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"Route Any Permitted"


Joseph_Pestell
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That reminds me of an occasion (many years ago now) when a guard insisted that a return journey (Plymouth - Worthing) had to be via Yeovil Jct rather than via Westbury. Feel sure that he must have been wrong. The extra change at Exeter with a poor connection resulted in a much slower journey.

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21 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

What it actually means looking through the routeing guide maps is that  the route via Salisbury is also a permitted route.  However the route via Salisbury which is shown in the routeing guide is in fact via Salisbury and Exeter  (although that is quoted against a ticket 'via London').  The routeing guide does NOT show/allow a route via Salisbury and Westbury.  Hence the code AP Salisbury allows the ticket from Gatwick Airport to be used to get to Tiverton Parkway via the LSW route to  Exeter and then double back towards Taunton. (which is the station you have to use as Tiverton Parkway is not shown on the Gatwick originating list).

This discussion really does show how totally unhelpful this all is to a normal traveller who really cannot be expected to read and understand the routing guide. It will be interesting to see how much more complicated the promised simplification makes it.

Rgds

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On 28/12/2019 at 11:24, The Stationmaster said:

Surely the normal route Gatwick - Tiverton Parkway would be via Reading (unless it is specified as via London) and Salisbury is a permitted route (hence it is shown as 'AP Salisbury').  Because Gatwick Reading isn't possible today - for whatever reason - the logical alternative is via Clapham Jcn thence to Reading. 

Gatwick, Clapham jn, Salisbury, Westbury, Tiverton Parkway, or the bus for the bits closed due to engineering works.

 

I cant see it being valid via Paddington at any time due to the via Salisbury bit.

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2 minutes ago, Grovenor said:

This discussion really does show how totally unhelpful this all is to a normal traveller who really cannot be expected to read and understand the routing guide. It will be interesting to see how much more complicated the promised simplification makes it.

Rgds

Would a normal traveller be looking into all the convoluted (but cheaper) routes in the first place?

 

If somebody can be bothered to search out a cheaper but restricted ticket then they can stick to the restrictions!

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On 27/12/2019 at 17:50, Gwiwer said:

A new one on me cropped up today.  Paddington is devoid of trains due to holiday engineering work. So is Salisbury. Routes to the south-west are therefore a bit limited. Enter passenger just arrived from Gatwick with a ticket purchased via a third-party app routed to Tiverton Parkway “AP Salisbury”.  Ordinarily that would require the change they made at Clapham Junction and another at Westbury given the time of travel. Today the option was bus Andover to Yeovil, a wait to travel via Exeter, walk Central to St Davids there and back-track. Or taxi between Yeovil stations and a long wait at Castle Cary. No option via Paddington nor via Southampton so the only option open was off route via Reading. Which would have been a couple of hours quicker than any other route. 

Why couldnt they change buses at Salisbury and then go to Warminster for onward rail transport via Westbury?

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I used to have season tickets Swindon-Didcot and Didcot-Reading. If I ever needed to go north, i would get a Didcot to (somewhere north) ticket and get a cross country train Reading to the north.

 

This is allowed by the rules even though the train doesn't stop at Didcot but few guards I spoke to knew the rules.

 

You can't do this with two normal tickets or two season tickets but you can with one season plus one normal ticket.

 

One guard checked and came back to apologise for not knowing!

 

One colleague had the page from the routing rules printed out to aid acceptance.

Will

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22 hours ago, WillCav said:

I used to have season tickets Swindon-Didcot and Didcot-Reading. If I ever needed to go north, i would get a Didcot to (somewhere north) ticket and get a cross country train Reading to the north.

 

This is allowed by the rules even though the train doesn't stop at Didcot but few guards I spoke to knew the rules.

 

You can't do this with two normal tickets or two season tickets but you can with one season plus one normal ticket.

 

One guard checked and came back to apologise for not knowing!

 

One colleague had the page from the routing rules printed out to aid acceptance.

Will

 

You can use as many seasons as you like.  If there were a non-stop train from Paddington to Swindon then your two seasons would be valid in conjunction with a normal ticket from Paddington to Reading.

 

A cross country guard not understanding the ticket rules.  What a surprise.

Edited by DY444
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22 hours ago, royaloak said:

Gatwick, Clapham jn, Salisbury, Westbury, Tiverton Parkway, or the bus for the bits closed due to engineering works.

