Impossible to use fares

[alistairlees]

I found this fare:

http://www.brfares.com/#expert?orig=KTN&dest=GRY

So far as I can see it's impossible to use. It's not cross-London. Maybe you should travel to St Pancras, then make your own way to Fenchurch St (and pay additionally if you get the tube to somewhere close by such as Liverpool St), then get on a c2c service at Fenchurch St. But that would mean you are not going via Hackney Wick.

The only ways to go via Hackney Wick are

1. To go to West Hampstead Thameslink; walk to West Hampstead; get the Overground to Stratford (via Hackney Wick); then go to Grays via either Forest Gate / Wanstead Park and Barking, or via West Ham and Barking.

2. To go to St Pancras, then get the tube from there to Highbury & Islington; then to get the Overground to Stratford (via Hackney Wick), and proceed as above.

National Rail will return both these journeys if forced to by using "via Hackney Wick". But for neither of them will it sell you the £9.30 SDS fare, selling you two SDS tickets instead.

Really this flow should have an Any Permitted Cross London fare like West Hampstead Thameslink to Grays does (in addition to a via Hackney Wick fare).

Are there any other "seemingly impossible to use" fares?

 

[Kite159]

How many people will actually buy a paper ticket if they were making such a journey and instead use Oyster/contactless instead?

 

[yorkie]

I agree, though it is possible but highly impracticable.

An example of a valid itinerary is:

http://www.fastjp.com/#journeys?ori...:&odate=20181114&otime=1130&maxres=11&maxch=6

1138 Kentish Town
1142 West Hampstead Thameslink

1201 West Hampstead
1239 Stratford

1247 Stratford
1306 Romford

1311 Romford
1322 Upminster

1334 Upminster
1347 Grays​

I could leave home in York later than that, have time to get to the station, and get a train to London, and arrive into King's Cross at the same time!

In practice, someone with good mobility could hope to make an earlier connection at one or two locations in that itinerary, so it may be possible to beat the 'official' 2h9min journey time.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

I found this fare:

http://www.brfares.com/#expert?orig=KTN&dest=GRY

So far as I can see it's impossible to use. It's not cross-London. Maybe you should travel to St Pancras, then make your own way to Fenchurch St (and pay additionally if you get the tube to somewhere close by such as Liverpool St), then get on a c2c service at Fenchurch St. But that would mean you are not going via Hackney Wick.

The only ways to go via Hackney Wick are

1. To go to West Hampstead Thameslink; walk to West Hampstead; get the Overground to Stratford (via Hackney Wick); then go to Grays via either Forest Gate / Wanstead Park and Barking, or via West Ham and Barking.

2. To go to St Pancras, then get the tube from there to Highbury & Islington; then to get the Overground to Stratford (via Hackney Wick), and proceed as above.

National Rail will return both these journeys if forced to by using "via Hackney Wick". But for neither of them will it sell you the £9.30 SDS fare, selling you two SDS tickets instead.

Really this flow should have an Any Permitted Cross London fare like West Hampstead Thameslink to Grays does (in addition to a via Hackney Wick fare).

Are there any other "seemingly impossible to use" fares?

Fares for which the journey between appropriate Routeing Points is marked as being having a mapped route of "LONDON" are valid for a cross-London (Underground/DLR/Thameslink) transfer even if they do not have a Maltese cross in the data. That being said, since any such tickets will have their magnetic strips encoded without Underground validity, they will not work at the Underground barriers, and the Underground gate line staff will probably never have even heard of the National Rail Conditions of Travel, let alone a relatively unknown part of the Routeing Guide, so they will almost certainly also deny entry. So you'll have to pay your own way through the Underground and then pursue that amount back from TfL (who in turn will probably palm you off, leaving you in the dubious position of having to take Court action over a £2 odd fare).

However, this situation is a little different.

