Yes, he meant York to Sheffield via Huddersfield. ATOC are supposed to consult with the DfT when they make changes, however this was investigated and the DfT were not consulted, therefore the legal process was not being carried out correctly (am I surprised? Err, nope.)
The time is irrelevant, and a customer may want to visit more than one place! Car drivers are not expected to, nor constrained to, travelling from A to B via a very direct route and then have to come back the way they came! It is perfectly reasonable to expect people to drive to more than one place between leaving home and coming back, so why is there not such an expectation that passengers who travel by rail may wish to do this?
Sorry ALR, I do not follow your logic. However I do agree with you that it is an example of a routeing that I could see ATOC changing, and using the excuse to the DfT that it is an "anomaly" and "mistake" so they do not need a consultation to remove it. If it does get removed, I suggest you take the matter up with your MP, and investigate whether it was done using the correct legal processes, as ATOC/DfT do seem to slip up quite often with this sort of thing.