 

I cant see it being valid via Paddington at any time due to the via Salisbury bit.

Actually most of the routes for that particular ticket were via London.  There is nothing shown as a separate ticket for the most obvious (to me) route via Guildford and Reading although it is an acceptable route for the ticket which includes travel via London.  There are a wide range of permutations on the GWR side.

 

But don't forget Salisbury is shown as 'AP' - in other words (if you know the routeing procedure) it is the one added as an otherwise unexpected/illogical one - AP Exeter would probably be a lot more logical for that particular available route.  The logical route with the state of Christmas period engineering routes with Paddington and Guildford closed/partly closed would seem to have been via Clapham Jcn, then Reading - no need necessarily to go to Salisbury because it was a permitted route and not necessarily the ideal route.

 

22 hours ago, Grovenor said:

This discussion really does show how totally unhelpful this all is to a normal traveller who really cannot be expected to read and understand the routing guide. It will be interesting to see how much more complicated the promised simplification makes it.

Rgds

 

The normal traveller is hardly likely to know where to look to find the information let alone know what it means, especially if their railway geography is lacking (which is more than likely as they can hardly be expected to have such knowledge).  The critical bit is railway staff having the necessary knowledge to advise passengers and we've already seen an example above from 'WillCav' of what can happen (or not happen) in that respect.  In my opinion - having had a good look through it - the current methods of dealing with the question of routes and even more so calculating ('divining' might be a better term) fares is incredibly over complicated and ponderous to use even if you know where to look.

 

The old system of mileage based fares was far simpler but it meant that they had to be calculated if you hadn't got a fare and usually that meant going to the Divisional Fares Section in order to get one - not necessarily feasible when the passenger was at the Booking Office window and impossible out of DMO office hours.  Mind you in my experience it didn't happen all that often except for season tickets.  When the Selective Prices Manual (SPM) came in it got a whole lot simpler because you couldn't readily calculate a fare you hadn't got by simply adding together the fares for each section of the journey where you did have a fare - it also had the advantage for the passenger when choosing a route that you could quickly work out which was the cheapest option (provided there wasn't a queue at the BO window or there happened to be someone in the office who could do the job for the person busy at the window).  All you needed was a knowledge of railway geography and, if necessary, the Book of Routes and very often experience would any way lead you to the cheapest route.  The present system does have the advantage - in one stage - of using maps which get you round the geographical knowledge bit but the rest of it strikes me as more cumbersome than using your head, your geographical knowledge, possibly the Book of Routes, and the SPM to calculate a fare where you didn't have one.

 

Presumably the present system was designed by someone who lacked booking office experience and didn't know the history but was designing something that was computer based for people with limited railway geography knowledge.   The bit which effectively replaces the Book of Routes isn't bad in that respect but some of the other procedures are definitely far worse than the simple system the SPM offered.  If it has to be computerised - which has some logic to it - surely the answer is simply to include fares which can be accessed once you've selected a route.  This would allow easy updating of fares from the various operators etc who might be involved plus the computer terminal can add up the fare for you.  And the other thing it would solve is multi-ticketing because once you have your route the machine will calculate the fare by, in effect, using the SPM method of simply adding together sectional fares using the cheapest for the type of journey being made.

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There used to be a couple of booking office staff at Plymouth, that could do some obscure routing in their head, Bernard Mills was one and Pete something, was the other. Probably due too the number of matlots going on draft or leave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Siberian Snooper
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Sometimes the National Rail route planner gives a route that doubles back. For example at the weekend (SWR strike) Reading to Whitton showed change at Twickenham having passed through Whitton on the way to Twickenham and doubling back one station back to Whitton.  If the rail planner shows that you must double back then this is presumably acceptable? It did not show that two tickets were needed.  I quite frequently see journeys where doubling back one stop is shown as the suggested route. The planner also showed Reading to Whitton via the two Windsor stations as valid that did not involve doubling back. Would this normally be a permitted route in normal circumstances - it sometimes shows during engineering work instead of a replacement bus?

 

On a separate point if using an Oyster card wholly within the Oyster zones, I presume you can double back as much as you like if that is the quickest way as long as you have touched in when you start and you end passing through the place where you touched in to begin with? Happens when travelling back to a station with more frequent or faster trains that do not call at the station you started from.

