Raileasy, who own and operate the TrainSplit brand, are delighted to announce their support for Severn Valley Railway's (SVR) commuter trial by selling tickets through to (and from) Bewdley in the TrainSplit app and via the TrainSplit website. Tickets can be fulfilled digitally (as E-Tickets, which is our recommendation) or via Ticket on Departure (provided they can be collected from a mainline station).
The trial had previously received coverage in BBC News and will help to evaluate demand for a permanent regular service.
During the eight week trial period, commuters based in Bewdley will be able to use a reliable connection to Kidderminster to travel towards Birmingham and beyond. Thanks to our split ticketing technology, we will be able to sell tickets to/from any rail destination in Great Britain.
SVR's Bewdley Express service operates on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays during the eight-week trial, with two morning services departing Bewdley at 6.40am and 7.40am. Passengers can then change at Kidderminster for onwards West Midlands Railway services, with the first service reaching Birmingham Snow Hill at 7.46am and the second at 8.46am.
In the evening, commuters can use services departing Birmingham Snow Hill at 4.46pm and 5.46pm, which then will connect at Kidderminster with SVR trains back to Bewdley, arriving at 5.57pm and 7.02pm respectively.
Due to problems outside of Raileasy's control, although fares and tickets were correctly set-up in the relevant national system, the timetables for these services were not made available to retailers to use ready for the trial. We have put in place an effective workaround to ensure that these services are now surfaced by our journey planner using data from Network Rail, and would invite other rail ticket retailers to consider doing the same.
We thought it important that passengers were able to purchase tickets in the same way as they do for other National Rail stations on the mainline network.
Prior to this work, we had retailed fares in advance of the trial via our partner BR Fares. The BR Fares service allows customers to purchase tickets without needing an itinerary.
We would like to thank West Midlands Railway for their support, and wish Severn Valley Railway all the best with their Bewdley Express trial.
Photo credit: Tanya Dedyukhina