Break of Journey : Advance ticket

[Willie Bee]

If you book an advance ticket which involves a change of train, can you leave the station, say to go to a nearby shop ?

Last year, My wife and I traveled to Manchester from Newcastle, travelling first on LNER to Doncaster, then TPE to Manchester. We left the station to go to the local shop to buy lunch, thinking nothing of it, but I've read comments on the disputes section of this forum where folk have received a penalty for doing this exact same thing.

I suppose the way to get around this is to book separate tickets for each leg of the journey

 

[Bletchleyite]

The only place I have ever heard of a problem with this being done is Clapham Junction, and it appears they are just clueless in the extreme, given that we have a thread going on at the moment about someone being written up for prosecution for doing so there on an Anytime ticket which is perfectly valid for as many breaks of journey as you wish and was unequivocally valid via that station.

You may of course find that splitting is cheaper anyway, though!

Break of journey is no longer defined, in any case. I doubt "the man on the Clapham omnibus" would term it to mean leaving the station when you're changing there anyway. Rather if you asked someone what breaking your journey was on the street, they'd probably see it as something between changing trains unnecessarily and leaving longer than necessary between connections, neither of which is applicable to Advances anyway as you must follow your booked itinerary.

 

[DelW]

If you book an advance ticket which involves a change of train, can you leave the station, say to go to a nearby shop ?

Last year, My wife and I traveled to Manchester from Newcastle, travelling first on LNER to Doncaster, then TPE to Manchester. We left the station to go to the local shop to buy lunch, thinking nothing of it, but I've read comments on the disputes section of this forum where folk have received a penalty for doing this exact same thing.

I suppose the way to get around this is to book separate tickets for each leg of the journey

If I want to go off the station for a bit while changing trains, and my ticket won't open the barriers, I usually just show it to the gateline attendant and say that I want to go off the station "for a smoke". Since smoking on platforms is prohibited, I've never had that questioned.

I don't smoke, but fortunately I've never been asked to show what I was intending to smoke

I often change trains at Reading with connection times of up to an hour, which I don't want to spend on the platforms. It seems entirely random whether my through tickets work the gates there or not.

 

[Willie Bee]

If I want to go off the station for a bit while changing trains, and my ticket won't open the barriers, I usually just show it to the gateline attendant and say that I want to go off the station "for a smoke". Since smoking on platforms is prohibited, I've never had that questioned.

I don't smoke, but fortunately I've never been asked to show what I was intending to smoke

Brilliant idea !