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I had an idea about taking a trip from Chippenham to Moreton in the Marsh, for no better reason than it is there...

The BR fares website gives two basic options of route – Any Permitted or Not via Reading. What exactly does this mean in this case? Would a “not via Reading” ticket cover Swindon-Cheltenham-Worcester Parkway as well as via Didcot and Charlbury?

The link to the routeing guide on the Rail Delivery Group website just gives me a “bad request” message when I click on it, hence the reason for asking the question here

Try putting Worcestershire Parkway as a 'via' station into the National Rail journeyplanner & see if that offers you the same fare as a "not via Reading" fare. If it does, yes, that way is also valid

With the 'Not via Reading' fares you can go:

Chippenham - Swindon - Cheltenham - Worcesterahire Parkway - Moreton-in-Marsh.

Chippenham - Swindon - Cheltenham - Worcester Shrub Hill - Moreton-in-Marsh

Chippenham - Bristol TM - Worcester Shrub Hill - Moreton-in-Marsh

Chippenham - Didcot Parkway - Oxford - Moreton-in-Marsh

This is getting curiouser and curiouser!

I went into the National Rail Enquiries website and initially just put in CPM to MIM with no route specified. I was then told that there were no teturn fares avaibale, and the only tickets on offer were 1st class advance singles.

On the BR fares website the following standard class RETURN fares are listed (with railcard):

Anytime not via Reading £81.70
Anytime any permitted £80.90
Off peak any permitted £34.05
Off peak not Reading £32.65
Super off peak any permitted £25.45
Super off peak not Reading £24.75

And yes I’ve checked it three times - the anytime any permitted fare is lower than the anytime not via Reading fare

Makes you wonder - what on earth is the point of having "not via Reading" fares in the first place. Why on earth spend  £100ms on revamping it as a major interchange station and then go to the trouble of working out marginally more expensive (or cheaper!) fares for using it!

Wouldn't it be better just to abolish all "not via Reading" fares to give everyone no incentive not to have to change at stations with poorer connections and facilities - heavens above - it might just make rail travel a tad more attractive!

The Anytime fares are unregulated I believe.

I'll bet that the two fares - Any Permitted & Not Via Reading - are controlled by different TOCs who have applied fare rises differently, according to their priorities, thus they have differed over time. Another very valid reason why the fares need sorting out!

All fares under discussion are priced by GWR.

I suspect the premium for most of the 'Any Permitted' fares, allowing travel via Reading, is a legacy of BR's pricing for flows that included Inter-City travel.

The Anytime 'Any Permitted' fare, allowing travel via Reading is a regulated fare that has its annual price rise controlled by government. The Anytime 'not via Reading' fare is unregulated meaning the train operator is free to price it how it wishes.

That anomalous pricing for the Anytime fare has been around for a long time. I've looked back to the earliest National Fares Manual available online (NFM01 from September 2008) and the 'Not via Reading' Open Return was more expensive back then too.

Attached are the Chippenham - Moreton-in-Marsh fares from 2008. Multiply by 0.66 for the approximate Railcard prices.

FO = 1st Class Open (now Anytime)
FS = 1st Class Saver (now Off Peak)
SO = Standard Class Open
SV = Standard Class Saver
7F = 1st Class 7 day Season
7D = Standard Class 7 day Season
(S) = Single
(R) = Return

LC and WO are codes for the time restrictions on the Saver fares.

From Chippenham, the Not Via Reading fare is superfluous as Reading is not a valid route for Any Permitted. This, I presume, is due to the No Doubling Back rule.

Things are a bit more interesting from Melksham to Moreton.
There are still the options of Any permitted or Not via Reading. In this case, however, via Reading is a valid route if you travel via Westbury and Newbury (which is permitted), giving you no problem with doubling-back.

You have to put a "via" in the journey planner, otherwise Melksham to MIM comes up with all journeys via Swindon/Reading and "No fares available".

Just to be a bit more quirky, the National Rail Journey Planner also recognises the doubling back restriction for Trowbridge-MIM via Reading. But instead of "no fares available" it offers a single to Reading and another single RDG-MIM.

Remember that the OJP does not find fares, it finds journeys, independently for outward and return, and then tries to find fares to suit. And it only considers the fastest journey for any start time. On the next few Sundays bustitutes abound, but one of the "fastest" journeys it found was via Cheltenham and Bristol - no fare for that one, of course.

On the basis of a quick look, it appears that on weekdays all the outward journeys are via Reading, but none of the returns. Now, an any permitted return fare should work fine with that, but I think the OJP is refusing to offer it for some reason. It may be worth complaining/asking about that - they do respond, though are disinclined to believe in errors in their baby.

