HS1 Fares

[bb21]

Now here's a question about my weaker area of HS1. I know it's been covered previously but I need to travel in the morning and don't really have time to look through those pages.

I have a Bedford Stations 0410-Stratford International SE 7222 Route West Hampstead SDS. Am I allowed to travel via St Pancras and HS1?

I bought this ticket because Route Hampstead is the only fare available (there being no Any Permitted fares or any others with a dagger sign) and given that the MML passes through West Hampstead on its way to St Pancras there is nothing to suggest that it is not a valid route, otherwise there would be no valid fare for such an obvious route. The Routeing Guide gives LONDON as a route so using map HK for the HS1 leg appears OK.

I'm now having doubts as fares between Bedford Stations and Stratford London 6969 also has a +Any Permitted fare priced at a slightly higher rate, together with the West Hampstead fare. Are they both valid for HS1? Then what is the point of the higher priced +Any Permitted?

Given that CO is also a valid map between London Group and Stratford London Group, are the West Hampstead fares without a dagger sign valid on the tube between St Pancras and Liverpool Street?

Finally is Leicester 1947-Stratford International SE 7222 Route +Any Permitted SOR valid on HS1?

I think I know the answers just not sure. I also wanna make sure that there are no hidden surprises when i jump on the 395s.

Cheers fellas :roll::roll:

 

[MikeWh]

I'm not a fares expert, but there are currently only two ways of getting to Stratford International: HS1 and the free bus link from Stratford (London). To use the bus you have to have a valid Southeastern ticket, so logic says that if a fare is to Stratford International then it must be valid on HS1.

I too am puzzled as to why the higher fare exists to Stratford London, unless it's a different ticket.

 

[swt_passenger]

I too am puzzled as to why the higher fare exists to Stratford London, unless it's a different ticket.

Maybe 'Stratford London' includes cross London transfer by LU, the Stratford International by default doesn't?

 

[clagmonster]

I believe that the route West Hampsted fares are not valid via St Pancras, only by changing from the MML to the NLL at West Hampsted. This is because on the MML you pass through West Hampsted Midland, not West Hampsted, so you are not following the route stated on the ticket. However, I do accept that the route on the ticket isn't as clear as it possibly could be and could be clarified by making it route Gospel Oak.

Regarding the Bedford-Stratford London, route + any permitted fare, Bedford is a routeing point and Stratford London is a member of the Stratford group, which consists of Stratford and Stratford International. London is a routeing permission for Bedford-Stratford group. The Bedford-London leg is valid via the MML on map LB, and the London-Stratford group leg is valid on HS1 by map HS. However, when the bus is replaced by the DLR, I believe that this ticket will cease to be valid via HS1 as cross London transfers such as this may only be made via the Underground or Thameslink.

 

[MikeWh]

Maybe West Hampstead means that you can't use Bedford-Bletchley-Euston. On map LB it shows West Hampstead as just that, although it's interesting that it still shows St Pancras as a branch with Kings Cross Thameslink being on the through line. Maybe they'll update it one day.:roll:

 

[Paul Kelly]

The maps seem to be drawn by hand in Microsoft PowerPoint - what a clumsy approach for something so important - so no wonder they get out of date; it must be such a tedious task keeping them updated!

 

[clagmonster]

The Bedford-London leg is mapped by map LM, so that is prohibited by the route West Hampsted routeing. If that was the sole intention though, why not do the obvious method and make it route not Bletchley. I think this one needs clarifying either way by changing the route on the ticket.

 

[John @ home]

I believe that the route West Hampsted fares are not valid via St Pancras, only by changing from the MML to the NLL at West Hampsted. This is because on the MML you pass through West Hampsted Midland, not West Hampsted, so you are not following the route stated on the ticket.

That's not right. For Routeing Guide purposes WEST HAMPSTEAD GROUP comprises WEST HAMPSTD THAMESLINK and WEST HAMPSTEAD. So you are allowed to pass through either or both.

