No timed reservation on first leg of journey

[trainophile]

I have an Advance ticket for Tenby to Cardiff Central, but the only timed part is Carmarthen to Cardiff. There is nothing stated on the ticket for the first leg. It says “valid on booked TFW services only”.

Booked through Trainsplit, which gave me an itinerary departing Tenby at 10:40 and waiting an hour at Carmarthen.

However the 11:38 from Tenby goes straight through to Cardiff, via my timed 12:34 connection at Carmarthen.

Just interested in whether I could legally get the 11:38 from Tenby without contravening the rules.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Jul 2025 ==

So I rushed for the 10:40, just made it. Showed my ticket to the guard and asked the question, and he said yes catching the 11:38 would have been fine. Oh well, I’ll know next time.

 

[pelli]

Presumably the fact that you had a reservation on the train from Carmarthen onwards means that that train was reservable, so the obscure rule comes into play, that if you have an unreserved leg then you can choose other unreservable departures, but not reservable ones? (There is a debate to be had about whether ignoring this rule since it's unpublished results in the conclusion that you must follow the original itinerary exactly including unreserved legs, or that you have full flexibility to take any service regardless of reservability on unreserved legs.)

Looking at Realtimetrains one week ahead from your journey yesterday confirms that the 11:38 from Tenby turning into 12:34 from Carmarthen is reservable, while the 10:40 from Tenby is not. I don't understand the intricacies of Advance ticket pricing but maybe an Advance ticket for the through train at 11:38 would have been more expensive due to quotas along the Tenby-Carmarthen part of the journey, which is why Trainsplit possibly found you a cheaper Advance tier by using a different (coincidentally unreservable) train for that leg, an hour earlier. Interestingly yesterday and today the through train is marked as VSTP [Very Short Term Plan] (apparently starting short from Pembroke) and not shown as reservable.

 

[trainophile]

Thank you, I'm sure you're spot on with your reasoning. I hadn't realised that the 11:38 Tenby to Carmarthen was reservable. Half wishing now that I'd chanced my luck on that one and see if any discrepancy was picked up on a ticket check.

And yes, I'm pretty sure I went for the cheapest option, as I almost always do!

 

[yorkie]

In future, I strongly advise booking the itinerary you actually want.

You can use advanced options to specify this, if it's not automatically offered; we allow all sorts of advanced features to tailor the itinerary, such as specifying additional interchange time, exclude certain TOCs, etc.

Staff do have discretion to allow travel on alternative appropriate connecting services, but this cannot be guaranteed, so please do check carefully that the itinerary is suitable before making the purchase.

 

[trainophile]

I don't think it's possible to specify extra connection time for just one leg of a multi-leg journey is it? It would be quite handy if this was possible when I'm connecting across the bridge at Newport with 7 minutes connection given, in case my inbound is running late. However I don't want it to be interpreted that I also need an extra 5 or 10 minutes for the other legs of the journey, where it's usually cross platform or same platform.

(Incidentally I did click on "Reply" on @yorkie 's post but it hasn't populated the reply box. Same thing happened the other day. Am I doing it wrong?)

 

[Haywain]

I don't think it's possible to specify extra connection time for just one leg of a multi-leg journey is it?

It is on Trainsplit; you can select a change point and the time required.

 

[yorkie]

I don't think it's possible to specify extra connection time for just one leg of a multi-leg journey is it? It would be quite handy if this was possible when I'm connecting across the bridge at Newport with 7 minutes connection given, in case my inbound is running late. However I don't want it to be interpreted that I also need an extra 5 or 10 minutes for the other legs of the journey, where it's usually cross platform or same platform.

It is absolutely possible, yes!

In this case, specify calling at: Newport, and then add a value for the amount of extra time you require.

The value you specify is added to the minimum interchange time for that station.

 

[trainophile]

It is absolutely possible, yes!

In this case, specify calling at: Newport, and then add a value for the amount of extra time you require.

The value you specify is added to the minimum interchange time for that station.

Oh right, thanks, I'll try that next time.

 

[Starmill]

The conductor would be likely to accept that ticket because they would usually accept anything that seems reasonable. In any case with an Advance you can't refund the ticket, and you also would obviously not be in any position to be re-using the ticket, and obviously have the correct discount type, which are the common entry level attempts at fare evasion beyond the whole hiding in the loo thing. It's also possible they would scan the ticket and see no previous scan which may give them some evidence for the view that the ticket isn't being reused. If you ask politely, aren't taking the mick, and have your ticket / discount card ready to show, they'll usually let you off with whatever.

This is a little bit different to a strict question of what is / is not permitted. It's also not wise to take advantage of goodwill, not that you would have been doing that in this case, just for the avoidance of doubt. Finally revenue staff who aren't the conductor may see things quite differently.