Melksham <-> Yatton - no tickets available on faster services!

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I'm headed for Yatton on Saturday - 2 p.m. informal branch meet-up for the Severnside Railfuture branch (first meeting of any sort for branch members for 18 months!) ... looked up train times and fare.



Odd one - no fares available of lots of the trains, including all the faster ones ...

[Red Squirrel]

How odd!

Out of interest I had a look at https://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/ - it showed fares for these journeys, but when I tried to buy a ticket (I would have cancelled before I got to the end of the process) it passed me to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) where again it said there were no tickets available. For completeness, I tried buying them from Northern Rail instead - and that seemed OK! So it looks like a GWR problem.

[Clan Line]

I came across this a few weeks ago with Anytime fares on midweek trains...........which one would expect to be usable on ANY train. It did not appear to be showing up on the ticket office systems as when I asked for the price of an Anytime ticket on a particular "unavailable" train I was quoted the expected fare. I asked the lady to write down the train time and the fare (just in case !) - which she did. The ticket "passed" inspection on the train.

[Sixty3Closure]

I've had similar Twyford>Carmarthen but only on the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) site. Trainline had lots of tickets but haven't used them for a while.

[rogerw]

I think that they are still using the much criticised Covid space allocation plan. That said there are other problems with the site which also require attention. One example is its refusal to acknowledge the SAL to GTW fare via BAA( Barnham). Another is that on a recent check for fares to London for later this month it would only offer single fares and no returns.

[grahame]

I think that they are still using the much criticised Covid space allocation plan.

I'm not sure that's the case - there's a consistency in travel being offered via Trowbridge but not via Chippenham. The tickets are described as "via Bristol" ... and Melksham to Bristol journeys are permitted either way.

I doubt whether there would be an issue if I got a ticket from the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) and travelled (shock, horror!) via Chippenham - looks like a quirk in the booking engine.   Mind, I was once required to show my ticket to one of the platform staff at Bristol Temple Meads when I asked whether I should change at Chippenham or Trowbridge when headed for Melksham - I asked why she needed to see the ticket and she told me to see which routes it was valid by - so there must be some ticket or other which is restricted, but I don't know what it is ...