journey option not being displayed in booking engines

[YorkC]

A bit confused by this. I'm looking at Leeds to Wigan as a day return on 29 December with a return after 10pm. For the return, fastjp shows the below options:



But I can't get any booking engines to give me an itinerary for the later one (23:07 from Wigan Wallgate) as the return portion of a ticket from Leeds to Wigan Stations (I've tried LNER/TPE Mixing Deck/Railforums). The split ticket booking engine on here will allow it but only with a split at Manchester - disabling split tickets means you lose the route. The only hint at an explanation I can see is that the 00:08 takes a seemingly diversionary route via Wakefield which isn't ordinarily a valid route for Leeds-Wigan as far as I can see - but then again, it's not a valid route for Leeds-Manchester either, and there's no problem getting an itinerary for LDS-MAN.

Does anyone think I'd have any problems 1) having my ticket accepted on this train or 2) getting assistance in the case of disruption? My thoughts on this are that I'd be astonished if I did have any difficulties, but I just wanted to check I'd not missed something daft here.

 

[Watershed]

The reason you're unable to buy a through ticket is that the 00:08 from Victoria takes a diversionary route via Wakefield, which as you say, is not on a permitted route from Wigan to Leeds.

The reason it becomes permitted when you are splitting at Manchester, is that it then becomes a direct train (which is always valid, subject to route restrictions on the ticket - of which there are none here).

I really wouldn't worry about it; despite there being a formal system of permitted routes, in practice tickets are still judged on the 'reasonable routes' basis (25 years after the Routeing Guide was created!). The majority of passengers wouldn't have a clue whether they're going via Wakefield or Dewsbury and conductors won't bat an eyelid.

Similarly, in the (unfortunately rather likely) event of the TPE train being cancelled, there's no way that you would be denied alternative transport on the basis of your ticket technically not being valid, as the staff who deal with this sort of stuff simply don't know about the Routeing Guide. I would add that replacement minibuses are usually put on, as they should be - and in my experience, these can actually be faster than the train!

It's a rare case of poor staff knowledge going in your favour!

 

[YorkC]

Ah, of course, I'm so used to checking the mapped routes that I totally forgot about the direct train rule - thanks!