Great Western Coffee Shop

With the lockdown i've been setting the odd (some say very odd) quiz quearition for SWRS.

Between what two stations 8m 12c apart by dierect rail line does it cost a minimum of £20.80 and take a minimum of 1hr 28mon?

I can't answer you question ... but I offer you four that I looked up while I was waiting for a meeting this morning (assuming National Rail trains)

Chathill to Berwick-upon-Tweed
South Ruislip to South Greenford
Patchway to Bristol Parkway
Tamworth to Polesworth

Just in North Eastern territory from South.

Pewsey to Bedwyn

I did wonder ... but it's £7.50 return, £6.30 off peak return.

Direct trains at 06:41 and 07:19 from Pewsey, returning at 19:18 from Bedwyn, 8 or 9 minute journey time.
I don't think there's a weekend service.
I have to wonder what the "Off Peak" fare is for. Is there an easement for doubling back somewhere?

The obvious way to produce such a case is a line with no passenger service over it, though some may raise "does that count as a direct railway line?" questions. For example, Bicester-Bletchley, which is similar but further and costs more and takes longer, and is complicated by the lack of a platform on that line at Bletchley and the lack of through tickets for the fastest journey!

Stuving is on the right lines no direct train service. This journey involves two changes to complete. You even get a choice of where to make the second change.

I also had a look at buses, most peculiar, one took over an hour and included a train journey to a nearby station not one of the ones in the question.

I was looking at something like Knottingley to Doncaster, but it doesn't quite fit the latest hints.

Right area.

First change is Leeds going North

Now looking at huge untapped passenger flows  ;D such as Glasshoughton to Sherburn in Elmet - not quite reaching the high cost you quote and perhaps slightly longer distance - but an awful journey by rail, change at Leeds and then either Selby or Church Fenton.

Ah - so that'll be between Sherburn-in-Elmet and Castleford. That line is pretty busy, but with goods trains - evidently none of the passenger trains arriving at Castleford can think of anywhere worth going to that's in the same direction.

Spot on Stuving. 2nd change can be York or Selby.


Near miss Grahame.

The passenger services round the maze of lines in South Yorkshire are very interesting. One of the bizairre things is that Knottingly doesn't have any paltforms on the Doncaster line so GC trains from London can't serve the town.

Not sure what the dreaded routing guide makes of this but NRE is totaly confused.
(https://i.ibb.co/19bSQsR/CFD-to-SIE.jpg)
The 09:33 train shown as £20.80 consists of 2 tickets CFD to Selby and Selby to SIE but the 11:04 also via Selby shows as 1 ticket. Then for the 11:33 the route is via York with no ticket and the 12:33 is also via York with a ticket available. both these journeys use Cross country Leeds to York so its not a TOC restriction.

Looking at BR Fares.com
(https://i.ibb.co/D4Vz4dy/CFD-to-SIE-BRFares.jpg)
The via york ticket is not shown but a cheaper ticket is but may have a route problem.

No wonder people don't travel by train.

Not just the time taken, but the fares ... train travel is for mass transit, and I can't imagine strong flows to Sherburn-in-Elmet from Castleford, let alone Leeds.   The very fact there's no direct service from Leeds to a place that's not all that far from there and the fares are a mess is a bit of a pointer.   

Looking at other train journeys in England, Wales and Scotland (and there is no direct railway in these cases, though there used to be in 2 cases), rail journeys would - I suggest - be most likely made only by the people who were travelling for the pleasure of the journey as well as (perhaps) for the destination.

£61.50 single (4 hrs 20 mins by train) - 19.5 miles by road
£74.80 single (6 hrs 20 mins by train) - 49 miles by road
£31.30 single (3 hrs 30 mins by train) - 40 miles by road

Sense might come in these cases by the offering of bus options too on ticket booking sites, especially now that buses and trains all seem to be much more directly specified by H M Government.

To be fair to "the system", the £11.90 single and £18.00 day return fares are on offer if you ask the OJP for journeys in September. That's via Leeds and Church Fenton, so presumably the current timetable (still suffering from Covid-19) has removed some required service via Church Fenton.

