Lakenheath to Shippea Hill - is doubling back at Brandon allowed?

[Farigiraf]

Is a £4.20 (£2.75 with railcard) Lakenheath to Shippea Hill anytime day single valid via Brandon?

It's a double back, and I can't find any easement for it on the NR routeing guide easements page, but as there are no direct services between the two stations, it's the fastest route between the two. Buying a separate SPP-BND and BND-LAK ticket would be £12.10 (£8 with railcard) so roughly triple the price.

Conveniently the 15:56 from Lakenheath connects well at Brandon onto the 16:06 to Shippea Hill. The 5 minute connection can be risky, but I checked, and Brandon has a footbridge rather than a foot crossing so assuming everything's running on time it should be makeable.

 

[transportphoto]

Guards are more likely to be surprised somebody is attempting the journey than worrying what ticket they hold. I’d suggest you’ll have little to no problems in reality.

 

[saismee]

Guards are more likely to be surprised somebody is attempting the journey than worrying what ticket they hold. I’d suggest you’ll have little to no problems in reality.

I imagine it's in the same boat as doubling back from the Felixstowe line to the East Suffolk line at Ipswich. Technically Westerfield would be the change point (and base data backs this up) but there's very few ES services which call at Westerfield each day (though this is supposed to change in May!). In other words, there's no other route so it probably must be valid.

Edit: I realise there's an easement in my example and not in yours, but if there's no train which calls at both then it would otherwise be an impossible ticket.

 

[Farigiraf]

Guards are more likely to be surprised somebody is attempting the journey than worrying what ticket they hold. I’d suggest you’ll have little to no problems in reality.

Thought so - just wanted to check! Thanks for the reply. I suppose the bigger problem I should worry about is getting a bike across the footbridge at Brandon in (potentially less than) 5 minutes

I imagine it's in the same boat as doubling back from the Felixstowe line to the East Suffolk line at Ipswich. Technically Westerfield would be the change point (and base data backs this up) but there's very few ES services which call at Westerfield each day (though this is supposed to change in May!)

Westerfield will get a few extra Lowestoft calls but I think most Lowestoft trains will still skip it. 'Not technically valid but always accepted in practice double-backs' could make for an interesting Trivia thread.

 

[saismee]

Westerfield will get a few extra Lowestoft calls but I think most Lowestoft trains will still skip it. 'Not technically valid but always accepted in practice double-backs' could make for an interesting Trivia thread.

See my edit, there is actually an easement for my example.