Cambridge to Sole Street via HS1

[arb]

I wish to travel from Cambridge (CBG) to Sole Street (SOR) this Saturday, leaving ASAP after 8am, and returning at an unknown time later the same day.

The journey planners offer me a journey involving a tube connection from Kings Cross to Victoria and then a slow stopping train to SOR, departing CBG at 0847 and arriving at SOR at 1125. This is priced, with a railcard discount, at £21.40, and is routed "not valid on HS1".

The "not valid on HS1" got me intrigued. I can see from brfares.com that there is also an "any permitted" ticket, priced at £22.60, which I would naturally assume would let me travel via Kings Cross, St Pancras and Rochester on a high-speed train. If I try and force a journey planner to show me this route by including various via points, it will do so, and get me there earlier (departing at 0815 and arriving at 1100), but it will not offer me the £22.60 any permitted fare, instead saying that I need to buy multiple tickets for the journey.

Am I missing something here? I can't immediately see any other logical route to Sole Street that includes travel on HS1. Is the £22.60 "any permitted" fare valid on HS1 via St Pancras and Rochester? If so, can anybody see a way of forcing a journey planner to offer me that ticket/itinerary so that I can buy online? Or would I have to visit a ticket office to buy it?

 

[Clip]

Try adding in via Gravesend of Ebbsfleet

 

[Romilly]

So far as I can see from the Routeing Guide, Cambridge-Sole Street tickets are valid only via London and Swanley. That would explain why you cannot get a journey planner to give you an itinerary using HS1 as that would involve travelling to Rochester (which is further from London than Sole Street) and then travelling back to Sole Street, and wouldn't be via Swanley. But as to why there are so many ticket options ....

 

[arb]

So does the more expensive ticket actually allow any additional routes at all compared to the cheaper one?!

Interestingly, the journey planners will quite happily give me the choice of going via Rochester/HS1 or not (with suitable price differences) if I search for London to Sole Street, instead of Cambridge to Sole Street. I wonder why the choice isn't allowed when travelling from further afield...

So my best bet at the moment appears to be being forced to split the tickets, getting separate Cambridge to London (£11.15) and London to Sole Street (£14.35) tickets, coming to a total of £25.50.

 

[Romilly]

In that case there's something strange going on here, given that the permitted routes from Cambridge to Sole Street consist of permitted routes for Cambridge to London combined with permitted routes for London to Sole Street.

 

[greatkingrat]

Just to confuse things further, the Any Permitted SDS (set by Southeastern) is actually cheaper than the Not Via HS1 SDS (set by Thameslink).

 

[MikeWh]

It's possible that Sole Street is part of a cluster where there are some stations that using HS1 makes sense. Strood?

 

[arb]

In that case there's something strange going on here, given that the permitted routes from Cambridge to Sole Street consist of permitted routes for Cambridge to London combined with permitted routes for London to Sole Street.

I found this easement:

Customers travelling with tickets routed 'Plus High Speed' from Farningham Road, Longfield, Sole Street and Meopham to Ebbsfleet International and beyond may travel via Rochester. This easement applies in both directions.

I wonder if it's down to how the rather vague "and beyond" is implemented in the software of the journey planners? Perhaps the maps in the routeing guide don't allow via Rochester for either Cambridge or London as an origin, and then the journey planners implement "and beyond" to mean only as far as London on the HS1 line, as opposed to literally any station at all in the country in that direction?

 

[arb]

Oh, or is it down to the precise wording on the tickets in relation to that easement?

The Cambridge tickets have the choice of "not valid on HS1" or "any permitted", whereas the London tickets have "plus high speed" or "not valid on HS1". The easement only refers to "plus high speed", which obviously would explain the discrepancy.

 

[kieron]

It's possible that Sole Street is part of a cluster where there are some stations that using HS1 makes sense. Strood?

The "+any permitted" fare is the same as the one from Cambridge to Ebbsfleet International.

Neither the shortest Cambridge-Sole Street route nor any of the mapped London-Sole Street ones use HS1, but Cambridge-London is valid on WA. This allows Tottenham Hale-Stratford-Stratford International-London St. Pancras, giving something like this*. "High Speed" doesn't always mean "fast".

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

 

[arb]

Thanks for that! Whilst I have to agree that I think you're technically correct with that roundabout routing, I can't help but feel that's not quite what was intended with the any permitted fare.

Anyway, I've now spent far too long (sigh ) considering different tickets that would let me use HS1 to get to Sole Street, and would ideally give me flexibility to return via either route (the connection times on the return journey mean that it's not really any faster to choose one route or the other - it's just a case of whichever train happens to be next when I arrive at the station). What I've come up with so far is:

1) The split mentioned earlier in the thread: CBG-London (£11.15) and London-SOR (£14.35), coming to a total of £25.50. But this would only let me return via HS1 - I'd need to add in an additional tube fare to cross London between VIC and KGX.

2) Get a CBG-Strood Any Permitted ticket, at £23.50, which does allow the choice of HS1 direct or via Rochester. For my outward journey to SOR, I'd use the full outward ticket to Strood, and then switch to the return ticket to go to Rochester and on to SOR and break the journey on the return ticket. Then for my return journey, I'd continue using the return ticket from SOR. However this would mean that I'd be limited to returning via VIC - I couldn't "turn round" and go back via Rochester and HS1 again.

So ... can anybody see any other options? Ideally I'd like a ticket(s) that:
1) Lets me travel out via HS1
2) Gives me a choice of returning via HS1 or via VIC (the Strood ticket doesn't do this)
3) Doesn't cost more if I ultimately choose to avoid the premium HS1 service on the return (splitting at London Terminals doesn't do this)

 

[Paul Kelly]

Oh, or is it down to the precise wording on the tickets in relation to that easement?

The Cambridge tickets have the choice of "not valid on HS1" or "any permitted", whereas the London tickets have "plus high speed" or "not valid on HS1". The easement only refers to "plus high speed", which obviously would explain the discrepancy.

Yes, I'm sure that's what it is.