GWR website won't sell tickets for GWR service, 02/03/19

I have been looking at travel from London to Truro on Saturday 2nd March 2019.

I notice that the GWR website shows does not permit London to Truro tickets to be used on their London to Plymouth services on this date. Through trains from London Paddington to Plymouth, on a diversionary route as enginering work is taking place, run at 0903 and 1103. However, it is not permitted to use a London to Truro ticket on those trains according to the GWR website, as they are not following a permitted route:



There is no reason not to permit travel via Castle Cary and Honiton for London <> Cornwall journeys, and this will probably lose GWR customers. Their website presents two solutions, which are to travel with their compeitiors. Either you can take a train to Taunton and then have a lenghty stint on a rail replacement bus operated by CrossCountry, or travel from London Waterloo to Exeter St Davids on a South Western Railway service. The bus will probably be uncofmortable and the SWR train will probably be horribly crowded. Both will require more interchanges than using the trains which have been provided. The 1303 is direct from London to Truro, so in view of the direct trains rule, the website does allow travel via Caslte Cary and Honiton on that service, which makes this all the more ludicrious.

This clearly demonstrates why it's important not to restrict permitted routes unnecesarily and artificially. This is a reasonable route, and really they have no business in telling anyone who has paid £68.20 for a Super Off Peak Single that they cannot go this way. The addition of new mapped routes would solve the problem, and allow the journey oppurtunities to be shown online.

It's also worthy of note that someone looking to travel from London to Exeter wouldn't be permitted to use a flexible ticket at all on the 0903 or 1103 services, owing to London Terminals to Exeter St Davids tickets being route restricted 'Via Taunton'. In this case, even if the proper mapped routes were in place, the tickets would still not be able to be sold.

Therefore, this is also a lesson that arbitrary geographic restrictions cause unnecessary problems and do not have any benefit for them passenger, despite what RDG might think about this being 'easier'. All unnecessary route restrictions such as this 'via Taunton' should be abolished, and tickets routed Any Permitted.

Of course Rail Delivery Group (RDG) and GWR will blame the DfT for wanting to get rid of fares routed "Any Permitted" and reducing the available permitted routes, while DfT will just say it's down to RDG and the train companies.

Starmill said:

It's also worthy of note that someone looking to travel from London to Exeter wouldn't be permitted to use a flexible ticket at all on the 0903 or 1103 services, owing to London Terminals to Exeter St Davids tickets being route restricted 'Via Taunton'. In this case, even if the proper mapped routes were in place, the tickets would still not be able to be sold.

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When a train is diverted for engineering work, through tickets between stations where it normally calls automatically remain valid on the new route. If the train normally runs London to Exeter via Taunton then London to Exeter via Taunton tickets remain valid regardless of whether or not it still passes through Taunton. Train companies are shooting themselves in the foot if their computer systems can't handle this automatically without requiring manual intervention every single time.

There's a bit on the very long easement update about this, but there is a longstanding easement that states "via tauTaun" tickets can be used via Honiton (which makes sense since it's a cheaper route) while via Honiton tickets can't be used via Taunton. On the day in question, you could use a london-exeter ticket routed via Honiton plus an exeter to Truro ticket.

furlong said:

When a train is diverted for engineering work, through tickets between stations where it normally calls automatically remain valid on the new route. If the train normally runs London to Exeter via Taunton then London to Exeter via Taunton tickets remain valid regardless of whether or not it still passes through Taunton. Train companies are shooting themselves in the foot if their computer systems can't handle this automatically without requiring manual intervention every single time.

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In order for retail systems to be accredited, they cannot allow through trains to be valid in this way unless the train company introduces a positive easement, but yes I agree the train companies are shooting themselves in the foot when they don't (which is often the case).

In this case there is (surprisingly) actually an easement:

Yet the GWR website is still not offering it, which leads me to believe this is yet another bug with Worldline's WebTIS. Are Worldline actually maintaining their WebTIS? It has so many bugs in it, I can only assume they are depreciating it.

yorkie said:

Are Worldline actually maintaining their WebTIS? It has so many bugs in it, I can only assume they are depreciating it.

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My visits to ATOS HQ lead me to believe they only actively monitor the Genius and Integrale packages whereas everything else they would need to be alerted to faults.

furlong said:

When a train is diverted for engineering work, through tickets between stations where it normally calls automatically remain valid on the new route.