But where, on Sundays, the OJP does find matching routes not via Reading, it does offer the £24.75 SSR return fare. Where on weekdays there are some routes each way not via Reading, it still refuses to offer the via Reading route outward and another for the return.

Try the cheap fare finder - it's the same software but given rather different rules, aimed more towards finding fares. It does better at finding the return fares, provided you don't select a peak time to start. If you do it finds advances, even tomorrow.

For Melksham to Evesham, you also get "no fares found" sometimes unless you put in "not via Reading". Simples.

The same problem been there for years, and it includes a wide range of other places north of Oxford on various lines. I remember helping a customer coming to us on a training course who had a similar problem looking to get a Coventry to Melksham journey.

A few years ago there was an easement:
000082     Doubleback             Journeys via Swindon and Didcot or via Swindon to Didcot and routed Not London may double back between Reading and Didcot. This easements applies in both directions.

That's now been restricted in scope and reads:
000082     Doubleback     Journeys from Appleford and beyond to or via Swindon routed (00700) NOT VIA LONDON, (00405) AP OXFORD and (00415) AP NOT VIA LONDON may double back between Reading and Didcot. This easements applies in both directions.

Would that be applied to Any Permitted? I'm not sure, but if so the existence of the fare might be due to that: it was recently valid.

Now, the OJP sets out to find journeys and finds a via Reading one, but then discovers there is no fare to apply to it! However, on some trains it does find an advance, which somehow does still exist via this routeing! Of course, being for specific trains, and Advance ticket does not need a routeing code.

Why not make the whole problem academic by running a decent direct Oxford - Swindon service, perhaps extending it on to Westbury?

A further complication I have found, regarding journeys from Trowbridge to Oxford is that:

Trowbridge-Didcot - valid via Bath Spa

Trowbridge-Oxford (via Didcot) - NOT valid via Bath Spa.

 ???

While we're on the subject of routeing, does this "Routeing Point Calculator" work for anyone?

https://data.atoc.org/rp_calc (https://data.atoc.org/rp_calc)

I can't get past the non-functional Captcha.

Ditto

Ditto, using Firefox or Microsoft Edge.

I think that this relatively innocent query has thrown up some major shortcomings in the information being provided to the public, and is actually very similar to your Melksham queries/ glitches.

To recap, the story so far:

Given my location and the directions trains run in from it (and indeed my previous location of Bristol 40+ years ago), the North Cotswold is not one that I would normally use. Other than the occasional visit to Charlbury to see grandchildren in Ascot underWychwood, I have only used the line throughout once before, and that was in 1976! So my motivation in planning this trip was to travel the whole line – indeed, I might not even get off at Moreton when we get there!

So I start off by checking BR Fares to see what it will cost, and (secretly!) whether a circular round trip is possible. So I now find that Any Permitted or Not via Reading routeings are available, but I don’t know from this whether using the Midland line north of Cheltenham would be a permitted route. So I ask here.

BNM reminds me that I haven’t remembered the bleedin’ obvious, to put the journey into the NRE search engine and see what routes are offered. So I do, and it tells me that no return fares are available and suggests I buy first class advance singles via Reading for a total of £57.30. But I already know, because I’ve checked BR fares, that I can do the journey for £24.75 with a return ticket, or £25.50 for the via Reading option. So why the devil does it tell me that there are no return fares available? It is not because the system is picking out fastest trains only, because the £25.50 option is valid on those as well.

Then I amend the NRE entry to “avoid Reading” and the lower return fares appear, even though the engine has previously just told me that no return fares were available. But now all the options shown are via Didcot/ Oxford. So now I edit it again, this time specifying a route via Cheltenham. At this point I finally find documentary evidence that the route via Worcester is a valid one

Now imagine trying to get to the bottom of that lot on the TVM at Melksham!!

Now, I am fortunate in a way in that I know enough about railway routes and fares to be able to carry out this research. But what if Bert and Beryl down the road decide to have a day trip to Moreton with their railcards to visit the weekly craft market? If they relied solely on the NRE website they would pay £114.60 for the pair of them, when other tickets are available on exactly the same trains that would have cost them £51.00

It is very difficult to think of any justification for this at all

I think I did find a possible (partly guessed) reason, though that obviously is not the same as a justification.

• There is no permitted route via Reading, so ordinarily the OJP would not find any.
• But until recently that route was permitted, and Advance fares are still offered using it. Why? Maybe they are generated in from a separate database, which hasn't had that easement updated? The route code numbers are different, but that may just reflect "GWR only".
• If Advance fares exist, the OJP has to look for them. Note that they may "exist" even if there are none on offer that day, in the sense of being on a list of advance fares that may be offered or may not or may have run out.
• It is a limitation of the OJP that it finds journeys and then looks for valid fares, and leaves journeys with no fare on its listing. I suspect there are good reasons for this, and trying to eliminate it would introduce other problems just as bad.