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I wonder why the planner showed Reading - Whitton via Twickenham. During the strikes all up and down Reading services have called - and provided the only service - at Whitton. A double-back would not be required. 
 

It would not be required on the normal timetable either since the usual option is to change to / from a Windsor service at Staines. Those ran via Hounslow and not Whitton during the strikes. 
 

“Via Windsor Stations” turns up as a valid route at times. Usually when A to B is significantly shorter by that route than any other such as Staines to Slough. 

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20 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

I wonder why the planner showed Reading - Whitton via Twickenham. During the strikes all up and down Reading services have called - and provided the only service - at Whitton. A double-back would not be required. 
 

It would not be required on the normal timetable either since the usual option is to change to / from a Windsor service at Staines. Those ran via Hounslow and not Whitton during the strikes. 
 

“Via Windsor Stations” turns up as a valid route at times. Usually when A to B is significantly shorter by that route than any other such as Staines to Slough. 

The exception was on Sundays during the strikes or certainly last Sunday when Reading trains did not call at Whitton much to my annoyance!

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1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

I wonder why the planner showed Reading - Whitton via Twickenham. During the strikes all up and down Reading services have called - and provided the only service - at Whitton. A double-back would not be required. 
 

It would not be required on the normal timetable either since the usual option is to change to / from a Windsor service at Staines. Those ran via Hounslow and not Whitton during the strikes. 
 

“Via Windsor Stations” turns up as a valid route at times. Usually when A to B is significantly shorter by that route than any other such as Staines to Slough. 

'Via Windsor stations' is a long established permissible route.  Going back about 50 years it was a permissible routes for some non-stock season tickets from Slough to certain London stations and it was often used as a valid route on sales reps'  season tickets (the ones that opened like the covers of a book).

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  • 6 months later...
On 23/12/2019 at 19:59, Nearholmer said:

National Rail Enquiries can help too.

...


Apologies for thread resurrection (it was the closest I could find). I’ve just tried searching the NR Enquiries app for a journey from Cambridge North (CMB) to Cambridge (CBG), but Cambridge North appears to be missing from the app. Nor is it listed in their handy .csv download giving the 3LAs for allegedly every station in the country. 
 

An online contact enquiry elicited an email from “Catherine” with the helpful information that I should try the National Rail Enquiries app, which apparently lets me plan journeys between any railway stations on the national network...

 

Can anyone guess why NR appears to be ignorant of the existence of one of their own stations? Or point out where I’m going wrong? Because at the moment this route doesn’t appear to be permitted. Or even exist. 

 

Paul

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1 hour ago, Siberian Snooper said:

Works ok on the national rail app. It also comes up on Google maps.

 

 


Really? Here’s what I get:

 

...

 

Damn. Now I can’t insert images I’ve uploaded to the RMWeb Gallery. Anyway, for “CMB”, NR says “No results found”, and “Camb...” gives a choice of just Cambridge or Cambridge Heath. 
 

Huh. 
 

Clearly you’re better at apps than me. And RMWeb. 
 

Paul

 

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2 hours ago, Shropshire Lad said:

Just tried the NR app and Cambridge North is there!


Which is lovely for you! So what am I doing wrong (see below for screen grabs in which NR’s app denies the existence of Cambridge North)?

 

Paul

 

9A56B770-1179-4E43-9123-86BD4C1F0CBE.png.9fdd51a5d2e3ff018874db32847f186a.png

 

Where’s Cambridge North?

 

26FF59E8-AC4E-446D-8B40-DD4045CB4E99.png.ab84b87b2e52e1298fb5eff69d60b7db.png

 

”No search results” found?

 

And, for completeness, here’s NR’s list of “all” their stations (there’s a link to a .csv file — also missing CMB).

 

 

Edited by Fenman
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On 24/12/2019 at 00:02, LBRJ said:

It used to be Any Permissible route which was a tiny bit clearer terminology... As long as you had access to the Routing Guide.....

 

No, it was 'Any Reasonable' util privatisation but the lawyers couldn't contracualise that across different train companies.

On 29/12/2019 at 12:55, Grovenor said:

This discussion really does show how totally unhelpful this all is to a normal traveller who really cannot be expected to read and understand the routing guide. It will be interesting to see how much more complicated the promised simplification makes it.

