Weird and wonderful.

[JBuchananGB]

My daughter moaned at me that she couldn't book tickets for the August Bank Holiday Saturday, 24 August from Stafford to York. She said that she understood that the route from Stafford to Manchester via Stoke was closed, but via Crewe was open so Avanti were refusing to sell tickets at all. So I tried trainsplit. This offered CrossCountry from Stafford to Manchester via Crewe followed by TPE Manchester to York on an unusual route (via Marsden?). She found the trains on the CrossCountry app and booked them. (I'm sorry, that's her preferred app, and she need one traveller with a railcard and one without and wanted full price off peak return tickets) She said she paid about £100 for the tickets. Fastjp does not offer the journey, but does have the XC from Stafford to Manchester. It has the TPE Manchester to York on its normal route not the unusual one.
Advice not required, but what's going on?

 

[iknowyeah]

Via Marsden is the usual route from Manchester, and some trains miss Leeds now

 

[yorkie]

My daughter moaned at me that she couldn't book tickets for the August Bank Holiday Saturday, 24 August from Stafford to York. She said that she understood that the route from Stafford to Manchester via Stoke was closed, but via Crewe was open so Avanti were refusing to sell tickets at all. So I tried trainsplit. This offered CrossCountry from Stafford to Manchester via Crewe followed by TPE Manchester to York on an unusual route (via Marsden?). She found the trains on the CrossCountry app and booked them. (I'm sorry, that's her preferred app, and she need one traveller with a railcard and one without and wanted full price off peak return tickets) She said she paid about £100 for the tickets. Fastjp does not offer the journey, but does have the XC from Stafford to Manchester. It has the TPE Manchester to York on its normal route not the unusual one.
Advice not required, but what's going on?

If you think FastJP/Trainsplit isn't allowing a valid itinerary, can you please detail the desired itinerary?

The only thing I can think of is where an itinerary isn't fast and is expensive, it may not be offered (using the older itieration of the website) unless you specify some advanced options to force it. However the newer version of the website should show the itinerary by default. The forum's site is currently still only on the old version.

 

[JBuchananGB]

This is the successful itinerary which has been booked. (The trip with 1 change)
This is the results of same search on fastjp
TOC retail sites do not offer the itinerary.
So in this case the Forum's site has found something no one else, not even fastjp knows about.
Some journey planners admit to the 0933 XC from Stafford to Piccadilly.

 

[lkpridgeon]

This is the successful itinerary which has been booked. (The trip with 1 change)
This is the results of same search on fastjp
TOC retail sites do not offer the itinerary.
So in this case the Forum's site has found something no one else, not even fastjp knows about.
Some journey planners admit to the 0933 XC from Stafford to Piccadilly.

It looks like the result was found by our planner, but trimmed (filtered out) by the website as the 09:34 departs 1 minute later and arrives 7 minutes earlier than the 09:33 XC itinerary.

An update to our website shall be published this week to priortise (overtaken) journeys with less changes. Hopefully it should start pulling through then.

 

[JBuchananGB]

Thank you for the feedback. The situation is further confused by the fact that there are two TPE services from Manchester Piccadilly to York with departure time 1058 on that date. One arrives York 1236 and one at 1237. I have alerted my daughter to this, and she has checked on which one the seats are reserved. Her ticket is flexible and valid on either!

 

[30907]

Thank you for the feedback. The situation is further confused by the fact that there are two TPE services from Manchester Piccadilly to York with departure time 1058 on that date. One arrives York 1236 and one at 1237. I have alerted my daughter to this, and she has checked on which one the seats are reserved. Her ticket is flexible and valid on either!

May be stating the (for you) obvious, but the trains depart from opposite sides of Piccadilly.

 

[JBuchananGB]

Thank you. I have explained to my daughter the need to seek out platform 14 for the train on which she has seat reservations. I even sent her a link to the NRE station layout and the Google map! She is a senior businesswoman with much train travel experience, but still calls on me for help with tricky train travel solutions.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The situation is further confused by the fact that there are two TPE services from Manchester Piccadilly to York with departure time 1058 on that date. One arrives York 1236 and one at 1237.

One is via Castleford and one is via Leeds. The one via Castleford doesn’t have catering, if that matters.

I genuinely can’t believe TPE have been dumb enough to timetable both trains to leave at the same time. Even if they have to leave at the same time under WTT surely you’d put a false time in the GBTT for one of them? Unless one will have a false destination of Castleford?

I can see a lots of worried people having to change at Huddersfield having got the Castleford train by accident.

 

[JBuchananGB]

My daughter's seat reservations are on the one via Leeds. I'm sure she will stick with that plan, unless it is cancelled.

 

[Haywain]

Even if they have to leave at the same time under WTT surely you’d put a false time in the GBTT for one of them? Unless one will have a false destination of Castleford?

Given that they arrive at York within a minute of each other, which one do you want to put people off joining?

 

[TUC]

Given that they arrive at York within a minute of each other, which one do you want to put people off joining?

It could be an issue is someone has an Advance ticket for one of them, accidentally gets on the other, and encounters an inflexible conductor.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Given that they arrive at York within a minute of each other, which one do you want to put people off joining?

I can see a lot of people getting on the wrong train with Advance tickets. I just hope the guards and RPIs are understanding.

 

[Watershed]

I can see a lot of people getting on the wrong train with Advance tickets. I just hope the guards and RPIs are understanding.

Advance tickets usually just show a departure time, so there isn't a "wrong" train as far as customers are concerned.

 

[Deafdoggie]

I just hope the guards and RPIs are understanding.

I admire your optimism

 

[Haywain]

I can see a lot of people getting on the wrong train with Advance tickets. I just hope the guards and RPIs are understanding.

Fortunately, they don't seem to have many station calls in common.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Fortunately, they don't seem to have many station calls in common.

And fortunately the Castleford train gets to Huddersfield 6 minutes before the Leeds train, so anyone for Leeds who gets on the wrong train can correct their error.

I admire your optimism

I said I hoped, not that I expected