You can still say that the routeing rules should not have such complications and contradictions. I'd say it's the result of trying to meet incompatible objectives, and the only solution is to Gordianly simplify them. But a lot of people will not like the result!

I think that can be part of this problem too. If the OJP does step one of its job - find journeys for each way - by making a list of routeings, it has to include via Reading. At this stage it ignores what fares are offered, it just uses its list. It is set up to never offer journeys that are overtaken, as they are not the fastest. I've tried complaining this should not be an absolute rule, and at least you should be able to turn it off. But they seem convinced it's what we all want, so the more other people complain and say that isn't so the better.

With today's clockface timetables, it's quite possible for all journeys via one routeing to be suppressed by this. That does seem to happen here, and for a lot of days it finds none via Didcot not Reading. But it then can't find a fare, as the only valid fares that way are Advances, and sometime there aren't any - or only first class ones.

So the OJP is a beast of moderate brain, not bad at its job but unable to cope with the flawed data it's fed on.

I suspect the journeys via Reading are faster than the ones via Didcot (only) - is there a long wait plus stopping to Oxford, where another change/wait is needed, therefore are supressed by the OJP

Northboud via Didcit/ Oxford the connections are not good so the journey time is considerably longer. Southbound, with a 5-minute same-platform connection, either route will connect into the same train at Reading or Didcot

If the OJP never shows services which are overtaken, what does the "fastest trains only" button do?

Nothing, I guess. That was one of the things I asked them, but it went unanswered.Maybe it's worth asking as a single question on its own.

Just in case my earlier query returned freak results I tried it again in the NRE website this afternoon. The parameters I entered were leaving CPM after 1000 and returning from MIM after 1600. I did not specify a route. Before I started I hovered my cursor over the “i” button next to fastest trains only. The message I got was “Excludes services which are overtaken by other trains. The fastest services are not necessarily the cheapest” That button remained unchecked

I am still being told that no return tickets are available and the best price I can get is with two standard class singles for £38.00. Various other ticket options are available but they are all singles, not returns

All of the outbound services show one change at Reading. Rather intriguingly, all of the return journeys show two changes at Oxford and Didcot.

I have taken screen dumps of all this in case I say something that upsets NRE and they want to sue me. I would rather welcome the publicity. They, however, would not...

The quality of this information is appalling. We know from the BR fares website that return fares are available, anytime, off peak and super off peak. We also know that the off peak and super off peak fares are cheaper than the “cheapest price” NRE are offering, and we also know that they are valid on all the trains identified on their list of services.

The NRE website warns its visitors that the fastest trains are not necessarily the cheapest, and then appears to ignore its own advice by not showing slower, cheaper services

Now I very much doubt, or at least I fervently hope, NRE have not set out with the deliberate intention of telling lies to its users. Nevertheless, it is clear from the results that the way the search engine is currently configured “behind the scenes” is having exactly that result. Others on this thread have put forward reasons why this may be happening, but have also said that explanation does not equate to justification. I very much agree with that sentiment

We have also been told on this thread that the system is set up to never offer journeys that are overtaken, as they are not the fastest, when the website appears to contradict this with its advice about selecting fastest journeys only. Even worse, we have been told that this has already been complained about and not acted upon on the grounds that “this is what the customer wants.” Perhaps if the “customer” was fully informed about the implications they might “want” something else...

We have been told by Graham that similar issues have arisen at Melksham with travel to or from north of Oxford so it is clearly not a one-off that just affects Chippenham and Moreton in the Marsh

NRE should rectify this as a matter of urgency

That's the same as I was describing, Robin. Having Advance tickets offered over what is not a permitted route is more than the OJP can cope with. Is it meant to be possible or not? I have no idea.

Have you tried the cheap fare finder? Using both can be helpful, especially with that useless "show only fastest trains" selector. Obviously it's the same engine, just given different metrics. The link down at the foot of the page preserves the main journey settings.

If you do try that, you will see that in this case the OJP's behaviour is even sillier than we thought. For the outward leg, rather than a single change at Reading, it says to change at Didcot and Oxford, as for the return. But the timings northbound are such that the stopper gets you to Oxford in time to get on the same train as you'd have got at Reading!

So this, valid, route has exactly the same journey time as the invalid one via Reading. I can only guess that the "never knowingly overtaken" rule is backed up by a tiebreaker rule to choose fewer changes over more. If two routes have the same number of changes ... does it flip a coin? Perhaps, or quite possibly crash.

Anyway, I've banged in an "inquiry" or two and we'll see what they say. Do, please, do the same; they may weigh these inputs to see if they can be ignored.

