Thanks for that info Bletchleyite and LA50041.
Separate but related question. Why would mainline railway station ticket offices not agree with the info on NRE? Do they have some powers that somehow supercede NRE? They apparently said they had been already asked the question before. But that the answer was no, the ticket is not valid on trains from Euston and that you have to get the train/bus/train from St P. Even though they also knew it was on NRE. I find it genuinely strange. I would have thought ticket office staff would know that if it's shown on NRE then it is allowed.
The issue of staff on the ground being woefully trained on this kind of issue is pervasive right across the industry. Fundamentally it comes from two things - firstly, that the TOCs don't seem to make any kind of concerted effort to ensure that staff are properly trained on how to handle questions about ticket/route validity, and secondly, that it seems that very few staff take a sufficient personal interest in the matter to learn it themselves. The former is inexcusable, the latter is understandable though a little disappointing.
Nothing more will change in this regard unless and until there is a good incentive for TOCs to ensure that all staff are properly trained - for example, a franchise requirement linked to a penalty for poor training, or a change in the law so that failing to ensure that staff provide accurate information constitutes a criminal offence (that is actually enforced). But neither of those is happening any time soon.
The only power that staff have beyond the NRCoT or NRE is to
waive a particular restriction or requirement. They cannot remove rights, impose additional restrictions, or say that NRE is incorrect if it said that tickets (from places like Leicester) aren't valid on the WCML. No doubt in this particular case they may have been briefed on the issue - and no doubt the briefing was wholly inaccurate and misleading. It's very frustrating that the TOCs aren't taken to task more often and more severely over such failures.