Lancaster to Liverpool no longer valid via Crewe (except with Advance fares)

Bletchleyite · 18 Jan 2019

Moderator note: split from National Routeing Guide update

kieron said:
Some more changes were published yesterday.

Changes from 190116 (243) to 190117 (244).

Permitted Route changes:
Lancaster Group (G64) to Liverpool Group (G18) gain WG+CP WG+NR lose CU+CV MX+NO MX+NR XV XW
This journey no longer has mapped routes:
via Blackburn;
via Crewe; and
via Manchester.
It now has mapped routes which go via both Warrington and Earlestown.

Easement changes:

Added:
700840 (Map) Customers travelling between Liverpool Lime Street and Lancaster on tickets priced on fare routes (00474; 00515 and 00516) VIRGIN TRAINS may travel via Crewe. This map easement applies in both directions.
There are Virgin-only advance fares and 1st class upgrades between Lancaster and Liverpool, each of which uses one of these route codes (none of which is actually called "VIRGIN TRAINS"). This easement means that these tickets can still be used even with the above change, and without having to have an "AP VTWC Crewe" route code.

That makes a lot of sense. Lancaster to Liverpool via Crewe is a bit silly (those VT Only tickets aside), via Manchester is ridiculous, and via Blackburn is so ridiculous I'm astonished it was allowed (certainly, using the old BR test, none of the three is even remotely "Reasonable"). Via Warrington/Earlestown is however pretty reasonable and it was surprising it was not allowed before.

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yorkie · 18 Jan 2019

Bletchleyite said:
That makes a lot of sense. Lancaster to Liverpool via Crewe is a bit silly (those VT Only tickets aside), via Manchester is ridiculous, and via Blackburn is so ridiculous I'm astonished it was allowed (certainly, using the old BR test, none of the three is even remotely "Reasonable"). Via Warrington/Earlestown is however pretty reasonable and it was surprising it was not allowed before.

If I didn't know you already, I'd be wondering if RDG paid you to write this! They must enjoy reading such comments, however they are not true.

No, it's not "silly" or "ridiculous" to make the journey with just one change on long distance services; this sensible route should be valid on flexible fares not just Advance fares!

http://www.fastjp.com/#journeys?orig=LAN&dest=LIV&odate=20190126&otime=2040&maxres=20&maxch=5

(Link shows 2041 departure changing at Crewe taking a reasonable 1hr 1min; a more convoluted departure on non-InterCity trains including an iffy connection at Newton-le-Willows which is the way the Rail "Delivery" Group want passengers to go, and the last train of the day is via Manchester)

The most sensible itinerary (via Crewe) is available at £7 for an Advance fare, but no through flexible fare is available. Trainsplit will sell a walk-up fare at £20 using a combination of three tickets, which is £2 more than the through fare.

As for the last train of the day... that's £21.30 on Trainsplit, but of course train companies websites just act as if it doesn't exist.

However, making even more passengers buy more than one ticket for sensible itineraries is what RDG considers "simplification". It's really odd how they make fewer and fewer itineraries possible on TOC's own websites, forcing more and more passengers to use split ticketing websites, yet they are trying to stop people splitting tickets.

RDG's behaviour is so bizarre you couldn't make it up if you tried. How anyone can defend this behaviour is beyond my comprehension.

Bletchleyite · 18 Jan 2019

Those are during a Northern strike.

On a weekday there is a 2219 changing at Preston onto a Northern service taking 1h32.

On Saturday 6th April (no strike data in the timetable yet) there is a 2102 with a connection at Preston in 1h27. Unless they were unlucky enough to just miss that train (arriving at the station in that 7 minute window), the 2109 via both Manchester stations is rather unattractive and planning to use that will be incredibly niche.

The journey via Crewe you note takes 2 hours and one minute and involves going a long way south to go north. I maintain that there is nothing remotely reasonable about it at all. To me, the reasonable routes are via St Helens Central or via Ormskirk, and, as a slightly further out one, via the group of stations around Warrington or via Wigan then Kirkby.

