Routeing Advice Request - Pinhoe to Oxford return

[Wolvercoter]

Hi All,

I purchased an Off-Peak Return from Pinhoe (Exeter) to Oxford. It was £67.00 (no railcard). There are a number of routeing options and I wondered which were valid.

1. Honiton, Basingstoke, Reading
2. Exeter St Davids, Taunton, Reading
   
3. Exeter St Davids, Taunton, Westbury, Swindon, Didcot (not Reading)
   
4. Exeter St Davids, Taunton, Bristol, Didcot (not Reading)

I travelled outbound via option 2 below and returned via option 3 with no issues. Are all the options above valid for this ticket? Also, are there any evening peak restrictions with this ticket?

Any help would be greatly appreciated for future journeys.

 

[Romilly]

This seems complicated. The routeing guide's routeing-point calculator says that Salisbury is the only routeing point for Pinhoe for an Any Permitted Pinhoe-Oxford ticket.

The permitted routes for Salisbury to Oxford are to be found on Map BB, which means the only mapped route that is permitted is your option 1.

But ... some journey-planners offer Pinhoe-Yeovil Junction-Yeovil Pen Mill-Westbury-Chippenham-Swindon-Didcot-Oxford as a valid route for any-permitted tickets, which appears to be permitted by reason of being the shortest route (146 miles 34 chains according to railmiles).

The £67 ticket has restriction code 2V which only prevents travel after 0429 and before 0930 Monday to Friday.

 

[JB_B]

This seems complicated. The routeing guide's routeing-point calculator says that Salisbury is the only routeing point for Pinhoe for an Any Permitted Pinhoe-Oxford ticket.

The permitted routes for Salisbury to Oxford are to be found on Map BB, which means the only mapped route that is permitted is your option 1.

But ... some journey-planners offer Pinhoe-Yeovil Junction-Yeovil Pen Mill-Westbury-Chippenham-Swindon-Didcot-Oxford as a valid route for any-permitted tickets, which appears to be permitted by reason of being the shortest route (146 miles 34 chains according to railmiles).

The £67 ticket has restriction code 2V which only prevents travel after 0429 and before 0930 Monday to Friday.

The fastest journeys are usually via Exeter St Davids (a subset of fastest journeys are via Basingstoke which is OK on map BB via Salisbury, anyway) but I would have expected the Exeter->Reading->Oxford route to be valid.

I agree with your shortest route. There's a variation via Exeter St Davids ->Taunton->Castle Cary which is within three miles of shortest route but that would still mean going via Trowbridge and Melksham - so maybe not super useful to the OP.

I concur with rp_calc only in as much that I agree that Exeter Group would normally fail the fare check but...

I'm looking at Routeing Point Easement 700031:-

"Customers travelling from Axminster, Honiton, Feniton, Whimple, Pinhoe, St James Park
and Exeter Central via Tiverton Parkway, may travel via Exeter St Davids. This
easement applies in both directions."

...I haven't had time to take a proper look but I'd want to know if this easement is properly reflected in the planners/booking engines.

(It could be an implementation error but I'm thinking more likely the input .RGD is defective.)

Or have I misinterpreted this easement's applicability? ( I note that tickets with similar validity from Exeter to Oxford are more expensive.)

 

[Wolvercoter]

Thanks for your replies. I usually use the Salisbury route in order to get Network Card discount. But on this occasion, there was engineering works closing the line at Pinhoe on the day I travelled outbound.

The GWR journey planner gave me via Taunton and Reading ok on the outbound journey, but not on the return.

There's a variation via Exeter St Davids ->Taunton->Castle Cary which is within three miles of shortest route but that would still mean going via Trowbridge and Melksham - so maybe not super useful to the OP.

This is the return route I took... it wasn't convenient at all, and I spent some time waiting at Swindon and Westbury. Don't fancy that again.

Or have I misinterpreted this easement's applicability? ( I note that tickets with similar validity from Exeter to Oxford are more expensive.)

Ticket was only checked once - on the return journey near Melksham. Don't think the he really looked at it. It also failed on the barriers at Reading.

It's all so complicated. And with all the threats stating you must have a valid ticket, I'm finding train travel increasingly stressful... I noted that tickets from Exeter were more expensive, which is why my alarm bells started ringing.