I'm sure I've read somewhere that the Great British Passenger is eagerly anticipating the arrival of tap-in, tap-out ticketing, where the system retrospectively calculates the best fare for the journey.

Good luck with that.

And train operators are under pressure to reduce manning at stations to cut costs. Who needs good advice from a booking office?

I suspect that's a question you are asking without expecting an answer.

There is (or was under franchises) a requirement on ticket office staff to offer the best value ticket for the journey requested - so that (for example) someone walking up to the ticket office at Chippenham and asking for a day return to London, on a Saturday, would be sold a super off peak return, rather than an off peak return or an anytime return. It is limited in that the ticket office staff are not required (and indeed not encouraged) to offer ticket combinations - so for example "return to London" in Monday morning peak will result in you being sold an anytime return, even if you're not coming back in a peak and two singles would be cheaper. If you're coming back later the same day on a long distance trip where no day return is offered, it could be cheaper to but two day returns for two "legs" of the journey - in our example the classic is Chippenham to Didcot and Didcot to London, but again the ticker office is not required to offer you these.

That requirement, partial though it is does not, as I understand it, extend to web sites or ticket vending machines. Not sure how it applies to touch in and out systems.  So no requirement to have a full range of tickets on a TVM, nor for it to easily offer you the best value even to the ticket office staff standard.

Passenger need good advice from ticket staff - however, you could argue that as far as the rail industry is concerned, they are something of a an enemy within to the financial model, directing people who are willing to pay higher fares toward the lower priced tickets.  In my view, that is a very shortsighted argument ...

OK, but in this example we have the NRE website telling intending passengers that no return fares are available, whilst return fares are actually available and at a lower price than the one the NRE engine is offering.

Is that "within the rules?" Because if it is the rules need chaging as a matter of urgency

Agree 100%.  One for Transport Focus, Robin?  Barry Doe might be interested as well as he often criticizes the online journey planners.

I have a reply to my first question last night, which was:

This is the reply:

So it is, as I suspected, something to do with always including direct, or in this case more direct (fewer changes) journeys. The "Show only fastest trains" options would, if that reply is correct, suppress these more direct options if they were not in fact quicker. That does not help for this aberrant CPM-MIM case because the one-change option via Reading is not slower, it's exactly as fast.

Note the dubious claim that "we offer passengers choice of travel options that are possible". I think that works out to not happen where fast trains are frequent enough that any slower train is overtaken by a faster one.

Worth letting Private Eye know as they run a column on train issues like this. They mentioned in one article  stations in the Welwyn Hatfield area where the MP is the Right Honourable Grant Shapps. They did a piece about the Carnet tickets being replaced by the Flexible Season Ticket. It was pointed out that the Flexible Season Tickets were more expensive and less flexible than the Carnet.

I've read this three times now and I'm still not totally clear about what they are saying and how it relates to real life!  ;D

I "think" they are saying that if the journey planner finds the fastest most direct route then it excludes all other routes in the fares they offer. And as we have been told on this thread that the turnback easement via Reading has been withdrawn then there are no other fares available on this route and these advance tickets are the only option. Have I interpreted it correctly or do I need to have anither go?

But whilst this thread was active earlier today I was out doing some on-the-ground research at Chippenham booking office. The person behind the counter told me that both the off peak and the super off peak return options are available and at the prices quoted on the BR fares website.

The only point that there is in buying the off peak return is if the passenger wished to travel via Reading. On all other services, either via Didcot/ Oxford or via Cheltenham, the cheaper super off peak ticket would be valid.

So, by extension, if the turnback easement Reading/ Didcot has indeed been withdrawn, nobody has yet bothered to tell the GWR ticket issuing machines...

I had a disagreement with FGW over a trip to Banbury from London Paddington many years ago. One version of the ticket machines didn’t sell tickets to Banbury. It was the upright stand alone ones next to the ticket office. I had arrived 15 minutes before the train was due to leave and waited in line for the machine. When I got to the front of the long queue there was no Banbury ticket on offer from that machine. I tried another queue for the larger machines but the queue was very long again. When the train was less than 2 minutes from leaving I went and boarded the train ticketless. I then had to explain onboard what had happened which was dismissed by the train manager. I was sold a full fare single ticket and had to buy another ticket at Banbury for my return.

When I got back to Paddington I got the FGW station manager and explained what had happened. He checked the machine and found to his considerable surprise there were no Banbury tickets offered. I was offered an apology and an immediate refund of the difference between my two tickets and the railcard discounted return I would have been able to purchase originally.


There used to be a very helpful bloke who was Ex BR at Kensington (Olympia) when it was a Silverlink station. I used to be a regular at the station back then and he would always offer (me) the cheapest tickets. He said that the newer staff possibly might not as their training wasn’t as comprehensive. They also might well not know how to sell the more unusual, i.e. exotic tickets. A case in point was the now defunct Gold Card 1st Class upgrade I would ask for.

