I've been trying to book tickets for a few journeys I have coming up. These include Hellifield to Warrington, Wigan and London. I want to go via Lancaster as (in the case of Warrington and Wigan at least) it is clearly the most logical, quickest and shortest route. In the case of London, going via Lancaster offers the earliest journey opportunity in the morning. However I keep getting told by a variety of booking engines that no fares can be found via Lancaster. Normally I would just buy walk up tickets from the guard on the train, but I'd like to explore advance ticket options (which should be available) to save some cash.
After a bit of digging around it seems the problem is a glaring error in the routing guide which does not map routes via Lancaster for many journeys from Hellifield to destinations along the West Coast Mainline. The only routes that are available either go via Clitheroe (where there is no meaningful service to make use of) or via Leeds. The routes via Leeds make absolute sense given Hellifield has a much more regular service to Leeds, so offers more journey opportunities. But not permitting journeys via Lancaster is baffling given such a route would often be the shortest, quickest, most convenient (with the fewest changes) and most logical.
When I first joined the forum it was to ask whether Crewe to Hellifield journeys were permitted via Lancaster. It turned out they were and the omission of mapped routes via Lancaster was an error that crept into the routing guide at some point during 2013. I wonder if these cases here are all part of the same error? I wonder if there are other destinations which don't have mapped routes via Lancaster when they otherwise should have?
After a bit of digging around it seems the problem is a glaring error in the routing guide which does not map routes via Lancaster for many journeys from Hellifield to destinations along the West Coast Mainline. The only routes that are available either go via Clitheroe (where there is no meaningful service to make use of) or via Leeds. The routes via Leeds make absolute sense given Hellifield has a much more regular service to Leeds, so offers more journey opportunities. But not permitting journeys via Lancaster is baffling given such a route would often be the shortest, quickest, most convenient (with the fewest changes) and most logical.
When I first joined the forum it was to ask whether Crewe to Hellifield journeys were permitted via Lancaster. It turned out they were and the omission of mapped routes via Lancaster was an error that crept into the routing guide at some point during 2013. I wonder if these cases here are all part of the same error? I wonder if there are other destinations which don't have mapped routes via Lancaster when they otherwise should have?
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