Edinburgh to Arlesey routing via Stevenage

[Silver Cobra]

After the success of my trip to Edinbugh a few weeks ago, I'm planning on going again on a Saturday sometime towards the end of February. As advances for weekends in February are not available yet, I've been using December 12th as a reference point to see the possible options for advances from Arlesey (my nearest station) to Edinburgh. Almost all the routings offered for this journey in both directions involve changing between Great Northern and VTEC at Peterborough. However for the return leg, there is a routing option involving changing at Stevenage rather than Peterborough:

1600 EDB > SVG 2019
2047 SVG > ARL 2057

Interested in this possibility, I checked with the NRE journey planner to see if they offer this routing too and while they do, they list it as requiring two tickets rather than the single advance that VTEC offers. Likewise, checking on VTWC's website only offers routing via Peterborough (albeit arriving into Arlesey only 1 minute later than the Stevenage routing). Searching around the forums, I've learned that there has been an easement for tickets starting from Peterborough northwards and finishing at Hitchin that permitted a double-back via Stevenage. I assume that this also permitted a double-back for Arlesey as well. Looking through the current easement list on ATOC's website, I can't find this particular easement in there; only for stations from Cambridge to Letchworth to double-back at Stevenage for stations from Hitchin northwards.

What this makes me think is that, as only WebTIS-powered booking engines provide this routing as an option (Southern's website offers it as well), that it is a glitch with WebTIS based on a former easement, and therefore not actually a valid route. Ultimately I will most likely play it safe with tickets routed via Peterborough. However, say that I did purchase this particular Stevenage-routed ticket through VTEC's website, where would I stand with regards to the ticket's validity if I had to show it to a train guard/RPI?

**EDIT: Looks like I may have missed the easement when searching for it. Using this easement guide, the easement is listed as:

700514 - Passengers travelling from or via Peterborough to Hitchin may doubleback at Stevenage. This easement applies in both directions

Though, this does now beg a new question. If the easement does still exist, why doesn't the NRE journey planner nor TrainLine-powered booking engines permit advances from Edinburgh to Hitchin/Arlesey to double-back via Stevenage?

 

[Starmill]

If you purchase an Advance ticket with that itinerary, you've no choice but to follow it, doubling back or otherwise.

 

[reb0118]

As Starmill has pointed out the routeing guide does not really apply to Advance tickets - you merely follow the supplied itinerary and you can't go wrong.

That said most Advances tend to follow "valid" routes in my opinion - the TOCs may be missing a thread here but that's for another day...........

 

[Haywain]

The easement does not apply to Arlesey tickets, only to those for Hitchin. That is why it is not being implemented as you expect.

 

[philjo]

My understanding is that for non-advance tickets the fares from Arlesey are priced with the intention of changing at Peterborough so with some exceptions the fares are somewhat lower or have more lenient restrictions than the equivalents from Hitchin (Hitchin, Stevenage, Letchworth & I think Baldock tend to have identical fares) when going north to destinations beyond Peterborough.
However there may be advances that allow travel via Stevenage.
On weekdays there are journeys using the Stevenage-Leeds train that does not call at Peterborough that may be quicker via Stevenage (or the 16:30 from Edinburgh which is non-stop York to Stevenage)

In GNER days I was able to book an advance for Stevenage -Alnmouth by using the then 07:19 Stevenage-Glasgow train & doubling back from Berwick as there was a convenient GNER connection back which was at lot cheaper & quicker than changing at Newcastle onto a Cross country service to Alnmouth. So advances often do allow double backs particularly if the connection uses the same operator.

 

[Silver Cobra]

If you purchase an Advance ticket with that itinerary, you've no choice but to follow it, doubling back or otherwise.

As Starmill has pointed out the routeing guide does not really apply to Advance tickets - you merely follow the supplied itinerary and you can't go wrong.

That said most Advances tend to follow "valid" routes in my opinion - the TOCs may be missing a thread here but that's for another day...........

That's an interesting way of looking at it, and it coincides nicely with the discussion in this thread here. In the end of the day, it's an itinerary from VTEC's website and can be proven to have come from there, so I would have to follow it, as otherwise I'm technically breaking the terms of the advance ticket.

The easement does not apply to Arlesey tickets, only to those for Hitchin. That is why it is not being implemented as you expect.

That makes sense, and to be honest I expected that to be the case. With the only mentions of Arlesey in the easement file I linked in the OP being in regards to Cambridge and Dublin, and that this routing via Stevenage only appears for one route in a day, it's clear that there is no intended easement for Arlesey like Hitchin has.

What I think is causing this routing option to appear is the fact the arrival time into Arlesey is 1 minute earlier if changing at Stevenage rather than at Peterborough. It seems that WebTIS builds its routing options list based on the fastest possible journey times, even if this sometimes provides routings that aren't actually valid. WebTIS can be forced to give the Peterborough routing for the 1600 departure from Edinburgh, but only when setting the 'travel via' option to Peterborough, otherwise it defaults to Stevenage.

My understanding is that for non-advance tickets the fares from Arlesey are priced with the intention of changing at Peterborough so with some exceptions the fares are somewhat lower or have more lenient restrictions than the equivalents from Hitchin (Hitchin, Stevenage, Letchworth & I think Baldock tend to have identical fares) when going north to destinations beyond Peterborough.
However there may be advances that allow travel via Stevenage.
On weekdays there are journeys using the Stevenage-Leeds train that does not call at Peterborough that may be quicker via Stevenage (or the 16:30 from Edinburgh which is non-stop York to Stevenage)

In GNER days I was able to book an advance for Stevenage -Alnmouth by using the then 07:19 Stevenage-Glasgow train & doubling back from Berwick as there was a convenient GNER connection back which was at lot cheaper & quicker than changing at Newcastle onto a Cross country service to Alnmouth. So advances often do allow double backs particularly if the connection uses the same operator.

That's a very good point. Checking the advance ticket prices starting from Arlesey versus Stevenage, they are slightly cheaper. Hitchin, on the other hand, has the same price as Stevenage.

Your post also reminds me of something. I have actually already done a journey on an advance ticket from a station north of Peterborough to Arlesey via Stevenage before, and that was from Manchester Piccadilly via Doncaster back in June. The routing was the following:

1520 MAN > DON 1635 (Trans Pennine Express)
1646 DON > SVG 1803 (Virgin Trains EC)
1809 SVG > ARL 1820 (Great Northern)

Checking this journey with the NRE journey planner, funnily enough it lists this journey as requiring two tickets to be valid, much like with the above Edinburgh journey, whereas I only had the single advance ticket. On that day though, neither the TPE or VTEC guard I showed my ticket to made any comment about the routing not being valid. Heck, I even claimed delay repay successfully on the ticket with no comment made about the route's validity (the VTEC leg was delayed arriving into Stevenage due to carrying out an SSO at Peterborough, so I missed my intended GN connection).

So the general consensus therefore is, although the route may not technically be valid for open tickets, using an advance with the itinerary set to that route should be fine. Thanks for your replies everyone. I definitely have a better understanding of this now