Frustrated couple take on GWR exorbitant London fares
Summary
Exasperation at “rip-off” commuter prices for beleaguered train commuters held hostage by peak-rate train prices of £200 a day has led a Stroud couple to take on the big boys and launch their own coach service.
Details
Tom McMilla n and his wife Rebecca are now operating a series of trial runs for their new GoStroud service, a coach route that starts in Stonehouse and picks up in Stroud, Chalford and Cirencester before terminating at West Drayton, close to Heathrow, as the western connection for the central London Elizabeth Line.
The service aims to lure business commuters seeking an affordable alternative to increasingly prohibitive train costs. Return tickets offer peak-time options for £30 return with bookings now available in July, September and October. A single leg either way costs £22.
Tom, 49, a food and farming policy consultant and former key figure at Cirencester’s Royal Agricultural University, told Punchine-Gloucester.com that he and his wife had spent so long being dismayed by the “crazily expensive” cost of train travel that they decided to take the matter into their own hands.
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He said the service would offer executive-style travel with cost-price coffee and pastries as well as table workspaces, adding that it did not claim to better the train on speed and environmental impact, but that rail operators were currently “pricing people out” of work opportunities in the capital.
Tom said: “We have tracked the cost of peak travel for anyone trying to get from Stroud to London over the last ten years and it has gone up seven times. We worked out that if we could offer a coach service so that people didn’t have to take horribly early or later trains, the operation could be viable once we hit more than 30 bookings per coach trip.
Today’s trial run, which reached its destination just two minutes late despite traffic challenges, had 22 on board.” GoStroud operates in partnership with Swindon-headquartered Barnes Coaches Ltd , who also operate out fo Cheltenham’s Arle Court, and the service leaves at 6am from Stroud, timetabled to arrive two hours later at West Drayton, the return route leaving at 6.15pm to be back in Stroud by around 8pm.
More pilot runs are now set for next week, on July 14, 15, and 16 ahead of a full launch in September, when the service will expand to run Tuesday to Thursdays. According to National Rail’s season ticket calculation, the current annual price for a pass is £14,072, which equates to £99.80 per day for travel into the capital from Stroud when used three days a week over 47 weeks of the year.
Report source: Punchline Gloucester