This was my second question last night - longer, so the answer is longer. Trigger warning for Robin: you're not going to like it much!

And this was their reply:

The screenshots show just what you would expect. One thing you can't fault them on is replying promptly, and at least considering the question asked. OK thery've ducked the hard bits; I guess the lesson there is to ask such a question on its own.

Any suggestions for a further question? Note that "let me know" is a bit misleading, as I'm pretty sure I can't reply to that e-mail. I think I'd have to use the usual "comment" page, and quote the reference from the e-mail subject line.

On the specific question of offering Advance tickets over a route for which no walk-up ticket is available, I found this railforums thread (https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/advance-singles-permitting-routes-that-are-not-permitted-with-any-flexible-ticket-for-the-same-flow.200571/) that cites several others. Those are long cross-country routes, for which a lot of routes look sensible but not all are permitted. In some cases Advance tickets via London are. I can see none where the Advance ticket goes via a double-back.

Also, these other examples involve several TOCs. Advance tickets have a strong marketing input, so it is not perhaps a surprise to see them offered via London for that reason. Of course in the CPM-MIM case only GWR trains are involved (when only trains/sequences via Didcot are found).

But it does appear that this is not an aberration. So I reckon if this situation is to be expected, the OJP should be able to cope.

Note that if no advances are on offer for a specific train/sequence, that's shown for it. However, it uses the word "journey" for this as well as for the from/to.when data you enter. I can't think of a simple common word or phrase for that apart from train or sequence of trains. And note also that if no advances are on offer at all that day, the OJP has one of its funny turns.

Think I found that now Salisbury connections are rubble, it makes sense for a couple of evening connections to change at Southampton - but no walk up through tickets are available - though the system will offer the unhappy traveller an advance Waterloo - Southampton (change) to Bristol.

Mark

If Advance tickets are available from London (Waterloo) to Trowbridge or Bradford-on-Avon via Southampton, then surely in the Queen's English that is a permitted route for the journey, and tickets endorsed "any permitted" should be accepted without question on that route.

London Waterloo to Trowbridge and Bradford-on-Avon via Southampton also goes via Salisbury and Warminster, so surely tickets with that routing should also be accepted via Southampton - if the advance ones are, then then more expensive flexible ones should be, for goodness sake!

That's a problem with using the single word "permitted", rather than a longer version (e.g. adding "by the routeing guide"). Could you do the same trick of extending the meaning of "permitted" if you were travelling with someone who had a Rover ticket? As in: "It's permitted on that ticket, so it's not not permitted at all".

Looked at the other way, why is there a route restriction printed on the ticket? So you can choose the trains to take. If a ticket tells you exactly which trains to take, that isn't needed, so there is no "route" in that sense. I think Advance tickets say something like "valid only of the services specified", maybe adding "and connections".

All part of nature's way of telling you that you've made the whole thing too complicated, of course.

I’ve always understood Advance fares can be and are routed outside the rules of the routing guide.  The itinerary given can include a “normal route” plus connections into it at one or both ends.  So I don’t think the existence of advance fares via Southampton as mentioned creates a valid route for other ticket types.

I am still trying to get round to composing a coherent response to the original query following stuving comments yesterday, but it is clear that here is an additional issue bound up with this, and that is the printing of “any permitted  on a ticket.

It is all very well the railway telling you that the ticket in your hand is valid by “any permitted route” but it doesn’t give you any indication of what that route or routes may be.

In some cases it is blatantly obvious. If you are going from Chippenham to Swindon or Newport to Cardiff or Par to Truro, for example, there are no sensible alternatives to the obvious route. But this query arose in the first place because there are a number of routes between CPM and MIM that it would be theoretically possible to take, and my initial query was querying one of them (list below with mileages shown m:ch):

124.07 Bristol – Cheltenham – Worcester Shrub Hill
118.23 Bristol – Cheltenham – Worcestershire Parkway
115.48 Swindon – Cheltenham – Worcester Shrub Hill
108.44 Swindon – Cheltenham – Worcestershire Parkway
79.19 Didcot-Oxford
91.42 Reading

So it now transpires that via Reading is not a permitted route but the other 5 are, despite the fact that advance fares can be routed via Reading. And has Graham has pointed out indirectly in a recent post, even those of us that know a little about railways and routes would automatically assume that is an advance ticket is permitted over a certain route, then other tickets will be as well. This also turns out not to be the case!

So how does the average punter find out which routes are permitted? The link to the routeing guide from the RDG website doesn’t work for me, and I see from a post on the Rail Forums thread that I am not the only one that has had that problem. Furthermore, the warning given on that RDG page saying that the information is of a technical nature and by implication undecipherable the brains of mere mortals would put many people off looking even if they could access it!

