Redhill to Dorking via Horsham - Glitch or Valid Route?

[gondukin]

I've previously travelled to Dorking from Salfords and noticed that NRE offers intineraries via Redhill or Horsham, both for the same fare. Today I'm going to Horsham and found the ticket is significantly more expensive than a Dorking one. So a bit of playing realed NRE will offer me an interary from Redhill to Dorking via Horsham, with the same ticket as a direct Redhill to Dorking (off-peak day single £4.10).

Now Salfords to Dorking via Horsham makes sense in a way, as Salfords has a routing point of Gatwick, but Redhill? I've consulted the various pages and apparently valid routes can be found on maps AR and XC, but neither of them seem to offer that path unless I'm reading them wrong.

Can anyone confirm if I should be able to travel to/via Horsham on that ticket or is it a glitch on NRE?

 

[higthomas]

Possibly it's doing an AR+XC route?
If you combine the maps it would be valid that way; but of course you can't because they are separately listed.

 

[ASharpe]

That's the shortest route by rail.

Edit to add from this forum's fares guide:

3.3.7 Station group tickets & shortest route issues
In some cases tickets are issued from groups of stations, rather than specific stations, for example Bradford Yk Stns to Southend Stns. In these cases, it is not entirely clear whether you can apply the shortest route to any of the stations in the group.

If that is the journey I wanted to do I would go for it. In the event of any trouble just say that's what NRE said to do.

 

[yorkie]

Take a look at the routeing section of our Fares Guide. Among other things, you will see that if you book the fare online and travel in accordance with the itinerary, you are valid, and therefore do not need to consult the Routeing Guide or determine the shortest route. This is basic contract law.

The shortest route is always a permitted route, irrespective of any routes shown (or not shown) in the Routeing Guide.

It's not generally considered wise to publicise that a particular fare is cheaper than the intermediate fare for a part of the journey, as the Train Companies might be able to get the validity changed to prevent the cheaper fare being used by that route. For example, they could change the routeing to force travel via, or exclude travel via, a particular station and increase the price of the "Any Permitted" fare.

There have been cases of people posting about good value tickets, and the validity being removed before they even got the chance to use them (e.g. Mirfield to Leeds posted by TUC).

 

[Andrew1395]

Isn't this the same as Canterbury stations? In this case Dorking Main to Redhill s valid (shortest route) via Horsham. But Dorking Deepdene is off route via Horsham (no map)

 

[ASharpe]

Isn't this the same as Canterbury stations? In this case Dorking Main to Redhill s valid (shortest route) via Horsham. But Dorking Deepdene is off route via Horsham (no map)

Yes, that's about right. You could walk from main to deepdene though, if you wanted; but you can't travel any more by train.

There are a few fare anomalies from the stations on the north downs line if you take some time to work out the shortest routes ± 3 miles.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I think I saw something about this specific route in the easements update a couple of weeks or so ago; I'll have a look later unless anyone beats me to it.


Edited to add all the below:

Thought so.... is it possible that there is an unintended consequence of the changes in the below quoted from that thread impacting on more localised use of the North Downs Line?

A review of map permissions for the Dorking (G10),Redhill (G60), & Tonbridge (TON) Routeing Points to Routeing Points in Kent has led to the following amendments.

Map sequence added

DORKING GROUP (G10) and Strood Kent (SOO) - added sequence 'AR+KL'
Faversham (FAV) and REDHILL GROUP (G60) - added sequence 'FB+XE'
REDHILL GROUP (G60) and Strood Kent (SOO) - added sequence 'XE+KL'
These now have mapped routes via Edenbridge and Paddock Wood.
Map sequence removed

REDHILL GROUP (G60) and Tonbridge (TON) - removed sequence 'LB+RA'
REDHILL GROUP (G60) and Tonbridge (TON) - removed sequence 'LO'
'LO' doesn't refer to the (unused) LO map here, but means that you can't use Redhill-London and London-Tonbridge maps to calculate a route.
This means these tickets no longer have mapped routes via Croydon, but only on the shortest route via Edenbridge. This makes the "+Any Permitted" tickets in this area a bit pointless.
Ashford International. (AFK) and DORKING GROUP (G10) - removed sequence 'DE+DK'
Ashford International. (AFK) and DORKING GROUP (G10) - removed sequence 'LO'
Ashford International. (AFK) and DORKING GROUP (G10) - removed sequence 'RA+DK'
Ashford International. (AFK) and DORKING GROUP (G10) - removed sequence 'VH+DK'
No longer mapped via London or Leatherhead.
Ashford International. (AFK) and REDHILL GROUP (G60) - removed sequence 'DE+LB'
Ashford International. (AFK) and REDHILL GROUP (G60) - removed sequence 'LO'
Ashford International. (AFK) and REDHILL GROUP (G60) - removed sequence 'RA+LB'
Ashford International. (AFK) and REDHILL GROUP (G60) - removed sequence 'VH+LB'
Ashford International. (AFK) and REDHILL GROUP (G60) - removed sequence 'XE'
No longer mapped via Croydon or Gatwick.

 

[kieron]

Thought so.... is it possible that there is an unintended consequence of the changes in the below quoted from that thread impacting on more localised use of the North Downs Line?

It's unlikely. Redhill and Dorking are routeing points, so the only changes to the list of valid map combinations which is likely to affect the journey are ones to the Redhill-Dorking route*. In some other cases (say, Dorking-Sevenoaks), changes to Dorking-London and London-Sevenoaks routes could also affect it. Permitted routes to Ashford, Faversham, Strood and Tonbridge are neither here nor there.

I assume that this route is allowed by journey planners because it's not much further than the shortest rail-only route between Redhill and Dorking. There's no rule to say that they should allow routes like this, but they do anyway.

*I'm not considering Dorking-Redhill separately, as the routeing guide says the permitted routes are the same in both directions of travel.