Clarification on restriction 5K

[joshdavey]

Hi,

I'm trying to buy an off peak open return, departing 5th January, from London Terminals to Oxford. This has a restriction code of 5K.

This, specifically, is the following fare:
http://www.brfares.com/#faredetail?orig=1072&dest=OXF&tkt=SVR

This is listed as disallowing the following Paddington departures for evening travel - the bracketed times refer to departures from Reading:

• 16:00 (16:27) to Bristol Temple Meads
• 16:06 (16:33) to Penzance
• 16:15 (16:41) to Swansea
• 16:30 (16:57) to Taunton
• 16:36 (17:04) to Exeter St Davids (Mondays to Thursdays) / Plymouth (Fridays)
• 16:45 (17:11) to Swansea
• 16:49 (17:20) to Oxford

It seems to me this should be valid on the 16:22 to Oxford [which calls at Reading at (16:53)] (not listed above); but train ticket booking sites such as trainline.com don't list that as a valid train for this ticket type. The same applies for the 16:55 service.

What am I missing here?

Thanks!

 

[furlong]

That some of the train companies have been getting away with trying to sell people higher priced tickets than necessary for their journeys for years and the regulating bodies seem to have little interest in making them comply with the law? It's not a one-off, but a systematic problem with the way these restrictions are (not) maintained and checked by the industry. (What you've seen could be investigated by the ORR as a breach of the consumer regulations.)

 

[joshdavey]

Interesting. So am I right in assuming the spirit of the restriction is "No Paddington departures calling directly at Oxford between 4PM and 7PM", which is how it has been programmed into the ticket sales sites (or wherever they get their data from[?]), but it's actually worded as a list of particular trains (for some reason) which hasn't been kept up-to-date?

 

[John @ home]

am I right in assuming the spirit of the restriction is "No Paddington departures calling directly at Oxford between 4PM and 7PM", which is how it has been programmed into the ticket sales sites (or wherever they get their data from[?]), but it's actually worded as a list of particular trains (for some reason) which hasn't been kept up-to-date?

Not quite. It originated when there were separate InterCity and local services. These Off-Peak Return fares had afternoon peak restictions on InterCity trains but not on local trains. The way it has been implemented in the electronic version makes a pig's ear of this. This is shown at the bottom of this page and from London Paddington is:

Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1600–1605 on any TOC
Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1608–1610 on any TOC
Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1613–1634 on any TOC
Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1637–1647 on any TOC
Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1650–1705 on any TOC
Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1708–1716 on any TOC
Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1719–1747 on any TOC
Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1750–1755 on any TOC
Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1759–1805 on any TOC
Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1808–1816 on any TOC
Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1820–1846 on any TOC
Not valid to depart LONDON PADDINGTON 1850–1905 on any TOC

 

[joshdavey]

How fascinating, I've learnt two things now from this inquiry (I had no idea the electronic restrictions were viewable to all, especially, all I needed to do was scroll down!).

Thanks very much for the insights, all!

 

[linusnorton]

I did a bit of digging on this and found that the restrictions data from the fares feed has recently been updated. The time bands appear to have been moved around in the fares feed (which drives the online journey planners) but the text has not yet been updated on NRE (which is what you are seeing on brfares).

For reference the outward time restrictions relevant to PAD are now:

+------------------+-------------+---------+-----------+----------+-------------+----------+------------+
| restriction_code | sequence_no | out_ret | time_from | time_to  | arr_dep_via | location | train_type |
+------------------+-------------+---------+-----------+----------+-------------+----------+------------+
| 5K               | 0001        | O       | 04:30:00  | 09:29:00 | D           | NULL     | A          |
| 5K               | 0005        | O       | 16:00:00  | 16:05:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0006        | O       | 16:08:00  | 16:10:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0007        | O       | 16:13:00  | 16:34:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0008        | O       | 16:37:00  | 16:47:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0009        | O       | 16:50:00  | 17:05:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0010        | O       | 17:08:00  | 17:16:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0011        | O       | 17:19:00  | 17:47:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0012        | O       | 17:50:00  | 17:55:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0013        | O       | 17:59:00  | 18:05:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0014        | O       | 18:08:00  | 18:16:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0015        | O       | 18:20:00  | 18:46:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0016        | O       | 18:50:00  | 19:05:00 | D           | PAD      | A          |
| 5K               | 0017        | O       | 19:09:00  | 19:16:00 | A           | PAD      | A          |

The number of permitted trains in those times has also been reduced and it is now just the C58203 service.

 

[FenMan]

To save second guessing GWR's evening restrictions, your ticket is valid for evening peak departures from Marylebone to Oxford via Oxford Parkway. The time penalty travelling this way is very small.