The only routes in the fares manual for tickets from Rugby to Taunton are "Via Gloucester", and "XC & Connections", covering non-advance and advance tickets respectively. Why on earth would anyone force people into going via Gloucester on that route? A "via Cheltenham Spa" would make sense, but via Gloucester?
The weirder thing is, I looked it up on NRE and it will quite happily spit out the obvious route of Rugby-Birmingham and then Birmingham-Taunton on a direct XC service that doesn't call at Gloucester, and then say that it's valid on (say) an Off-Peak Return, where it clearly states "Route of ticket VIA GLOUCESTER - Travel must involve passing through or changing at Gloucester".
I couldn't see any relevant easements - is there something I'm missing? Or is NRE wrong?
The weirder thing is, I looked it up on NRE and it will quite happily spit out the obvious route of Rugby-Birmingham and then Birmingham-Taunton on a direct XC service that doesn't call at Gloucester, and then say that it's valid on (say) an Off-Peak Return, where it clearly states "Route of ticket VIA GLOUCESTER - Travel must involve passing through or changing at Gloucester".
I couldn't see any relevant easements - is there something I'm missing? Or is NRE wrong?