Stoke-on-Trent to London Euston WMR only

[SaltAndVinegar]

Say I have a super off-peak return EUS-SOT restricted to LNWR/WMR ONLY. So, no travel on Avanti services permitted.

It’s restricted by LF.

For the return portion, I want to take the 1557 from Stoke-on-Trent and change at Stafford.

Now let’s consider the ticket restrictions;

Not valid for travel on trains timed to arrive London Terminals before 13:00.

This doesn’t apply because it’s already gone 13:00.

Not valid for travel on northbound services timed to depart any station before 10:30.

Irrelevant as southbound travel.

Not valid for travel on services timed to depart the origin station on the ticket after 15:59 and before 19:01 in either direction.

Departure is at 1557, which is before 1559 when the restrictions begin.

Note it’s referencing “timed to depart” unlike railcards which reference “travel after” so delays don’t impact validity.

A connecting service can be used to complete a journey begun at a valid time.

If I’m starting my journey at Stoke at 1557, that’s a valid time as per these restrictions.

So taking the next connecting service (still obeying WMR/LNWR operator restriction) is valid because my “journey” started from Stoke at a valid time.


My question is: Why does the raileasy/TrainSplit system (used by the forum ticketing site) try to sell the more expensive off-peak return ticket for this journey, given it starts within the period of validity afforded by the super off peak fare? Am I misunderstanding or missing something critical?


Thanks

 

[Adam Williams]

Now let’s consider the ticket restrictions;

There's no point reading the section you're quoting from, you need to scroll down and look at the "UNPUBLISHED RESTRICTIONS" section, which is what powers journey planners.

Search link, as you didn't include it in the OP and you're setting Advanced Options to get those itineraries to surface: https://tickets.railforums.co.uk/re...tro,walk,transfer,ship&adv:ib:IncludedTOCs=LM



When are you changing at Stafford? 16:33.

 

[SaltAndVinegar]

you need to scroll down and look at the "UNPUBLISHED RESTRICTIONS" section, which is what powers journey planners.

Under “Unpublished Restrictions” please can you indicate which row would forbid this use of the ticket?

The closest restriction to my proposed time of travel I can see is:

Not valid to depart any location 1600-1648 on any TOC

Which only echoes an element of what the textual description says above.

When are you changing at Stafford? 16:33.

The (textual) restrictions make specific reference to that connection being valid if the journey starts from Stoke prior to 1600.

So yes I accept you seem to be correct in that it’s using that rule to deny the connection at Stafford.

Although it would seem the super off-peak fare is actually valid, and relevant systems need updating to account for connections being valid where the journey begins at a valid time?

Especially given the railway can’t direct consumers to nre.co.uk/LF to view restrictions, then decide actually that other hidden terms apply outside of the usual eg NRCoT, bylaws and fare restrictions.

 

[bcarmicle]

The unpublished restrictions are the computer-friendly version of the actual restrictions (though they are translated manually so do contain inconsistencies from time to time). For historic reasons, it is not possible for the rule "A connecting service can be used to complete a journey begun at a valid time." to be encoded into the unpublished restrictions. So while your journey is valid, it will not be generated by any online ticket retailer.

 

[mmh]

Wow, I knew ticketing was a shambles but I'm stunned by that. That is awful.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Wow, I knew ticketing was a shambles but I'm stunned by that. That is awful.

It's been a problem for about 15 years now, and the railway doesn't care because it profits from it.

 

[mmh]

Are there any websites left which will sell tickets without going through a journey planner?

Buying a ticket just becomes ever more difficult. Journey planners, looking at split ticketing possibilities, looking at ticket types on brfares.com, reading restriction codes...

 

[sot]

This one has been discussed time and time again.

I suggest buying from ticket office or a TVM that isn't exclusively a journey planner TVM (yes I am looking at you Avanti machines...).

Guards are happy to sell you this on the train if you can't get it (unable to buy online, officeless station, inept station staff not able to take their machine out of journey planner mode or journey planner TVM).

All guards I have asked about it are completely fine with it being used in the true spirit of the written restrictions, not the hidden restrictions.

As stated above on this particular flow it seems they are gaining approx £15 per return, so lucrative on their part.

It is a shame it is priced exactly the same for Stafford and Stoke as it is a little bit of a pain when you miss the connection and then have to buy something else to Stoke, though there is a very cheap any permitted ticket to get to Stoke via Crewe from Stafford...

I am not sure if the Aztec ticket will throw any errors on scanning but paper is not an issue.

I *THINK* if the retailer allows extra padding time you can use that to force the connection out of the blocked window, but as several have stated there are much easier ways to purchase.

