hull to St Pancras Station on a bus and train service.
It has teamed up with East Midlands Trains to offer the service but, far from worrying rival operator First Hull Trains, sales and marketing manager David Townend believes the move can only attract more business.
He said: "We welcome the competition, which is good for the consumer and the industry.
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"It shows the industry is innovative. We are all trying to get more people to use trains."
City of Hull Environment Forum chairman Adam Fowler also welcomed the new service.
He said: "It's an interesting and novel idea. Anything that makes public transport accessible has to be a good thing.
"But it has to complement rather than undermine existing services."
The first £1 services start running from Monday and customers can book now.
It will use East Midlands Parkway station, near Nottingham, as an interchange to allow passengers to move between the coach and the train.
There will be two services a day from Hull to London and all travel during the first week will cost £1.
Afterwards, a proportion of fares will cost £1, with prices going up to £20.
The company would not say how many of the 45 seats available would be £1 tickets, but said it was a "significant" number.
East Midlands Trains managing director Tim Shoveller said: "You can get on a comfortable coach, transfer to a high-speed train and make the 200-mile trip to London in just three-and-a-half-hours for the price of a loaf of bread."
Comments
by mark, Hull
Sunday, March 29 2009, 6:20PM
“Chris..ok apart from the "given hulls wages apart from other parts ofthe UK" bit... i am baffled by this nonsense apart from central london all uk wages are very similar..dont believe the hype...hulls average wage is slightly higher than leeds for your info to put it into context.”
by UKMarine, Hull
Friday, March 27 2009, 6:01PM
“Chris said.... " This is excellent news for people in Hull and East Yorkshire. I have to say i am surprised it has not been available until now. " Been done before and yes by Stagecoach. £20 return bus to Doncaster then onto the train to London. The coach then went onto Sheffield. Stagecoach stopped both services because not enough people used them.”
by John Jones, Wincolmlee
Friday, March 27 2009, 12:10PM
“I went to London once. They had big red buses and you could buy anything you wanted in all of the shops. I saw the queen in Camden, she was drunk and had fallen asleep in a pub toilet.”
by Laura, Hull
Friday, March 27 2009, 11:53AM
“Great, even though it is very confusing with the prices and stuff. I just went on the website to book a day return for next saturday, chose the 0640 from Hull, but returning the same day meant a train from London at 1430, but it was an absolute bargain for two passengers, it cost £24.00 return for both. But, I wasn't happy with the time of train back, so decided to find one the next day and stop over - this doubled the price of the outward journey. Chris, I know from your previous postings, your into trains (and trees and all things green) can you explain the difference in the costs?”
by Chris, Hedon & Bury
Friday, March 27 2009, 11:20AM
“Ben, the coaches travel to East Midlands Parkway Station and then you transfer to the train which can legally travel at 110mph hence the stated journey times are correct. It would be faster were it not for the fact the Midland Main Line is restricted to 110mph compared to the East Coast which is 125. If you visit the megabusplus website you will see the coach part is around 2 hours while the train takes 1hr 40 although at the moment there are only two services 0640 and 1250. There is also a 20 minute wait at EM Parkway, presumably to allow for M1 traffic.”
by Chris, Hedon & Bury
Friday, March 27 2009, 11:12AM
“Apologies, before anyone comments, I did not intend to send the same comment three times so if HDM could remove two of the duplicates I would be grateful. Thanks.”
by Chris, Hedon & Bury
Friday, March 27 2009, 10:17AM
“This is excellent news for people in Hull and East Yorkshire. I have to say i am surprised it has not been available until now. Megabus and Megatrain have been popular in other parts of the UK and the fact you can travel between London and Manchester for as little as £1 has not worried Virgin at all who have responded by upping their service to offer Piccadilly to Euston by Pendolino every 20 minutes.
With Virgin though you just have to make sure you don't forget to buy in advance because Virgin's walk-on fares are eye-wateringly expensive starting at £77 for a standard class single at peak times and rising to £400 for an Open Business Class return!
In the past Brian Souter has stated that Megabus and MegaTrain are targeted at specific markets, namely students and those on a tight budget who have to travel. Given Hull's low wages compared with other parts of the UK you would have thought Megabus would have been serving Hull already. The Megatrain offering £1 fares between New Street and Edinburgh/Glasgow on the WCML has proved very popular and the same goes for the MegaBus coach service between Manchester and Dundee/Aberdeen.