As a qualifing Yorkshireman I have to say that the idea of having to make a longer journey and be charged more. Just because it suits the railway company. Will not go down well with the locals. ;D

While the current emergency reduced timetable explains why there's a fare defined that can't be offered for sale, it is still "the timetable" in force now. So the routeing guide should still apply. The definition of a permitted route depends on the availability of trains, so some routes will temporarily not be permitted.  I think that has some side effects that are not obvious.

The guide refers, in this context, to "through train" (which is defined in its glossary), "direct train", and " regular scheduled train service" (neither of which is defined). Do they all mean the same thing? I suspect so, but it all adds to the feeling of confusion. That's particularly the case here, where the result depends on concluding that no such train exists for any of those any definitions.

So what does the guide say? Castleford is a member of the Pontefract routeing group (or possibly the Pontefract group routeing point, if that's different), and Sherburn-in-Elmet is a related station of that routeing point. So, as the calculator provided in the guide says: "This is a local journey via a common routeing point - use local journey rules defined on page F7 of The National Routeing Guide in Detail (Section F)." Page F7 is not much help, in this case. It does look as if there is no permitted route. If so, it does make sense that the OJP offers those two-ticket alternatives. At least, it does if you accept the principles underlying the routeing guide - which you may not.

Worse things can happen though. Pontefract group includes not just Glasshoughton and the two Pontefracts on the Wakefleld line, but also Baghll which is on the line to Sherburn. Baghill and Monkuill stations are not far apart - about 1 km for a walking crow, less if you can fly. So why isn't it offered as a walking route? A bit far, but given the lack of alternatives some might use it to get from CFD to SIE. That would be a lot cheaper, except that there are currently no trains stopping at Baghill. Even when there were (or will be) the service is "sub-Melksham", so most of the day it would not even be quicker.

But what happens if you ask the OJP for a journey between Pontefracts Monkhill and Baghill, both members of this group? In September, it offers no single fare, just two tickets for a trips via various routes. This takes over two hours each way, and two singles (no return is offered) costs at least £49.00!  The routes it offered me are via Castleford and Meadowhall, Leeds and York, Leeds and Sheffield, and Wakefield and Moorthorpe. BRFares says in that case there is no fare - and remember, that's within a group.

If you ask for a journey next week, you get this:


None of that's really telling it like it is. And why has that page not had a bit added to cover journeys not possible under the emergency Covid-19 timetable?

Not just Yorkshire and far from the first time.

Two years ago, we had the little matter of GWR moving the departure of an evening train (and last train for some stations) a few minutes earlier - from just after 19:30 to just before 19:30 . It was during electrification engineering works, with the train taking 10 minutes longer via Melksham than via Pewsey, and arriving in Devon / Cornwall at the same time it always did.  Fair enough, but upping prices from super off peak to off peak on some very common journeys on that train did not go down well. http://www.passenger.chat/19506 is a poll we did with a suggested solution;  GWR did move somewhat on some of the higher prices being charged during engineering when challenged.

Further back along the same lines (and Yorkshire again), my "£61.50 single (4 hrs 20 mins by train) - 19.5 miles by road" earlier in this thread used to have a direct train - lost with the line closure in 1965 (which "suited the rail company").  I'm sure the fare in those days was not the inflation-adjusted £61.50, so somewhere over the years it has gone up ...

The idea of increasing fares while making a journey harder is not a new one ...

The Northern website journey planner is even more unhelpfull (image taken at 11:04 today)
(https://i.ibb.co/wYVcmJK/CFD-to-SIE-Northern.jpg)
There is no booking office at Castleford just a machine.
The Northern rail app is also unable to find any tickets for the 11:33 or 12:33
I am not intending to travel to Castleford to find out what the ticket machine says but I suspect that also will be unable to offer any tickets.
So probably a free journey anyway in view of no ticket checks.

This is getting rarther off topic for the lighter side.
But after the results from the Northern website I had a look at a few others and the results are rarther disapointing.

I was looking to see if I could get train times as a passenger would but because most websites will not give train times without tickets it would be very difficult without NRE to even find out if the journey was possible.

Looking at websites that are ether national or local to the Yorksire area only NRE and LNER would give me train times. Northern, TPE, Cross country and the Trainline all refuse to give train times if they cannot find a fare.