Wolverhampton to Walsall via Tame Bridge Parkway

[dvboy]

This journey (or the reverse) with a change a Tame Bridge Parkway is half the time of via Birmingham, but can only be done hourly.

An anytime day single from Wolverhampton to Walsall (not via Birmingham) is £3.40; (via Birmingham is £6.00)

Why does the National Rail Enquires website tell me I need two separate tickets this journey costing £7.70? (£4.70 + £3.00)
And then when clicking through to the LNR website, why is changing at Tame Bridge Parkway and the £3.40 anytime day single not available at all?

Something's not right in the fares database, right?

 

[Watershed]

This is down to it not following a permitted route. Under the National Rail Conditions of Travel and the Routeing Guide (which determines permitted routes, i.e. the routes you can take with your ticket), there are three ways that a route can be permitted:

1. If you take a direct train - but in this case you're changing, so that's not relevant
2. If it's the shortest route, or within 3 miles thereof - but in this case the route via Tame Bridge Parkway (TAB) is more than 3 miles longer than the shortest route, which is deemed to be via the once-weekly Saturday service that runs direct between Wolverhampton and Walsall, avoiding both Birmingham and TAB.
3. If it's along a "mapped route" - this refers to the series of maps listed in the Yellow Pages section of the Routeing Guide. In this case, the only listed map for Wolverhampton to Walsall is BI, which requires travel via Birmingham (which isn't permitted on this ticket). So there's no mapped route you can use to validate travel via TAB.

Therefore, even though going via TAB is the obvious way of using a "not via Birmingham" ticket, and indeed the only way other than at silly o'clock on a Saturday morning. However, booking engines don't determine validity based on what a human would consider common sense - they have a set of rules, and any routes that don't comply with these rules won't and can't be offered, regardless of how silly that may seem.

As for the transfer between NRE and the LNR website not working, this is because NRE is trying to get LNR to sell multiple tickets at once (since it thinks that a combination of tickets are required for this route). Whitelabel Trainline-based sites such as LNR's don't support this, and so simply fail instead!

Realistically the only way to buy this ticket is either to do so at a ticket machine or office, or to select it on the once weekly direct train, and then use something like the "favourite journey" functionality on the GTR/SE ticket selling sites to buy it for another day without having to search for valid itineraries.

 

[kieron]

And then when clicking through to the LNR website, why is changing at Tame Bridge Parkway and the £3.40 anytime day single not available at all?

LNR doesn't like what NRE is asking it for, so pushes you to pick trains again on their own website. I know NRE used to ask for for the two tickets it suggested separately, but I don't know if it still does that, or if there's just a problem with this specific request.

One thing which should give you a through ticket would be to buy a ticket with a route via Birmingham but avoiding Dudley Port*. You are allowed to miss out the Tame Bridge-Birmingham-Tame Bridge section here (to give the journey you originally suggested), but it only offers it with the more expensive ticket.

[*]If it's the shortest route, or within 3 miles thereof - but in this case the route via Tame Bridge Parkway (TAB) is more than 3 miles longer than the shortest route, which is deemed to be via the once-weekly Saturday service that runs direct between Wolverhampton and Walsall, avoiding both Birmingham and TAB.

Are you sure the problem isn't the double back through Bescot Stadium rather than the distance itself? NRE would calculate the shortest Wolverhampton-Walsall route as being 6.8 miles long, and Wolverhampton-Tame Bridge-Walsall as 10.02 miles. That's only 3.22 miles further, which I expect is well within the leeway they use for this.

* You may need to delete any nationalrail.co.uk cookies you have for this link to open correctly.

 

[dvboy]

Thanks for your replies - I also messaged WMR on Twitter to see what they have to say.

Surely this needs resolving with an easement to double back to TAB.

Even with reintroduction of hourly direct Wolverhampton-Walsall services hourly once Willenhall and Darlaston open, this would still be a quicker option in between those trains (will Wolves-Walsall via Birmingham still be a thing then?)

 

[Kite159]

which is deemed to be via the once-weekly Saturday service that runs direct between Wolverhampton and Walsall, avoiding both Birmingham and TAB.

I'm pretty sure that weekly Saturday service ceased to run last December. Trains still go that way but ECS only.

 

[dvboy]

I'm pretty sure that weekly Saturday service ceased to run last December. Trains still go that way but ECS only.

Oh yes you're indeed right, it ran ECS this morning.

In theory that should have fixed the fares issue then, but it hasn't.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 May 2023 ==

One thing which should give you a through ticket would be to buy a ticket with a route via Birmingham but avoiding Dudley Port*. You are allowed to miss out the Tame Bridge-Birmingham-Tame Bridge section here (to give the journey you originally suggested), but it only offers it with the more expensive ticket.

Interesting - so double backing TO Tame Bridge Parkway not permitted but double backing THROUGH Tame Bridge Parkway to Birmingham IS (albeit on the via Birmingham ticket).

 

[kieron]

Oh yes you're indeed right, it ran ECS this morning.

In theory that should have fixed the fares issue then, but it hasn't.

There are quite a few places in the distance table in the data where a link between two stations is completely unusable. This is just one more.

The NRT distance table avoids this issue by not giving a distance for either route, so that the shortest distance is via Birmingham New Street.

Interesting - so double backing TO Tame Bridge Parkway not permitted but double backing THROUGH Tame Bridge Parkway to Birmingham IS (albeit on the via Birmingham ticket).

That's just the way "via somewhere" ticket routes work. If the bit either side of Birmingham is valid (and you'd probably use a direct train on either side in this case), the whole journey is.

 

[dvboy]

I've asked WMR about this and still waiting for a response
Am I right in thinking an easement allowing double-backing to Tame Bridge Parkway would resolve the issue?

Does anyone know what the fares were prior to the direct Wolverhampton-Walsall service being withdrawn back in 2008?