Routeing query - Chippenham to Moreton in Marsh

[whole diary]

[grahame]

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?

[ellendune]

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

[Oxonhutch]

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.

[Oxonhutch]

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

[Trowres]

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^‡(resolve) 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^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) for journeys via Stockport; it also offers AP with GW^▸ (Great Western)/TfW for journeys via Hereford * )

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

[grahame]

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

Not all permitted routes are usable.

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

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

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 

[Robin Summerhill]

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

Not all permitted routes are usable.

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

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

So, looking again at the routes between CPM^» (Chippenham - next trains) 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^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) 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...

[eightonedee]

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

For me - it's Mornington Crescent.

[Robin Summerhill]

I would never in my wildest dreams have thought that CPM^» (Chippenham - next trains) to MIM via Bristol was permitted but via Kemble wasn't, especially bearing in mind that tickets from CPM to CNM^» (Cheltenham Spa - next trains) or GCR^» (Gloucester - next trains) are valid via bith routes

[Trowres]

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)

[grahame]

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)

[Robin Summerhill]

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^» (Chippenham - next trains)-SWI^» (Swindon - next trains), 1128 SWI-CNM^» (Cheltenham Spa - next trains), 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^▸ (Online Journey Planner) between us over the last couple of days? 

[Trowres]

Although it is a walk-up off peak fare, the search engine tells me that no fares are available for the 1156 CNM^» (Cheltenham Spa - next trains) 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^▸ (Online Journey Planner) between us over the last couple of days? 

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^» (Network Rail - home page) 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.

[stuving]

Do you think we've collectively broken the OJP^▸ (Online Journey Planner) between us over the last couple of days? 

In some ways, yes. When I said it was not usable to check valid routes for CPM^» (Chippenham - next trains)-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^» (Bristol Temple Meads - next trains) 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!

[Trowres]

My efforts with NR^» (Network Rail - home page) OJP^▸ (Online Journey Planner) 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...