1. Obviously there are no direct services.
2. In terms of mapped routes, I don't think there are any - as neither West Hampstead Thameslink RP group nor London RP group pass the fares check, there being no NFM64 fares to use for this purpose. So in effect both fail the fares check and so no calculation of the mapped routes can even begin.
3. Shortest route calculations are supposed to be done using the shortest route that can be travelled by regularly scheduled passenger services. The RJIS data service used by most journey planners for calculating shortest routes includes Underground mileages, so clearly there is an expectation that you use the Underground. However, it is not spelt out anywhere that use of the Underground is included in "regularly scheduled passenger services", and I am sure if it were advantageous to the TOCs they would argue that the Underground is not a scheduled passenger service, as there is no real public timetable (although there is an internal working timetable).

So this does leave this ticket with a little bit of a dilemma. Are we to say that it is valid for a cross-London transfer, despite the lack of explicit Maltese cross, or implicit Maltese cross through a "LONDON" mapped route, because otherwise it has no validity whatsoever according to the NRCoT?

I think it is a very good example of a problematic fare - and one for which itineraries will never be generated, as it would require making a cross-London transfer by your own means during the time where the data says this is the only method available (transfers starting between 00:00-06:59). Yet there are no services at the other end of the transfer that also fall within the timewise validity of the ticket - until 04:29.

There are several more of these kinds of fares, most of which are due to service patterns on certain days (e.g. stations with only a weekday, weekend or one-day-a-week "Parliamentary" service). But I suspect this will eventually be fixed now that it has been brought to the relevant pricing/RDG managers' attention. Obviously it will not be fixed anywhere near as quickly as a loophole in the passenger's favour - why am I not surprised!

EDIT: As @yorkie has pointed out, there are a few very slow itineraries that may be seen as valid in complying with the route restriction with the ticket and the lack of Maltese cross, but I don't think any compliant TIS would offer them in conjunction with this fare, as the data says that the shortest route is via the Underground, and that route is more than 3 miles longer than the shortest route (via the Underground).

 

[30907]

In this case, it presumably reflects the historic situation where the journey could be made with a single change at Barking?

 

[yorkie]

EDIT: As @yorkie has pointed out, there are a few very slow itineraries that may be seen as valid in complying with the route restriction with the ticket and the lack of Maltese cross, but I don't think any compliant TIS would offer them in conjunction with this fare, as the data says that the shortest route is via the Underground, and that route is more than 3 miles longer than the shortest route (via the Underground).

If you have found a TIS that doesn't offer it as valid then I say they are wrong.

Using the split route check:

• Kentish Town to Hackney Wick is valid via WHP (shorter than the shortest route)
  
• Hackney Wick to Grays is valid via Stratford/Barking using map CO (Origin Routeing Point: Stratford)

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

If you have found a TIS that doesn't offer it as valid then I say they are wrong.

Using the split route check:

• Kentish Town to Hackney Wick is valid via WHP (shorter than the shortest route)
  
• Hackney Wick to Grays is valid via Stratford/Barking using map CO (Origin Routeing Point: Stratford)

Does the split route check apply to the shortest route and mapped routes? I thought it applied only to the latter; there is no facility in the NRCoT for the shortest route check to be split AFAICT.

 

[yorkie]

Does the split route check apply to the shortest route and mapped routes? I thought it applied only to the latter; there is no facility in the NRCoT for the shortest route check to be split AFAICT.

By definition, the split route check means all permitted routes from origin to via point, and all permitted routes from via point to destination.

Shortest routes and mapped routes are both subsets of permitted routes.

 

[MichaelAMW]

I suspect that Yorkie of all people knows perfectly well what the answer to this is, and is being deliberately obtuse, which is that it's one of those anomalies arising from fares clusters. Kentish Town West to Grays is covered by the same fare and can be done perfectly logically, albeit with a minimum of two changes. It certainly takes less time than York to London, particularly if the Tube is allowed from Stratford to West Ham.

 

[causton]

Yet another example of where London Overground do not care about paper tickets.

Another example is Watford Junction to Homerton. The quickest route (according to journey planners) is Watford Jn - Euston then the tube to Highbury and Islington then LO to Homerton.

http://www.brfares.com/#expert?orig=WFJ&dest=HMN

So they have defined a fare with a Maltese cross...
...and then it is overridden with another fare below, where the Any Permitted does *not* have a Maltese cross. So LU do not accept it on their services.