Presumably a member of staff in a booking office might be expected to know what the permitted routes were. But you are not going to get that information from a TVM or a search engine

It all seems a bit of a mess.

Yep - any journey planner (ie a search engine) is linked to the routing guide and if you plot your requested route then it *should* offer a fare if it is valid. Where it doesn't, but is valid, there is a fault which should be corrected.

Not only that, but the official guidance about checking what is valid is to rely on the NRE OJP. The Guide itself is available, but for obvious reasons has never been seen as suitable for general use.

In this case the specific combination of the ticket offer, the timetable, and the way the OJP is set up means you can't check what "any permitted" means. So something is wrong ... but where and who should fix it is less clear. One answer would be "the railway - it should all work together". But try substituting "NHS" for "railway" and see what that suggests.

Fixing it will need to be included within the fares revision that GBR will be undertaking - but I suspct it'll be the travellingf public to lose out on multiple routings. They'll call it 'simplification'

Sorry Chris I didn’t make myself clear. This might have already been answered by later posts but I am asking again just to be absolutely clear.

Unless I am mistaken (and I may well be!) it is not currently possible for the public to easily gain access to details of valid outs for a given journey when they start their planning ie “I want to go from A to B. Which are the permitted routes?”

It is of course possible to find out through the journey planner by specifying various route options (and indeed that now appears even more important because as shown in the CPM to MIM example you might not be given the true full range of tickets available until you do). But whilst the likes of you and me and most on this forum have prior knowledge of where railways still run and the various route permutations that might be possible, the general public may not

Am I right in this or have I missed something?

The routing guide is at https://data.atoc.org/routeing-guide .  You can easily gain access to that.  Whether you (or I) can easily understand it is a much trickier question.

For any permitted

OK ... from the (70) pink pages
Chippenham is its own routing point
Moreton in Marsh you have a choice of Bromsgrove, Oxford and Worcester Group

Then from the (2270) yellow pages
for Bromsgrove - maps WO and WO+BI
for Oxford - map RB
for Worcester Group - map WO

And then look at those maps, remembering no doubling back

Then look through sections E (Easments - white pages) for exceptions - 34 pages of them in no particular order.

For tickets routed "via"

Same procedure but for each part of the jaunty and link them together.

On "via", the easements apply to the complete journey and not to the separate les

If you can't work it out, have a stiff Whiskey.

Curiously, it looks to me that you're not allowed to go via Kemble - what have I missed?

Yes it seems you can go via Bristol and Worcester or Didcot and Oxford but not Kemble

I would like if possible from the assembled brains on this forum a Dummy's Guide to using the National Routing Guide.  I asked a question some weeks back re the same but got no answer.

There appears to be a cost test first before looking at the routes and that confuses me. Chicken and egg. And then work out valid routing points because the maps show one thing but the tickets shown something else.

We could do with the Man from Seat 61. Is he on this forum?

A good time to chip in with a reminder that...

Not all permitted routes are usable.

This happens because for some journeys, there is neither an "any permitted" fare nor a suitable "via" fare for the permitted route.

For example, Chinley-Bristol TM the only "walk-up" fares offered are via Derby. Other permitted routes via Stockport are available, but no walk-up fares.

(Previous posts in this thread have raised the possibility that AP fares don't have to abide by permitted route rules. Whatever, NationalRail JP offers AP fares by XC for journeys via Stockport; it also offers AP with GW/TfW for journeys via Hereford * )

* Note I'm careful not to say "route Hereford" as the AP tickets don't specify that!

Thank you for that ... at times it feels like a cross between Monty Python and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!


I don't believe so - at least as a know contributor.  He's well read, so he may well have read us ... and if he's reading this, can I send him a welcoming wave and invite him to join and post  :D

Yes. And especially when you add that not all usable routes are permitted.

So, looking again at the routes between CPM and MIM which are reasonably sensibly usable:

  m   c
124.07 Bristol – Cheltenham – Worcester Shrub Hill PERMITTED
118.23 Bristol – Cheltenham – Worcestershire Parkway PERMITTED
115.48 Swindon – Cheltenham – Worcester Shrub Hill NOT PERMITTED
108.44 Swindon – Cheltenham – Worcestershire ParkwayNOT PERMITTED[/color]
91.42 Reading NOT PERMITTED
79.19 Didcot-Oxford PERMITTED

So, routes 1 and 2, the longest routes of all, are permitted, but they might involve using XC services
Routes 3 and 4, which would all be on the trains of the fare setter, are not permitted
Route 5, the one with potentially the fastest services, is not permitted
Route 6 is permitted

Monty Python meets Hitch Hiker with additional material from Spike Milliagan and Brin Rix, methinks...