As I've said before I support all routes being ticketable, but unless VT wanted to make Crewe cheaper for some reason (as it does with its Advances) it would be more expensive, priced somewhere around the cost of Lancaster-Crewe + Crewe-Liverpool.

yorkie · 18 Jan 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Those are during a Northern strike.

So every Saturday for the past few months and for the foreseeable future then!

Bletchleyite said:
On a weekday there is a 2219 changing at Preston onto a Northern service taking 1h32.

Some people do travel at weekends though.

Bletchleyite said:
On Saturday 6th April (no strike data in the timetable yet) there is a 2102 with a connection at Preston in 1h27. Unless they were unlucky enough to just miss that train (arriving at the station in that 7 minute window), the 2109 via both Manchester stations is rather unattractive.

The chances are that passengers buying a ticket for such an itinerary will end up unexpectedly delayed. If they use a TOC booking site to re-plan their journey they will no longer be shown the most appropriate itineraries.

Bletchleyite said:
The journey via Crewe you note takes 2 hours and one minute and involves going a long way south to go north. I maintain that there is nothing remotely reasonable about it at all.

The only permitted route at the time of travel takes 2 hours exactly and involves two changes; one at Warrington (hardly as good a place to change as Crewe, you must surely agree) and the other at Newton le Willows, using non-InterCity type local services for absolutely no good reason whatsoever.

Bletchleyite · 18 Jan 2019

yorkie said:
So every Saturday for the past few months and for the foreseeable future then!

One could certainly argue that there should be easements for strike days (in BR days I remember travelling from Aughton Park to Preston via Liverpool and Manchester on a strike day, which I did purely for the fun of it taking advantage[1] of it being the shortest route over which there was a a service that day, and was not challenged, sadly they found a crew to put Ormskirk-Preston back on for the way home). But strike days are an exception. Well, sort of

[1] To be fair, that circular journey can be taken on an Aughton Park to Manchester CDR for anyone wanting to do it - but when I was a kid funding such trips from a paper round saving a couple of quid was quite important

yorkie · 18 Jan 2019

Bletchleyite said:
One could certainly argue that there should be easements for strike days (in BR days I remember travelling from Aughton Park to Preston via Liverpool and Manchester on a strike day, which I did purely for the fun of it taking advantage of it being the shortest route over which there was a a service that day, and was not challenged, sadly they found a crew to put Ormskirk-Preston back on for the way home). But strike days are an exception. Well, sort of

If the £7 ticket is valid via Crewe, why should the £18 ticket need an easement?

Also do you realise how much hassle there is invoking easements? Short notice ones are rarely implemented in time for when fares go on sale, and not all websites apply easements correctly. They also slow fares engines down.

Strike days are not the exception, but let's not stray off topic in some bizarre attempt to claim RDG are acting in an acceptable manner. I wonder if RDG can keep getting away with removing sensible routes forever or if one day things will eventually come to a head...

Muzer · 19 Jan 2019

I'm definitely with Yorkie here. Ignoring whether or not these fares might be useful for purposes other than travelling from Lancaster to Liverpool and vice versa (I honestly don't know, and also honestly don't care for this particular journey as I'm pretty unlikely to make it), on the face of it travelling via Manchester seems a pretty reasonable route to me, especially given the multitude of late-night TransPennine services. Blackburn perhaps less so, but even then it isn't too far out of the way.

lyndhurst25 · 20 Jan 2019

Bletchleyite said:
That makes a lot of sense. Lancaster to Liverpool via Crewe is a bit silly (those VT Only tickets aside), via Manchester is ridiculous, and via Blackburn is so ridiculous I'm astonished it was allowed (certainly, using the old BR test, none of the three is even remotely "Reasonable"). Via Warrington/Earlestown is however pretty reasonable and it was surprising it was not allowed before.