 

[mmh]

Guards are happy to sell you this on the train if you can't get it (unable to buy online, officeless station, inept station staff not able to take their machine out of journey planner mode or journey planner TVM).

All guards I have asked about it are completely fine with it being used in the true spirit of the written restrictions, not the hidden restrictions.

That's all well but if you can't get onto the platform at Euston without a ticket you'll never see the guard.

 

[sot]

Well,

Euston precludes itself from the need to do that as:

1. Euston has a manned ticket office that is open most of the time you would be there.
2. Euston has LNR TVMs at the station where you will have no issue purchasing this.

Moreover, I was stating this as at Stoke-on-Trent the machines are journey planner only, and some of the staff are unable to comprehend how to switch their machine out of journey planner mode to sell such tickets.

 

[jfollows]

Surely, for this ticket, if you’re forced to use a journey planner you just specify a different return train from the one you actually plan on using.
Because this problem has been around for years, rail staff are generally aware of the problem.
I know it means you don’t have an “itinerary”, but so what? You’re not required to use a specific train with this type of ticket.

And, yes, it’s a mess and lots of people won’t know how to circumvent the issue.

 

[mmh]

That is a very good point! I've become so used to using unmanned stations that I completely didn't think that Euston is probably the worst example I could have used, whoops!

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's all well but if you can't get onto the platform at Euston without a ticket you'll never see the guard.

Euston has WMT TVMs which are not planner based and so will sell it whenever it's valid.

 

[sot]

Forgive me if you don't have experience of this most recently, but I have had no problems asking the Euston Schutzstaffel.. I mean staff to pass to ask questions of guards/TMs regarding permissions to use other services.

This may be due to asking questions in a way which no normal member of the public would ask them ("This is 1H42, right? I need to ask the TM for permission to ride this with a different ticket, has the TM come down for this yet?" etc.)

It has been mostly fruitful on most visits to Euston recently, usually getting a substantially earlier service on a booked train only ticket or avoiding huge delays, as have been present several times over the past months.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Forgive me if you don't have experience of this most recently, but I have had no problems asking the Euston Schutzstaffel.. I mean staff to pass to ask questions of guards/TMs regarding permissions to use other services.

The WMT gateline staff are, to be fair, nothing like the Avanti ones, and tend, if spoken to nicely, to be reasonable. If WMT are off-platform (i.e. not 8-11) there aren't any anyway, unless an RPI block is going on which is quite rare.

 

[sot]

I was talking about the Avanti ones I have seen recently! Yes I genuinely do not like the 8-11 on the occasions where it is very busy, kind of gives some reason to how the other platforms are managed at Euston.

Some times I have arrived and there has been a huge influx of people coming onto the platforms for one service whilst unloading a very full 8/12/10 carriages. Almost dangerous levels of crushing at the barriers with no thought to just open the gates to remove the crush risk.

 

[Adam Williams]

The (textual) restrictions make specific reference to that connection being valid if the journey starts from Stoke prior to 1600.

Irrelevant to a journey planner

Although it would seem the super off-peak fare is actually valid, and relevant systems need updating to account for connections being valid where the journey begins at a valid time?

I agree it should be improved but you can't update systems until you have a functional schema that allows you to express the restrictions you want to be able to encode. What we currently have falls short of that, but it's what we're required to implement by the industry.

In lieu of an update to the fares data spec, I am of the opinion that the human-readable restrictions text should go in the bin and a summary be generated from the electronic data. This would very quickly highlight all the shortcomings with the electronic data structure. It's far too tempting having free text fields, and it leads to problems like this. If a flag to allow connecting services to be ignored is seen as desirable, then it should be added to the electronic restrictions data.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In lieu of an update to the fares data spec, I am of the opinion that the human-readable restrictions text should go in the bin and a summary be generated from the electronic data. This would very quickly highlight all the shortcomings with the electronic data structure. It's far too tempting having free text fields, and it leads to problems like this. If a flag to allow connecting services to be ignored is seen as desirable, then it should be added to the electronic restrictions data.

replied here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/improving-the-representation-of-ticket-restrictions.302789/

 

[Stuwhu]

Forgive me if you don't have experience of this most recently, but I have had no problems asking the Euston Schutzstaffel

What does this mean?

 

[sot]

Some seem to liken their attitudes, hyperbole excepted of course, to a particular era of German secret police.

 

[Haywain]

Some seem to liken their attitudes, hyperbole excepted of course, to a particular era of German secret police.

In spite of having absolutely no experience of such matters, other than watching films like The Great Escape.

 

[sot]

All that aside... Maybe they have been told to tone it down a little bit.

Either that or I have officially reached the age of no longer looking like a young miscreant and am now classified as a middle aged serial complainer.