Hull Trains do not have anything to worry about since MegaTrain targets a different market altogether. I have often struggled to get a seat on HT if I haven't reserved a seat in advance so the demand for Hull-London travel is obviously there.
Does anyone know why, apart from the excellent service provided by HT and the improving one on TPX between Hull and Manchester, Hull is so poorly served by public transport compared with a city of similar size e.g. Norwich? I notice that National Express have dropped to a single daily direct coach departure to London. I am also surprised that you can't travel direct by train to Liverpool (apart from the 0600).
I thought it was just an urban myth that "Hull People do not travel". if it is not, does that explain why, with the exceptions I have mentioned, it is so difficult to travel to/from Hull and other parts of the UK?”
by Chris, Hedon & Bury
Friday, March 27 2009, 10:12AM
“This is excellent news for people in Hull and East Yorkshire. I have to say i am surprised it has not been available until now. Megabus and Megatrain have been popular in other parts of the UK and the fact you can travel between London and Manchester for as little as £1 has not worried Virgin at all who have responded by upping their service to offer Piccadilly to Euston by Pendolino every 20 minutes.
With Virgin though you just have to make sure you don't forget to buy in advance because Virgin's walk-on fares are eye-wateringly expensive starting at £77 for a standard class single at peak times and rising to £400 for an Open Business Class return!
In the past Brian Souter has stated that Megabus and MegaTrain are targeted at specific markets, namely students and those on a tight budget who have to travel. Given Hull's low wages compared with other parts of the UK you would have thought Megabus would have been serving Hull already. The Megatrain offering £1 fares between New Street and Edinburgh/Glasgow on the WCML has proved very popular and the same goes for the MegaBus coach service between Manchester and Dundee/Aberdeen.
Hull Trains do not have anything to worry about since MegaTrain targets a different market altogether. I have often struggled to get a seat on HT if I haven't reserved a seat in advance so the demand for Hull-London travel is obviously there.
Does anyone know why, apart from the excellent service provided by HT and the improving one on TPX between Hull and Manchester, Hull is so poorly served by public transport compared with a city of similar size e.g. Norwich? I notice that National Express have dropped to a single daily direct coach departure to London. I am also surprised that you can't travel direct by train to Liverpool (apart from the 0600).
I thought it was just an urban myth that "Hull People do not travel". if it is not, does that explain why, with the exceptions I have mentioned, it is so difficult to travel to/from Hull and other parts of the UK?”
by Chris, Hedon & Bury
Friday, March 27 2009, 10:11AM
“This is excellent news for people in Hull and East Yorkshire. I have to say i am surprised it has not been available until now. Megabus and Megatrain have been popular in other parts of the UK and the fact you can travel between London and Manchester for as little as £1 has not worried Virgin at all who have responded by upping their service to offer Piccadilly to Euston by Pendolino every 20 minutes.
With Virgin though you just have to make sure you don't forget to buy in advance because Virgin's walk-on fares are eye-wateringly expensive starting at £77 for a standard class single at peak times and rising to £400 for an Open Business Class return!
In the past Brian Souter has stated that Megabus and MegaTrain are targeted at specific markets, namely students and those on a tight budget who have to travel. Given Hull's low wages compared with other parts of the UK you would have thought Megabus would have been serving Hull already. The Megatrain offering £1 fares between New Street and Edinburgh/Glasgow on the WCML has proved very popular and the same goes for the MegaBus coach service between Manchester and Dundee/Aberdeen.
Hull Trains do not have anything to worry about since MegaTrain targets a different market altogether. I have often struggled to get a seat on HT if I haven't reserved a seat in advance so the demand for Hull-London travel is obviously there.
Does anyone know why, apart from the excellent service provided by HT and the improving one on TPX between Hull and Manchester, Hull is so poorly served by public transport compared with a city of similar size e.g. Norwich? I notice that National Express have dropped to a single daily direct coach departure to London. I am also surprised that you can't travel direct by train to Liverpool (apart from the 0600).
I thought it was just an urban myth that "Hull People do not travel". if it is not, does that explain why, with the exceptions I have mentioned, it is so difficult to travel to/from Hull and other parts of the UK?”
by Ben, Hull, Hull
Friday, March 27 2009, 10:08AM
“Due to the fact that buses are legally restricted to 56mph I doubt that they are able to do it in 3 and a half hours, I call bluff on that one.”