The other route is 'via Hackney Wick' which is after Homerton. Amazing.

 

[yorkie]

I suspect that Yorkie of all people knows perfectly well what the answer to this is, and is being deliberately obtuse

I'm not being deliberately obtuse about anything.

which is that it's one of those anomalies arising from fares clusters.

Fares clustering is never an adequate excuse for the lack of an "Any Permitted" fare in my opinion.

Kentish Town West to Grays is covered by the same fare and can be done perfectly logically, albeit with a minimum of two changes. It certainly takes less time than York to London, particularly if the Tube is allowed from Stratford to West Ham.

But as @alistairlees says, the tube is not allowed as there is no cross-London marker (except on inter-available routes, where appropriate, which Stratford to West Ham isn't).

Not only do I reject the excuse that this is because Kentish Town was neglected to have its own fare, I also reject the claim that the 'Hackney Wick' restriction is appropriate for Kentish Town West to Grays.

The fastest itineraries from Kentish Town West to Grays are actually via Gospel Oak and Barking (ie. avoiding Hackney Wick), at 1hr 20min.

 

[MichaelAMW]

Fares clustering is never an adequate excuse for the lack of an "Any Permitted" fare in my opinion.

To be fair, I didn't say it was an excuse, merely that clustering has the knock-on effect of these apparently useless fares. I certainly agree with the issue about "Hackney Wick" as the only route: another fare in that cluster is Gospel Oak to Grays, which quite obviously can be done with one change at Barking - but that doesn't involve the route restriction.

 

[alistairlees]

Here's another one:
http://www.brfares.com/#expert?orig=CLY&dest=STA

Chinley to Stafford. The only fare available is via Birmingham. I would imagine that means Chinley to Sheffield; Sheffield to Birmingham NS; Birmingham NS to Stafford.

It must be at least 50 miles shorter to go Chinley to Stockport; Stockport to Stafford. But that's not a valid fare route.

 

[alistairlees]

About 58 miles via Stockport and 130 via Sheffield / Birmingham (a quick check)

 

[MichaelAMW]

Still, an excellent way to undercut the expensive Chinley - Birmingham fare...

 

[Silverdale]

It must be at least 50 miles shorter to go Chinley to Stockport; Stockport to Stafford. But that's not a valid fare route.

Only two weekday services from Chinley to Stockport, both in the morning peak. The rest of the time it's a traipse to Piccadilly. Still much shorter via Manchester than via Birmingham, though.

Still, an excellent way to undercut the expensive Chinley - Birmingham fare...

Off-Peak, the Derbyshire Wayfarer is your friend.

 

[Silverdale]

Back to impossible fares.... I offer;

Heysham Port to Preston(Lancs), Standard Anytime Day Return (Route: via Lancaster) £11.80

Why buy that when the only services are Off-Peak and there is an Off-Peak Day Return at £10.00?

But why buy either when the only service back to Heysham arrives 3 minutes before the only service departing Heysham? It is currently impossible to get from Heysham to Preston (or anywhere) and back by train in the same day.

In fairness, it is possible to use the mirror image Preston-Heysham Off-Peak Day Return fare and enjoy a whole 3 minutes at Heysham Port.


But wait. Heysham Port to Leeds has no less than 5 impossible Standard Day Return fares quoted;

Anytime, Any Permitted £32.40
Off-Peak, Any Permitted £27.10
Anytime, via Burnley £26.40
Anytime, via Skipton £25.20
Off-Peak, via Burnley £22.10

 

[Harpers Tate]

Presumably those fares permit Break of Journey. It would thus be a valid thing, to go outbound from Heyham, but return only as far as Morecambe (and thence by bus, say - or not at all).

 

[Silverdale]

Yes, you could use the day return in an open jaw fashion, to either start or end at Heysham. But when the OP queried whether a fare was "seemingly impossible to use", I assumed it meant in it's entirety.

Are there any fares which can't be used in any way whatsoever?

When Heysham had overnight sailings to/from Belfast, there were early morning trains from Heysham (then) Harbour to London, Manchester and Leeds and in the late evening, back to Heysham, so day returns were possible.