For me - it's Mornington Crescent.

I would never in my wildest dreams have thought that CPM to MIM via Bristol was permitted but via Kemble wasn't, especially bearing in mind that tickets from CPM to CNM or GCR are valid via bith routes

For the avoidance of doubt (and the creation of insanity):-

Chippenham - Evesham is valid via both the Stroud and Oxford routes (but avoiding Reading on the latter)

Hmmm ... how do you get that from the routing guide? (the Stroud bit)

I didn't even bother looking on the routeing guide, but I did enter the appropriate details into the National Rail Enquiries website. This confirmed a route via Kemble (1056 CPM-SWI, 1128 SWI-CNM, 1255 CNM-WOP, 1322 WOP-EVE) for a fare with Senior Railcard of £25. off peak return. It also offered the same fare via Bristol.

But...

Although it is a walk-up off peak fare, the search engine tells me that no fares are available for the 1156 CNM departure over the same route, and doesn't even list the 1256 departure, although it does offer a 1340 departure via Bristol.

Do you think we've collectively broken the OJP between us over the last couple of days?  ;D

I believe that it's not giving a fare for the 1156 Chippenham departure (if that's what you meant) because it involves doubling back between Worcester Shrub Hill and Worcester Foregate Street.  I have no idea why the journey planner suggests that you change at Foregate Street ... both connecting trains stop at Shrub Hill. If you tell the NR journey planner to "avoid Worcester Foregate St" then it will give you a (long wait) connection at Shrub Hill and you are given the relevant fare.

Beats Sudoku.

In some ways, yes. When I said it was not usable to check valid routes for CPM-MIM, that was only half right. You can suppress the route via Reading, and as only one route via Didcot exists it verifies that. To try out all the options via Bristol, you need to use more than one via or avoid station, and that now gives it a bit of a panic attack. At times it seems to register two constraints but not tell you it has, which doesn't help.

I did, without being entirely sure how, get it to route via BRI and WOP -  and it says that's not valid. I think it's right, as WOP is not part of Worcester group, the rotueing point, so you can't change there instead. The fares check might make that OK, if such a fare existed ... but of course it didn't in 1996! That whole fares check thing using historical data is surreal anyway, and not being able to cut off the corner at Worcester is as bad. Especially as one of the sets of maps given (WO+BI) only appears to add that possibility to the only other one via Bristol (WO alone). With only one map the other way, in this case the guide is almost simple to use!

My efforts with NR OJP suggest that for Chippenham-Evesham:-

via Bristol is OK if you change at Shrub Hill

If you fancy changing at Worcester Parkway, you can't go via Bristol but you can go via Stroud.

The naughty side of me thinks:
If I wish to go via Bristol, I'm "via Shrub Hill" until I get to Cheltenham. Then I change my mind...

Talking about naughty sides... ;D

I get chatting to somebody down the road and it turns out that he wants to go to Evesham on the same day as I want to go to Moreton in the Marsh. We decide to go together, and buy our tickets from Chippenham booking office on the day. Good old fashioned card tickets so no barcode or QR code to scan.

We are both on the 1128 SWI CNM somewhere near Kemble when the Revenue Protection team descend on the coach. His ticket is valid for that route but mine isn't

Would the officer who asks to see our ticket realistically know that one of these off peak returns from CPM is valid but not the other (the only indicator on the tickets being "not via Reading") . And if he did know, bearing in mind that both Swindon and Cheltenham are on permitted routes, what would he be most likely to do?

The first thing the routeing guide says to check is for the shortest route. For CPM-MIM that's vis DID-OXF, so it didn't tell us anything useful. That was the one route that was always known to be valid.

But for CPM-EVE, the distance between them (14m94ch) is just big enough to swing it the other way. Relying on Robin's sums, the distances are via DID-OXF: 94m13ch, and via SWI-CNM-WOP: 93m50ch. So now, the shortest route is via SWI-CNM-WOP, so that is valid despite not going through a routeing point for EVE.

Thanks. I can now see where the “logic” now lies, despite the fact that it seems nonsensical when comparing the two fares and permitted routes

But...

I still don’t see any logic behind the longest route (CPM BRI WOS MIM) being permitted, whilst a shorter route (CPM SWI CNM WOS MIM) not being permitted. Can you explain that?

PS – substitute WOS for WOP if you like – the same applies in that case too

After applying a bit more thought to this matter I think I might have answered my own question, but if I’m right it gives rise to another!

If one gets on an eastbound train from Chippenham en route to Moreton in Marsh, by the time one gets to Swindon one is nearly 17 miles close and still on the shortest route via Didcot.

