Great Western Coffee Shop

You're going to love this one ...

I live in Melksham and want to travel to Salford Quays on Sunday October 6th.
from there to Bow Brickhill on the evening of October 8th
and back to Melksham on evening of October 11th.

I know my last leg will be on the late bus on Friday from Chippenham ...

I'm tempted to get a super off peak return to London and then an off-peak return to Manchester, breaking my journey at Bletchley on the way south and buying singles up the Marston Vale line (not sure on hotels near Bow Brickhill!)

Question - on the off-peak return, how long am I allowed for my break of journey?  Is the 3 days OK?

I'll leave the rail to others with more time, but there are Travelodges in Brickhill Drive, Bedford & Marston Mortaine which isn't very far from Brickhill....

Your return portion of an Off Peak Return is valid for 1 month. You can break your journey en route for as long as you like within that period. All travel must be completed by 0400 on the day after the date printed on the return portion and note needs to be taken of the times you can travel after resuming your journey.

There have been reports of rail staff saying that once you break your journey overnight a return portion with one month validity is no longer valid. This was covered by Barry Doe in RAIL magazine recently. The rail staff are wrong.

So do be prepared to stand your ground on the slight chance that you encounter a member of rail staff who is talking out of their posterior.  ;D

A printout of the ticket's restriction text may help. But is also just as likely to confuse poorly trained staff further.

Sounds good (on the tickets).   I've just noticed a Westbury to Manchester via London Fare at 101.60 return which will probably to the job for me ... Westbury -> London is valid via Melksham, but they don't seem to offer a Melksham fare.     Now - is Manchester to London on that ticket valid via Chesterfield and Bedford?

Break of journey advise - much appreciated.

ChrisB ... you can't have known this, but the Marston Moraine TravelLodge has very painful memories for me ...

Manchester to Westbury via London wishing to travel home via Chesterfield and Bedford:

One of the permitted routes for this journey (there are many! (http://www.trainscanbecheaper.info/permitted.aspx?from=WSB&to=MAN&v1=&v2=&v3=&v4=&v5=&ShowRoute=Y&AnalyseMaps=N)) is by using Routeing Guide map combination:

PS (http://www.atoc.org/clientfiles/files/Maps.pdf#page=91)+MM (http://www.atoc.org/clientfiles/files/Maps.pdf#page=75)+LONDON+BL (http://www.atoc.org/clientfiles/files/Maps.pdf#page=8)

From that, I concur that, yes, you can travel via Chesterfield and Bedford on the return portion of a Westbury to Manchester (via London) Off Peak Return.

Oh dear ... I feel I asked slightly the wrong question - "Via Chesterfield Bedford and Bletchley" which I suspect from the diagrams is a "no".

That would indeed be a no. It's either Midland Main Line or West Coast Main Line from Manchester to London. Once on either there's no Routeing Guide map combination that allows transfer across to the other using the Marston Vale Line.

EDIT: You can of course buy separate tickets for Bedford-Bow Brickhill-Bletchley and then resume your journey to London (and onward) on the return portion of your Westbury-Manchester (via London) Off Peak Return.

... unless you try using the Titherington Gambit - although that really only applies if your journey started west of Swansea, so probably doesn't help here.  :P ::) :D

I think if one were to include the National Rail Routeing Guide in the rules of 'Mornington Crescent' there's a very real danger that the participants' heads would explode.

The Campanile in Fenny Stratford is fairly good (basic but clean) and reasonably priced.  Plus it is within walking distance to the station.

OK ... I'm not sure how that works as by the same token (and hypothetically), I could travel from Manchester to - say - Harpenden, tootle around in the home counties for a few days and resume my journey from Nuneaton to London.   Proportionality of journey?

That's a good call grahame, and I wasn't quite sure what I was thinking when I suggested a sideways shift from the Midland Main Line to the West Coast Main Line. It would theoretically be possible if your ticket hadn't been stamped between Manchester and Bedford, but then you are in the realms of fare 'avoison'. That is, not quite deliberate evasion, but a bit worse than avoidance. Best all round to stick strictly to MML or WCML and travel to and from Bow Brickhill from either Bedford or Bletchley.

I'm pasting relevant extracts from CoC here - all the stuff that refers to break of journey (which only puts a time limit on the break if it's past the expiry time of the ticket):


For my particular ticket,


I will have a printout of this thread with me as a reminder ... I'm in Manchester now, Melksham tomorrow, Taunton Saturday, Melksham Sunday, Manchester Monday, to Bow Brickhill on Tuesday evening and back to Melksham on Friday.  Then will sleep for 48 hours.

Yes, I'm in Taunton Saturday too....I wonder why? :-)

Well ... I'm at the Campanile. The nearest station - just a few hundred yards away - is Fenny Statford, but my goodness "they" don't make it easy!

The hotel's web site tells you that their station is Milton Keynes Central, and that it's 5.5 kms ... its shown on their map, with the nearer Bletchley and Fenny Stratford not show.   Thank goodness I knew.

From Manchester, a good run, change at Milton Keynes (where the departure board just lists loads of London trains and you have to be in the *know* to work out which platform to go to for Bletchly.  I don't care who operates the train, but I do care where it stops, at least at my intermediate station.   And a good job I knew I wanted the Bedord train at Bletchley.

A cheerful conductress checked my ticket and assured me "any door" when I asked, and I was soon on the platform at Fenny Stratford, and off up the exit steps and slope.  Now - which way to go.  The (none) hotel map I had showed me a road ahead at 135 degrees, which I took but soon realised I was wrong - discovering that the map showed the exit at one end of the station (where the platform runs up to the next bridge) but the actual exit was on a totally different road and the short walk to the hotel was at 45 degrees.   Backtrack, walk to hotel, and all well.

Checkin - asked for my details.   Completed, handed sheet back.  Gave me the sheet back and asked for my car registration ...

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Why do I tell the tale?   Because I'm conscious of making rail travel welcoming for newcomers - it shouldn't be an obstacle course, and there are so many elements of my story which, alas, could catch out the inexperienced newcomer - drive people to taxi or the presumed travel-by-car.  And I want to learn from this.

For our own hotel, we always offer a lift from the local station when people book (I look forward to that becoming harder with more trains).  Our maps show our local station, not just the main line one in Chippenham, and we tell them about the National Express Coach.  We check whether they have arrived in their oen car before we forcefully insist on a registration number, to the extend of them feeling they have to apologise or are abnormal if they come some other way.

For visitors to our town, I want to make sure that as many station maps as possible are accurate, that onward bus information is there and up to date, that there are taxi numbers to hand, and that there is easy to find and easy to follow wayfinding information, whether it's light or dark.

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Should be OK / unchallenged on my (legitimate) long break of journey.  Just one visual checkoff ticket so far, so no indication of a start of journey date on it.   Ticket desk at Piccadilly had me spell Fenny Stratford for hi.   Funny - that request is usually reserved for Melksham!

If you do have any comments regarding the Bletchley to Bedford line, do get in touch with the Marston Vale Community Rail Partnership, who do an excellent job (as do most CRPs).

As an aside, fortunately you are staying at the Campanile on a weekday.  The nightclub across the road (Pink Punters), which was Milton Keynes' only nightclub for a period of nine months and is still only one of two, tends to get rather noisy at the weekend as the punters spill out into the hotel car park.

Their constitution was one which we carefully studied as we drew up the TransWilts one - though you will actually find that they're very different, as I recall.

I'm sure I'll be using Bow Brickhill before the week is out too ... looks like its just one stop on the train from here but a longer way by road or on foot