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I've made this point again and again on this forum, but always been shot down for it. There appears to be a strong consensus against this among some enthusiasts.

Starmill said:

I've made this point again and again on this forum, but always been shot down for it. There appears to be a strong consensus against this among some enthusiasts.

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Perhaps some people place too much trust in their computers? It's long-standing custom and practice - certainly still down here in GWR land well used to that sort of diversion - and the principle was embedded into the routeing guide at privatisation (though worded as poorly as many other parts of the document). TfL's Oyster is the one place where the rule is officially no longer applied as it's too impractical (though the helpdesk has been known to give refunds when asked).

furlong said:

Perhaps some people place too much trust in their computers?.

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Quite. Pre-computer, a direct train from Paddington to Plymouth would, for obvious reasons, always have been an accepted route for a London to Truro journey. Now the "computer says no" nonsense is trotted out by those without the ability to reason things out themselves.

sheff1 said:

Quite. Pre-computer, a direct train from Paddington to Plymouth would, for obvious reasons, always have been an accepted route for a London to Truro journey. Now the "computer says no" nonsense is trotted out by those without the ability to reason things out themselves.

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FWIW this is nothing new. I remember around 1998 trying to book a ticket on the nascent Trainline for travel from Manchester to Carlisle via the VT S&C diversions and failing miserably because they were all routed Lancaster and nobody had thought to put easements in, so it couldn't sell any tickets at all for those trains.

You'd think 20 years would be long enough to get it sorted

Just tried the South Eastern Website and its available on the 11:03

yorkie said:

In order for retail systems to be accredited, they cannot allow through trains to be valid in this way unless the train company introduces a positive easement, but yes I agree the train companies are shooting themselves in the foot when they don't (which is often the case).

In this case there is (surprisingly) actually an easement:

Easement 700839 (published by TOC GW)
During engineering diversions from 17 February to 08 March 2019, this temporary map easement will create permitted routes between London Paddington and Penzance via Castle Cary, Yeovil Junction and Honiton. But only for tickets priced on (00000) ANY PERMITTED. It will operate in both directions​

Yet the GWR website is still not offering it, which leads me to believe this is yet another bug with Worldline's WebTIS. Are Worldline actually maintaining their WebTIS? It has so many bugs in it, I can only assume they are depreciating it.

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According to BRFares, there are NO "ANY PERMITTED" fares for PAD-EXD, which makes the easement less than useful, to put it mildly.
OT: at the same time, times for the middle week have not yet been confirmed, meaning you can get a ticket VIA TAUNTON on a number of trains that will either not run at all or be delayed by an hour.
(Which is an issue that has been raised recently by Starmill re TfW:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/transport-for-wales-bookings-16-02.176456/)

30907 said:

According to BRFares, there are NO "ANY PERMITTED" fares for PAD-EXD, which makes the easement less than useful, to put it mildly.

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That's covered by

30907 said:

OT: at the same time, times for the middle week have not yet been confirmed, meaning you can get a ticket VIA TAUNTON on a number of trains that will either not run at all or be delayed by an hour.

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If anyone buys one now and is delayed by an hour, they'll be entitled to Delay Repay compensation.

So if anyone fancies a free journey....

yorkie said:

That's covered by

Fare route Easement 300227 (published by TOC GW)
Journeys routed Taunton may travel via Yeovil Junction. This easement applies in both directions.​

If anyone buys one now and is delayed by an hour, they'll be entitled to Delay Repay compensation.

So if anyone fancies a free journey....

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I live too far north but it's tempting...
thanks for spotting the second easement though, glad to know GWR are on top of that bit

yorkie said:

That's covered by

Fare route Easement 300227 (published by TOC GW)
Journeys routed Taunton may travel via Yeovil Junction. This easement applies in both directions.​

If anyone buys one now and is delayed by an hour, they'll be entitled to Delay Repay compensation.

So if anyone fancies a free journey....

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Sadly GWR don't do Delay Repay and will find attempt to find a way to weasel out if anybody is delayed by an hour or more

Kite159 said:

Sadly GWR don't do Delay Repay and will find attempt to find a way to weasel out if anybody is delayed by an hour or more

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They can only escape liability if the primary cause of the delay is entirely outside the control of the rail industry. The rail industry being unable to put together a coherent timetable that they can stick to, is something that could hardly be more within their control!

So yes, they might try, but they would be on a hiding to nothing, especially if the case were taken to the Rail Ombudsman or the County Court.