 

[clagmonster]

Was there not the case of the Wrexham-Marylebone services on which route Birmingham tickets were wrongly declined due to misinformation from ATOC. My memory of that case is that ATOC stated that route Birmingham tickets were valid on trains that pass through New St but not Aston, which is in the Birmingham Group but W&S decided to accept the tickets through both in order to avoid confusion. This is a very similar example to this, so if my memory is correct, this would mean that said ticket is valid via West Hampsted, but not solely through other stations in the group, ie not straight down the MML through West Hampsted Midland.
In any case, if your interpretation is correct John, would it not remove the ambiguity causing my misinterpreations if the ticket were routed 'not Bletchley' or 'Luton' or similar.

 

[Paul Kelly]

I remember reading that thread before I started posting here. It sparked my interest in this sort of thing to a certain extent. I recall too that the agreed outcome to that thread was that when a group location was mentioned in the route it referred to the station group for fares purposes, not the routeing guide group, and that Aston was in the Birmingham routeing group but not fares group, and WSMR accepting route Birmingham tickets on trains that went via Aston was sort of a goodwill gesture. But I don't think that interpretation is correct. The National Routing Guide Data Feed Specification has some good clues in Section 6.12, pp25-26:
In the specification of the database record that represents a particular route restriction, the description of the flag "GROUP_MKR" is: "Y or N to indicate whether the CRS code represents an individual location (Value=N), or one station in a routeing guide group (Value= Y). If Y, then the whole of the group is included in the route (ie the route must include one of the locations in the group (for A or I type entries) or must exclude all the locations in the group (for E type entries))."

In my opinion this makes it clear that the route specified on a ticket cannot ever refer to a fares group, but either a single station or a routeing group. So for the previous example as Aston is in the routeing group I think there is no doubt that the route Birmingham ticket is valid there. Unless of course the route restriction was Birmingham New Street only. But as I understood it that wasn't really in question.

So for this example then the ambiguity would be cleared if we could see the full database record for route West Hampstead and see if it referred to only the station, or the routeing group. When we can only see the text description of the route it's the tip of the iceberg really. A bit like the easement descriptions in the routeing guide - they are probably specified quite clearly in the computer readable part of the record but the general public only ever get to see the human readable part.

I actually suspect that the GROUP_MKR flag is N here and the ticket is only valid via West Hampstead and not West Hampstead Thameslink, for the simple reason that the National Rail Enquiries journey planner cannot find any fares via St Pancras, but if Gospel Oak is added as a via point it comes up with a £17.90 fare for that route - is that the route West Hampstead fare? (Don't have NFM here to check.) I don't think I'm anywhere near solving the mystery but maybe that information will give others more to chew over?

 

[yorkie]

With WSMR, it was a debatable issue whether or not it was the Birmingham Group for Routeing purposes or the Birmingham Stations fare group.

I don't accept it means the station group however the fact that some WSMR services go through 'Birmingham Stations' means that on those services, Route Birmingham tickets would have had to be accepted even if Route Birmingham doesn't mean the routeing group.

However sometimes the route is not known until the last moment, so how would it work if they only accepted them if the trains were booked that way? They'd have had to issue refunds for excess fares! Passengers would find it bizarre and confusing. Therefore, it was never really a sensible option to implement it as excluding Aston, therefore we didn't really get a conclusion to the debate. I believe it's not a clear-cut case at all, but Indigo2 has found new evidence in the above post that suggests Route Birmingham does include Aston.

 

[bb21]

My goodness didn't really expect all that confusion. To save the confusion what I did at the end was to excess the ticket to Stratford London Route +Any Permitted to make sure that they're valid via St Pancras and HS1. To be honest I wasn't sure if an excess was possible as it was both off-route and over-distance but the guy at Leicester Station ticket office did it for me anyway for £1.50. Excellent work.

I arrived yesterday morning early just to enquire about the whole situation and his explanation was that it is not valid as the station on the MML is West Hampstead Thameslink not West Hampstead. Although he acknowledged the fact that it is not at all clear and apologised for that. He also mentioned that in his opinion it causes a lot of confusion and it might be better to change the station name to West Hampstead (Overground) or route it via another station such as the Watford Junction - Stratford International Route hackney Wick ticket. This corresponds with what clagmonster said. Although it does make you wonder why a perfectly legitimate route according to the Routeing Guide for Bedford - Stratford International has no fare via HS1. If one wishes to do the journey, one has to buy the Stratford London +Any Permitted ticket and stop short.