Megatrain

Megatrain offers low cost intercity train travel via the megabus.com website, using yield management pricing, on East Midlands Trains and South West Trains which are rail franchises in the United Kingdom operated by Scottish-based Stagecoach Group. The services began on 1 November 2005.

Service overview
Megatrain offers low cost intercity train travel on East Midlands Trains and South West Trains both of which are owned by Stagecoach Group. In addition, Megabusplus tickets allow combined coach and train journeys to London via East Midlands Parkway railway station with Feeder services from Huddersfield - Halifax - Bradford, Harrogate - York - Castleford and Hull - Scunthorpe. A similar scheme is available from The Trainline on Virgin Trains West Coast between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly (Virgin Trains is 49% owned by Stagecoach).

In the UK, prices are advertised as starting at £1, with a 50p booking fee. Megatrain follows the yield management model typically used by low-cost airlines where the lowest fares are offered to those who book early or on less popular journeys. Tickets must be purchased in advance, via their website or by telephone.

Services are available Monday to Saturday only, with no service on Sundays or many public holidays.

History
Megatrain announced by Stagecoach, on 31 October 2005: there will be more than 3000 seats available each week.

The concept was piloted on South West Trains, Stagecoach's first franchise. The first services of Megatrain were on the London Waterloo to Portsmouth and London Waterloo to Southampton routes. The trains continue to be operated as standard timetabled services by South West Trains but with designated areas for Megatrain customers. The service was launched on 1 November 2005 for trains to start running on 14 November 2005. The price of tickets range from £1 to £19.

From 22 April 2006, the scheme was expanded to provide cheap rail travel on South West Trains services from London Waterloo to Bristol Temple Meads, Bath Spa, Exeter St Davids/Exeter Central, Yeovil Junction, Bournemouth, Weymouth and Salisbury in addition to the Southampton Central and Portsmouth and Southsea/Portsmouth Harbour services. Poole has since been added as an option on the Weymouth line. From 29 October 2007, following the completion of the Portsmouth area engineering works, the scheme now also operates on services from London Waterloo to Havant, Honiton and Axminster.

On 6 March 2007, the Times Online announces that only 1 in 900 of the passengers carried by either Virgin or South West Trains companies bought a Megatrain low-fare ticket.

On 2 January 2008, the Megatrain concept was extended to certain rail services on the East Midlands franchise, with the introduction of Megatrain between London St Pancras and Sheffield, and London and Chesterfield/Nottingham, on selected East Midlands Trains services.

The new East Midlands Trains franchise was awarded to Stagecoach in November 2007 and from 2 January 2008 Megatrain services started running from London St Pancras International to Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Derby, Chesterfield and Sheffield.

The service was available on the following Virgin Trains (which is 49% owned by Stagecoach) services as well: Penzance - Bristol Temple Meads, Bournemouth and Southampton Central - Birmingham New Street, Manchester Piccadilly - Glasgow Central/Edinburgh Waverley and Morpeth - Edinburgh Waverley. Tickets are also available from some intermediate stops on these routes. These routes were withdrawn on 11 November 2007 when the train services were transferred to CrossCountry, owned by Arriva.

At the start of 2009 more routes were introduced between Norwich and Nottingham, and Leicester and Sheffield.

In March 2009 Megabusplus tickets offering for combined coach and train journeys to London via East Midlands Parkway railway station were introduced; Three feeder coach routes were provided: Huddersfield - Halifax - Bradford, Harrogate - York - Castleford and Hull - Scunthorpe.