Not at all "ridiculous". I've made use of the ability to travel via Manchester or via Blackburn on a Liverpool to Lancaster ticket in the past, because I've wanted to stop off in those places on the way. What does RDG want me to do now - buy multiple tickets at a significantly increased cost just because I'm not travelling by the absolute shortest or fastest route? Rail travel in the North is rubbish as it is without making it more unattractive. I'm using the train less and less due to the increasing fares and ticket restrictions, unreliable service and the weekly Saturday strikes. The answer is no thanks, I'll drive instead. Much more flexible.

Every one of these RDG "simplifications" makes travelling by train less attractive. At the moment you can travel via the Cumbrian Coast on long distance tickets routed via Lancaster and Carlisle. You may think that that is ridiculous and that nobody would want to do that. RDG agree and would like to simplify that option away. The counter argument is that if someone wants to go the long way round then why not let them? They're freeing up a seat on the WCML and they may not choose to travel by train at all if they can't visit their friend in Workington on the way.

Starmill · 20 Jan 2019

Personally my view is that if someoe wants to travel from Liverpool to Lancaster via Blackburn they should, and reduce overcrowding on the Preston to Liverpool services. It's also crackers from an image / reputation perspective to force people to use local trains when long-distance high quality ones are available. Of course RDG have a policy of additional restrictions on tickets that make them more difficult for the customer and reduce the attraction of rail.

Bletchleyite · 20 Jan 2019

I think they should if they want - on a higher priced routed ticket.

ForTheLoveOf · 20 Jan 2019

Bletchleyite said:
I think they should if they want - on a higher priced routed ticket.

For freeing up space on a train that lots of other people would like to travel on? :rolleyes:

Bletchleyite · 20 Jan 2019

ForTheLoveOf said:
For freeing up space on a train that lots of other people would like to travel on?

And taking space on another one.

ForTheLoveOf · 20 Jan 2019

Bletchleyite said:
And taking space on another one.

A less busy service. You are always going to be using up a space on a train, that's why you are paying for a ticket in the first place!

alistairlees · 20 Jan 2019

Irrespective of particular routes above, surely the right outcome from a customer's point of view is:
- the routes / trains they can travel on for any particular journey are abundantly clear and accessible (a map, anyone?). I would like customers to be really confident about where (and when) they can travel
- it's equally clear and accessible for guards / RPIs. The goal has got to be to eliminate conflict between staff and customers
- where there are multiple reasonable routes, these are retained. I don't want to restrict flexibility too much either. But it needs to be explained and understood by both customers and staff (see points above).
- We should think about customers first. Who, amongst real customers, would expect a Lancaster to Liverpool ticket to be valid via Blackburn? But if they would / could reasonably expect a ticket to be valid via another route which it isn't currently valid by, then that route should be added. There might not be any examples of this for Lancaster to Liverpool, but I am sure there will be elsewhere.
- (slightly off-topic, but connected) Flexible tickets shouldn't be TOC-specific. That should be the preserve of Fixed tickets. Flexible tickets should just be geographically-restricted. Most customers can't recognise a particular TOC. They should have no difficulty with places though (and they don't change their names every five years). That said, I recognise this is hard to do on routes where there is a mixture of local and inter-city services and you want to encourage behaviour for short-distance trips. But that's a whole other kettle of fish.

JB_B · 20 Jan 2019

alistairlees said:
Irrespective of particular routes above, surely the right outcome from a customer's point of view is:
- the routes / trains they can travel on for any particular journey are abundantly clear and accessible (a map, anyone?). I would like customers to be really confident about where (and when) they can travel.

...

I think that's right. I would guess that there is a significant subset of passengers who, if they hold flexible ticket, want to know "Where can I go with this?" rather than just "Is this ticket valid on specific itinerary?"

For any given origin/destination it's fairly straightforward to generate outline maps showing the mapped routes and shortest (within 3 mile) routes. Synthesizing that with timetable data ( to reflect direct trains and operator or time restrictions) would be quite a bit trickier.

snail · 20 Jan 2019

Muzer said:
on the face of it travelling via Manchester seems a pretty reasonable route to me, especially given the multitude of late-night TransPennine services. Blackburn perhaps less so, but even then it isn't too far out of the way.

