News reaches me of South West Train’s new Megatrain venture. Constructed along the lines of the highly successful Megabus run by Stagecoach (SWT’s owners), Megatrain is an attempt to offer cheap travel to those put off by high rail travel costs. Shame, then, that they didn’t put a bit more effort into doing it properly.
So far, the scheme is only at a pilot stage, and three routes are offered:
- Between Southampton and London
- Between Southampton and Portsmouth
- Between Portsmouth and London
Tickets are available 6 days a week, the odd day out being Sunday, rather unhelpfully, and there’s about three or four trains on each route each day that you can purchase Megatrain tickets for. According to the terms and conditions, you are only allowed to get on or off the train at the stations listed above. Getting off or on anywhere else will result in a penalty fine, which seems to be £20. This could well scupper my plans for heading out to London on a Friday, and then back on a Monday morning, but getting off before Southampton so I can go to work. Surely I wouldn’t be fined for that, would I? Especially given that I’m a season ticket holder… well, stranger things have happened. I’ve had pretty much nothing but grief and disappointment from my patronage of SWT over the years…
Still, if you happen to be travelling at exactly the right time for a Megatrain ticket, I guess it’s worth checking out, although you could always get a Megabus, which takes a little longer, and at the moment is a little more expensive, but does offer more flexibility in when you can travel.
Links
Tags: train, south west trains, cheap, tickets, megatrain, megabus, southampton, portsmouth, rubbish
1 Comment on Megatrain!
Great job guys… Thank for you work…