Rgds

Quite. It was a contradiction to both split the network up and require tickets to work as British Rail used to set them up and resulted in the most Byzantine creation of regulatory gobbledgook, which at least in the early days was overseen by ex-BR staff who knew how it was supposed to work. It is now overseen by DfT officials who don't actually understand it themselves.

On 30/12/2019 at 12:07, The Stationmaster said:

Presumably the present system was designed by someone who lacked booking office experience and didn't know the history but was designing something that was computer based for people with limited railway geography knowledge.   The bit which effectively replaces the Book of Routes isn't bad in that respect but some of the other procedures are definitely far worse than the simple system the SPM offered.  If it has to be computerised - which has some logic to it - surely the answer is simply to include fares which can be accessed once you've selected a route.  This would allow easy updating of fares from the various operators etc who might be involved plus the computer terminal can add up the fare for you.  And the other thing it would solve is multi-ticketing because once you have your route the machine will calculate the fare by, in effect, using the SPM method of simply adding together sectional fares using the cheapest for the type of journey being made.

No, it was designed pre-computer which is why it is so convoluted now, because as soon as computerised itinerary planning was introduced the proframmes started finding all sorts of routes that were tedhnically not excluded but which were never intended to be valid. So the actual guide is about twenty times the size it was originally and has to be continually amended to take account of engineering works, service changes etc.

 

The logical answer is to redesign it for the 21st century so that fare and timetable data is fully integrated, but until now it has always gone into the too difficult pile as everything is regulated through contracts. Ironically, the meltdown of these contracts caused by Covid creates a once in a generation opportunity to sort it all but as it is all now in effect the direct responsibility of the DfT I wouldn't get too excited.

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8 hours ago, Fenman said:


Which is lovely for you! So what am I doing wrong (see below for screen grabs in which NR’s app denies the existence of Cambridge North)?

 

Paul

 

 

 

Where’s Cambridge North?

 

 

 

”No search results” found?

 

And, for completeness, here’s NR’s list of “all” their stations (there’s a link to a .csv file — also missing CMB).

 

 

 

I just typed in CAMB and get a list of 8 stations including Camberley and Cambuslang the final one is Shelford(Cambs). It works on my phone and tablet.

Just added the R and get 3, Cambridge, Cambridge Heath and Cambridge North.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On my iPhone, the NR app does indeed have Cambridge North.

It's version 9.5.4, released only 2 weeks ago. The release notes say "In this release we've added some new stations..." which I presume includes Cambridge North, ~3 years after opening!

 

The Twitter feed part of the app is still broken though, not showing any tweets as it used to. Last year it was listing old franchises instead of current ones. At least now the Twitter feed drop-down has Avanti West Coast, but placed alphabetically as if it started with a V, between Transport for Wales, and West Midlands Railway.

 

In the App Store, it's got an average rating of 2.3 out of 5 stars, which is generous I feel.

 

2128359613_CambridgeNorth.jpg.c151abc2b00e6a71dc89c5adf8e14599.jpg

 

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On 31/12/2019 at 22:14, The Stationmaster said:

'Via Windsor stations' is a long established permissible route.  Going back about 50 years it was a permissible routes for some non-stock season tickets from Slough to certain London stations and it was often used as a valid route on sales reps'  season tickets (the ones that opened like the covers of a book).

I have just seen this turn up again.

 

"Oxford - Gatwick Airport via Windsor Stations" which is apparently a cheaper fare than "Not London Terminals" i.e. the obvious route changing at Reading.  One of no doubt a great many instances of a cheaper fare being available by a slower and less obvious route and perhaps only known to the few and those who religiously seek out the cheapest option.  

 

I am reminded of my Brighton - Penzance trip which produced fares of no less than £65 by any route other than "via Salisbury" which was around £120.  It was £65 "via Westbury" but that does not necessarily require routing via Salisbury - it could be via Reading.  It was around £80 "via London Terminals + " (i.e. including the tube hop) and £65 "via Andover" which could be done a number of ways.  "Via Clapham Junction" was also £65 yet "via Balham" was a remarkable £18 for the identical journey as via Clapham Junction.  And on the same train towards Exeter as if I had travelled via Salisbury and paid £120.  

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