Could one reason for the change being the difference in peak fares? An Anytime return Lancaster - Liverpool is £21.30; Lancaster - Manchester is £26.00. I don't know how many would try stopping short on the Liverpool ticket but it's a fair saving.

sheff1 · 20 Jan 2019

alistairlees said:
We should think about customers first. Who, amongst real customers, would expect a Lancaster to Liverpool ticket to be valid via Blackburn?

Not sure who qualifies as a real customer, but if someone wants to travel from Lancaster to Liverpool via a stop off in Blackburn I see no reason why they cannot buy one ticket to make that journey by rail.

In that specific case I see nothing ridiculous in the fare being the same as if travel was via Wigan. For other journeys a higher priced ticket would certainly be appropriate but, in my view, a through ticket should be offered - I have, on many occasions, booked a ticket for travel in Germany via a route some on here would no doubt consider ridiculous and have been quoted a single fare which was a good bit cheaper than the sum of the individual 'legs'.

janb · 21 Jan 2019

snail said:
Could one reason for the change being the difference in peak fares? An Anytime return Lancaster - Liverpool is £21.30; Lancaster - Manchester is £26.00. I don't know how many would try stopping short on the Liverpool ticket but it's a fair saving.

I suspect this may be a motivating factor. Albeit that Liverpool South Parkway presents the same opportunity and is still valid via Manchester.

As some who retails tickets for this journey, the via Manchester journey for Liverpool is quite commonly the most practical or desired option. I would keep the routing but have a higher via Manchester fare.

yorksrob · 21 Jan 2019

So basically all routes are there to be whittled away by the RDG to resolve anomolies produced by the TOC's never ending price spiral.

It would be great if someone interested in passengers rights were in charge of the routing guide.

a_c_skinner · 21 Jan 2019

Longer routes to stop off in an intermediate point are something few people are likely to want. There has to be a point when it ceases to be rational. I'd like Alnmouth to Arnside via London to be valid, I could use the break of journey there, but it is obviously silly. Lancaster to Liverpool via Blackburn seems to be taking things a bit far as well.

Some time ago I asked at a very helpful ticket office if a route was permitted. The answer was "yes, but you'll have an argument on the train". I do wish routing were easier and clearer.

yorksrob · 21 Jan 2019

a_c_skinner said:
Longer routes to stop off in an intermediate point are something few people are likely to want. There has to be a point when it ceases to be rational.

Is that not why the routing guide, in its pure unadulterated form, exists in the first place ?

The problem is that the TOC's are too keen on changing things for their own benefit.

a_c_skinner · 21 Jan 2019

yorksrob said:
Is that not why the routing guide, in its pure unadulterated form, exists in the first place ?

Of course, but removing an excessively generous easement is rational. The routing guide need not be set in stone.

Bletchleyite · 21 Jan 2019

sheff1 said:
Not sure who qualifies as a real customer, but if someone wants to travel from Lancaster to Liverpool via a stop off in Blackburn I see no reason why they cannot buy one ticket to make that journey by rail.

In that specific case I see nothing ridiculous in the fare being the same as if travel was via Wigan. For other journeys a higher priced ticket would certainly be appropriate but, in my view, a through ticket should be offered - I have, on many occasions, booked a ticket for travel in Germany via a route some on here would no doubt consider ridiculous and have been quoted a single fare which was a good bit cheaper than the sum of the individual 'legs'.

I would agree that it should be possible to calculate any desirable route, however ridiculous. Mind you, given that splitting is often cheaper than a through ticket and usually not *much* more expensive, single-leg pricing with all singles 50% of returns would also solve all this - just buy singles via the route you want. It's the existence of return tickets that makes it necessary to have a wide variety of Permitted Routes.

yorksrob · 21 Jan 2019

a_c_skinner said:
Of course, but removing an excessively generous easement is rational. The routing guide need not be set in stone.

Depends what you see as excessively generous. I travel from Wakefield to Lancaster regularly, and what seem to be perfectly reasonable routes via Manchester, for example don't exist. Frankly, I'd rather the guide were set in stone, than open to constant tinkering by TOC's to the detriment.

