Great Western Coffee Shop

Just checked some prices for a Journey from Salisbury - London Waterloo... I have found out the following:

Salisbury - London Waterloo - First Anytime Day Single with Disabled Railcard - ^38.35

Warminster - London Waterloo (Via Salisbury) - First Anytime Day Single with Disabled Railcard - ^33.00

::)

Sadly this is the current state of affairs with our fares system at the moment.

Break of journey is allowed on the Warminster ticket, so you'd be perfectly within the rules to buy a WMN-WAT at Salisbury and use that to travel from there.  Same on the return - perfectly allowed to end your journey at Salisbury.

Similar situation on Bristol to Cosham.  Cheaper to buy to Havant, which is slightly further.

Hmm ...  ::)

A couple of afternoons this week, I've travelled down to Trowbridge and back, from Nailsea & Backwell.

There is a choice of tickets:

Anytime Day Return (any permitted) = ^11.20

Off-peak Day return (via Bath Spa) = ^11.60

I queried this with the very helpful guard on my train this afternoon: after checking the details on his Avantix, he was able to give me a very well-reasoned, clear and concise official FGW answer to this anomaly: "That's weird!"

Chris  ::) :D ;D

I expect that that ticket would be valid via Taunton Chris...?! But I don't know for definate...

You could go "Nailsea & Backwell > Taunton > Castle Cary / Westbury > Trowbridge..." But why you'd go that way is beyond me... ::)

There are also Advance tickets available for ^10.50 or ^11.50 single (also some cheaper).  A single ticket is just ^10.00, so both of these advance tickets are in fact more expensive.

Nailsea is in both Bristol and Taunton Group, so it may well be permitted to travel via Taunton (could someone confirm?).  In fact, the ^11.60 pointed out by Chris is cheaper than Nailsea to Taunton (SDR ^15.70), so this could be another one of the crazy breaking journey anomalies to add to the wall of fame.

Edit: Scrap my last comment.  I've just found out that it must be the shortest distance of the two routing points, so a journey via. Taunton is not permitted.  This then makes the "Bath Spa" ticket useless, as there is no other permitted way of completing the journey.

But how are you supposed to know which is the shortest route, now that the National Timetable no longer publishes mileages?

There's also an Anytime day return Nailsea to Trowbridge, at ^14.10 - but I've no idea of the routeing on it without Avantix. Anyone know?

Paul

That is a SDR (Anytime Day Return) via Bath Spa.

Ah ... so the Anytime Day Return 'any permitted' is ^11.20, but the Anytime Day Return 'via Bath Spa' is ^14.10.  :o

I'm going to send in a Customer Comment Form to FGW, as my more expensive / more restricted ticket on Tuesday was sold to me by a member of staff on board: I shall donate the resulting refund of 40p to charity, and FGW will be out of pocket to the tune of whatever it takes for someone in their customer service centre in Plymouth to deal with my complaint.

Chris.  ::) :o ;D

The only route permitted on the "Any Permitted" ticket is CE, which passes through Bath Spa anyway
(http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/6540/43186304.jpg)
(Full maps: http://www.atoc.org/about-atoc/rail-settlement-plan/routeing-guide)

'Which?' are on the case, apparently: see http://www.which.co.uk/news/2010/04/more-train-tickets-cost-less-money-214712 and http://www.which.co.uk/news/2010/05/rail-companies-confusing-train-ticket-prices-214461  ;) :D ;D

The 'Which?' example is the best split if you take the 0845 from PAD, but leave half an hour earlier and you can split at Didcot and Swindon and save a further ^7.70. Of course you'd have to change at Cardiff, but you'd still arrive in Swansea at the same time as if you'd taken the 0845, so stop at Caerdydd Canolog and have a coffee and still be quids in!