If you get off at Swindon and head towards Cheltenham you start to get further and further away from your destination until you pass the point somewhere between Swindon and Gloucester where the balance switches over.

But, if you have booked to another station on the north Cotswold line where the overall mileage is more balanced, that would not be the case. You would continue to get closer to your destination. And, as I suggested in my post about Revenue Protection “gripping” the train you are on, the staff themselves may not know that ticket A was valid and ticket B was not

So the supplementary question this begs is: when the OJP does not show a given route as a permitted one, is it actually not permitted or essentially “permitted but not recommended?”

One obvious limitation of the OJP as a substitute understander of the routeing guide is that it can only prove a route if it can find a ticket/fare that's available. For practical purposes that doesn't matter a lot - you couldn't have such a ticket that you need to check up on. But it can never give a definitive answer to the abstract question about all permitted routes, and that may also be true for a ticket available on other days you don't yet know about.

Well I took my little jaunt along the North Cotswold line on Thursday last, and the discussion on this thread on the routeing options, especially what routes were or were not permitted when a ticket says “any permitted” got me thinking. I looked at it in the light of two things, firstly the sub headline to the Fares Fair section which is this “Discussion of tickets, options and pricing - a minefield that it's hard for the customer to understand.” And secondly in the light of this quote from the thread:


In the ”old days” as long as a passenger was travelling in broadly the right direction toward their destination with an “any permitted” ticket, that would have been OK. This thread has highlighted that there can be routes between A and B which may be reasonably direct and likely to be already known by some members of the public, that are “not OK” (in this case the via Reading or via Kemble options for a CPM MIM ticket).

With the increasing use of things like electronic tickets on phones that are machine readable, some of these routes could be subject to challenge by on train ticket checking staff. I can see a can of worms opening here if the railways aren’t careful. AAs we have seen on this thread, for example, CPM MIM is not permitted via Kemble but CPM EVE is permitted. If more of this “catches on” with further routeing restrictions then more people are going to be challenged. This will not be good for business and an absolute disaster for PR.

When I had my little difference of opinion with HEX a couple of years ago over validity of off peak tickets on their trains before 0930, the RDG finally found in my favour by pointing out to HEX that a ticket was only invalid if it specifically said so in the restriction code. If the restriction that they wanted to impose was not included in the list of restrictions, then it was their interpretation of the rules that were invalid, not the ticket. Perhaps we need the same sort of thing displayed on the ticket itself for routeing purposes.

I would propose that if a route that the average person in the street would reasonably think is a permitted route, it should be a permitted route unless the ticket actually says otherwise. We already have it in simplified form such as “not via Reading” “not via Bath Spa or “Virgin trains only” as once upon a time appeared on some Stoke to Manchester tickets

It appears that we need to have one or the other, otherwise we end uyp in this situation:

TTI – “your ticket isn’t valid over this route Sir”
Passenger – Well it doesn’t say so on the ticket. Where does it say it’s not valid?”
TTI – “in the routeing guide"
Passenger – “so how can I check the routeing guide before I start my journey?
TTI – you can’t Sir. It’s too complicated for mere mortalls...”

I can see that going down well in the media. Not...

In the light of this ongoing discussion I do wonder how long my cycling jaunts to the Portsmouth area will last.

I normally get a ticket from RDG to Portsmouth Harbour. This allows me to go out via Basingstoke, and Southampton Central (unless I manage to get a train via Botley and Hedge End). The cycling permutations are my Three Ferries Route: Southampton and Hamble-Warsash, Gosport and Hayling to Havant, alternatively my Two Ferries Route: Fareham and Gosport and Hayling to Havant, and various permutations within that area. It allows me to comeback via Guildford. I can't remember the last time I actually darkened the portals of PMH.

I suppose I should use it before I lose it.

There comes a point when an RPI won't know. I once got inspected by an RPI off-route about 20 years ago – I was doing Epsom to Birmingham, which was valid back then either via London or via Dorking/Deepdene and Reading. I of course was going via the Bookham branch, which technically was not permitted. But it was utterly plausible to go to Guildford, then Reading for Birmingham, and they had no idea that it was technically naughty. All they were worried about was that I was travelling against the peak direction, which I was.

But this is exactly the point I was making. In the days when everybody used card tickets issued by a booking office or a TVM there is no indication on that ticket about route restrictions if it says By Any Permitted Route

But now we are moving to machine readable electronic tickets, we run the risk of the "computer saying no" that was not present under the old system

That is where the potential problem lies if a reasonably obvious route between A and B does not show up in the routeing guide so the passenger gets told their ticket is't valid, with no easy way to challenge it.

From the Feb 2022 version of the National Conditions of Travel:


I don't think many ticket machines honour that condition.  ::)