For what its worth, I don't regard Lancaster to Liverpool via Crewe or Manchester as excessively generous by any stretch.

Bletchleyite · 21 Jan 2019

yorksrob said:
For what its worth, I don't regard Lancaster to Liverpool via Crewe or Manchester as excessively generous by any stretch.

I do, you're going a long way east to go west/south to go north. FWIW I sometimes go via Manchester when going from north WCML to south WCML - this is Permitted but even without it being anywhere near as far west as Liverpool I see it as "a bit borderline" and likely to be removed at some point.

I could see sense in allowing the first/last connection whatever it is, but during the day the only two routes that make sense for that journey to me are via Wigan/St Helens Jn and via Ormskirk, adding in as far south as Warrington (but no further) for operational reasons more than anything.

Kite159 · 21 Jan 2019

The most logical routes which the vast majority of normal passengers will use are Lancaster - Preston/Wigan - Liverpool & Lancaster - Preston - Ormskirk - Liverpool. Maybe Lancaster - Warrington - Liverpool at a push.

I guess it got flagged up as someone got challenged on a train travelling via Blackburn and the guard made a note to raise it 'up the chain'.

Bletchleyite · 21 Jan 2019

Kite159 said:
The most logical routes which the vast majority of normal passengers will use are Lancaster - Preston/Wigan - Liverpool & Lancaster - Preston - Ormskirk - Liverpool. Maybe Lancaster - Warrington - Liverpool at a push.

I guess it got flagged up as someone got challenged on a train travelling via Blackburn and the guard made a note to raise it 'up the chain'.

Could well be. Manchester meanwhile is the last connection, but it's only 7 minutes later than the last sensible connection via St Helens C, and indeed there is a connection off the same train that way but involves sitting around at Preston/Wigan (I forget) for a long time (not overnight). But at any other time of day via Manchester is downright silly, as is via Crewe, and the purpose of determining routeing for single and return tickets is not about flexibility for 3-point journeys (which really needs dealing with separately - indeed, it used to be possible to calculate a 3-leg fare from the sum of returns divided by a given number).

This whole issue is caused by single fares being 10p less than returns - without it there would not be an issue, as you'd just purchase singles for whatever you wished to do, along the way as you went if desired[1]. If singles cost half of returns, far more prescriptive routeing would not be an issue for most people, particularly if excesses were replaced with "refund and replace, with no £10 fee if at the same time you purchase one or more tickets that wholly cover the journey being refunded via whatever route you happen to feel like".

[1] So if you wanted to make a 3 point journey Lancaster-Manchester-Liverpool, you'd simply buy a single Lancaster-Manchester and a single Manchester-Liverpool. If you wanted to go direct on the way back, simply purchase Liverpool-Lancaster as a single. *So* much easier.

Tetchytyke · 21 Jan 2019

You can make an argument for travelling via Crewe, even though all the trains that stop at Crewe also stop at Preston, Wigan and Warrington.

But travelling via Blackburn, Bolton and Manchester? Really? We all know I'm not one to agree with the RDG lightly, but that really is not a reasonable routing.

I'm not sure where I stand on single leg pricing. On the face of it a good idea, but returns often give you benefits in disruption that singles won't.

Bletchleyite · 21 Jan 2019

Arctic Troll said:
returns often give you benefits in disruption that singles won't.

How?

With purely singles you do lose the benefit of multiple days of validity on the return half, but you can counter that a different way by simply not purchasing the return half until the day of travel if you're not sure when that is. The issue with reservations that might cause can be countered, as it is on DB, by selling them separately from tickets if desired.

Of course you could still offer return tickets if you wanted, they would just cost twice the chosen single fare level as they do in quite a number of countries.

Tetchytyke · 21 Jan 2019

Bletchleyite said:
How?

Delay Repay for returns is higher than for singles, for one thing. There are also examples where the restrictions on the return portion of a return are less strict than on the equivalent single ticket.

Lancaster to Liverpool no longer valid via Crewe (except with Advance fares)

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