Peak and off-peak are fairly standard terms to understand regardless of the industry you are talking about. Phone companies used to have it so that you could make cheaper calls after a defined time. Gyms use it these days so that if you can visit outside of the busiest hours you get a small discount. Sounds simple right? Now, let’s apply that lovely logic to Northern Rail and their off-peak ticketing system.
For a start their page explaining off-peak tickets has an asterisk on the second line, ‘Lower prices at quieter times*’ but rather ominously does not provide any further detail as to what this means. Unless the whole page is an extended footnote*.
Why off-peak?
Anyway, I don’t want to sound like a pedant so let’s move on and deconstruct everything else on the page in forensic detail. Northern list the reasons why travelling off-peak is better. Let’s go through them:
- Cheaper. Sounds good.
- Quieter. I assume this relates to how busy the train is and not the volume of the train engine. I only point this out because I have had to buy noise-cancelling earphones just to be able to hear music and podcasts on my commute due to the deafening noise of these ancient diesel machines.
- Available to purchase up to and including the day you wish to travel. Shit reason. As opposed to what, buying them in the future like I assume Dr Who does?
- Further 50% discount for children aged 5 to 15 inclusive and up to two children aged under 5 can travel free with each fare paying adult. Fare enough. Hahahahaha. Sorry.
- Buy any time before you travel. Eerily similar to the third reason and still shit.
- Railcard (Two Together, Senior, 16-25, Family & Friends, Disabled Persons) holders receive 1/3 off all off-peak fares. In addition, Senior, HM Forces and Disabled Persons Railcard holders also get 1/3 off all First Class off-peak fares. Minimum fares/time restrictions may apply to tickets bought with a Railcard or other discount card. All sounds really good and then that last bit sort of shits all over any optimism any of these card holders might have had about saving money with a neat example of doublespeak.
I’m ready, ticket me
Now that we have got all excited about the reasons why travelling off-peak is better let’s get into the detail in terms of the types you can buy. To be fair this bit is relatively straightforward. You can buy an off-peak single or return for the same day or for a return within one calendar month. All are restricted when you can travel in the mornings (although unless I’m being blind I cannot see when you can start travelling). Then it starts to get interesting. Evening restrictions on when you can travel may also apply depending on a mind-boggling array of factors relating to time, space and some of those freaky super string dimensions Neil DeGrasse Tyson has explained (and you pretended to understand). Basically if you were the type of sad bastard who liked those maths questions relating to trains leaving at certain times and travelling in different directions you are going to love this next bit.
Evening Restrictions (not a weird Michael Hutchence euphemism)
I think I will follow Northern’s lead and take this bit area by area. Let’s start off randomly as they appear to do with South Yorkshire. They have a helpful map of what appears to be all of South Yorkshire with a one-colour key which states that restrictions apply to all of the routes marked in blue. Unless the definition of blue has been split to include different types of blue which are the same shade the whole map appears to be blue. Okay, all good. Now the times of restrictions in the evening. 16.01 – 18.29. How simple to remember. We wanted to do away with all those difficult to remember one number times and replace them with a pedantic 1 minute past the hour and 29 minutes past another hour.
West Yorkshire is similar and has the same times with the added bonus of some evening peak restrictions between some routes marked as green. I don’t really understand or care what these mean to be honest, maybe you can still travel but you have to stand up on one leg or crouch down into a ball while peak ticketholders can kick you at will for being such a cheapskate. Restrictions also apply to four discount cards and offers in West Yorkshire but don’t worry, you will have lost the will to live before buying any of these cards and decided to drive. Or walk. Or just not go.
I can see why they left Greater Manchester to the end. It has all of the complexities of the maps above but on a much more impressive scale. I don’t think even NASA’s latest cosmic map of the Universe is this complicated.It has all of the blue shit and the unfathomable green bits and has restrictions on even more of the discount cards. So basically, just buy a peak ticket and relax or buy off-peak and risk being thrown off the train in Broadbottom and having to wait 14 years for the next off-peak train to trundle through.
I’ve done the calculus on when and where I can travel now how do I buy them?
If you are still keen on traversing the nightmare that is Northern Rail’s off-peak universe then there are lots of options to buy tickets:
- Online – ish. You can order tickets online, assuming you can find an off-peak fare. You can then receive your tickets by First Class post which amusingly takes up to seven days (fuck knows how long Second Class would take). Or you can go and collect your own tickets and do Northern’s job for them from any ticket vending machines (TVMs, catchy) at participating stations. Which makes the whole ordeal sound like a competition.
- On mobile/app. Buy tickets from the app and either go and collect them from a TVM (oooh) or if you’ve selected the new mobile tickets option show your ticket to the conductor. Assuming the app doesn’t shit itself in the middle of an area without Internet connectivity and you end up getting thrown off again at Broadbottom.
- From Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs) at participating stations. Again I’m going pedantic but for some reason Northern have repeated the acronym in long format and then put the acronym after it.
- From station ticket offices. Assuming your station has one. And someone in it. But in theory, yes.
- On trains. If you can’t buy one from a ticket office or a TVM (woop) you can buy one from an arsey conductor who will interrogate you about where you got on, where you are going and then saying he doesn’t have any change. Assuming there is a conductor on the train, something of a sore point with Northern at the moment.
Off-peak ticket FAQs
So, do you have any questions? Starting to question the meaning of life? Starting to have doubts about an eternal creator? You probably do but this isn’t the forum for them.
The first four questions are all around the validity of your tickets if you start your journey outside the restriction zone (or throat, as Michael Hutchence called it) or inside it. For example, if you started your journey before the fall of the Berlin Wall and only had three changes inside or outside the restricted zone before the clock struck twelve then you should be okay, assuming you have a Day Rover Duo Over 65’s Disabled Young Person’s Card that was validated by Clive (everyone knows Clive, he’s the one with the teeth).
There are a few more questions which if anything, just lead to more questions and misery but my personal favourite is the last one which is ‘Where can I find out further information about off-peak and peak travel?’ In an astonishing example of a complete lack of self-awareness the answer starts off with ‘If the information here isn’t clear…’
Well indeed.
* See, this is how an actual footnote works. You put the little symbol in, people scroll to the bottom, read the thing, go ‘ooh I see’ and then crack on with the rest of the article. Off you go then.
Daniel McChrystal 