Journey Planner offering faster itinerary on select services today only

I was having a browse and found some journey planners offering quick changes at Stafford and Crewe on select LNR services, but only for today.

As you can see from the photos I was given a few itineraries from Euston to Liverpool, all under 3 hours thanks to the change at Stafford being only a few minutes. Usually nothing under 3 hours and 15 minutes is returned with a 20 - 40 minute wait.

I usually look up each leg separately as I am fast enough to make the 3 - 8 minute dash across the footbridge anyway. However I was surprised that for the first time ever, I was presented with a through journey for times other than on the 11:46. Seems strange that minimum journey times vary depending on the day

Does anyone know of any reasons why this might be? It would be great to replicate these itineraries for other days as advance tickets with railcard are only £7.90! Of course making tight connections is always a risk so having an itinerary to guarantee your right to get on the following service is important to avoid the saving being wiped out

You are somehow looking at itineraries in the past. The itineraries are using live running data where the connecting train is running sufficiently late that it makes the connection at Stafford possible, when it would not be if the train was on time. So it is not an itinerary you will get for the future.

Yes TheTrainLine app lets you scroll backwards to look at itineraries from earlier on in the day. I did this for the purposes of taking the screenshots.

They were offered exactly as they are when I checked early this morning before any of these trains had left. In fact, the 11:46 itinerary from Euston is available with an 8 minute connection every weekday for example.

BluePenguin said:

I was having a browse and found some journey planners offering quick changes at Stafford and Crewe on select LNR services, but only for today.

As you can see from the photos I was given a few itineraries from Euston to Liverpool, all under 3 hours thanks to the change at Stafford being only a few minutes. Usually nothing under 3 hours and 15 minutes is returned with a 20 - 40 minute wait.

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I see some invalid connection times in those screenshots.

However it can sometimes be done in under 3 hrs using valid connections, for example at 1146.

Some journey planners do let you plan journeys using only selected operators e.g. http://www.fastjp.com/#journeys?ori...M&odate=20190925&otime=1000&maxres=11&maxch=6 (selecting WMT operated services only).

BluePenguin said:

I usually look up each leg separately as I am fast enough to make the 3 - 8 minute dash across the footbridge anyway.

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That's your choice but if it's an invalid connection you will need to foot the bill of onward transport yourself.

Some journey planners will show through WMT fares (or even combinations of fares, if that works out cheaper) if you want the protection of a valid itinerary.

BluePenguin said:

However I was surprised that for the first time ever, I was presented with a through journey for times other than on the 11:46. Seems strange that minimum journey times vary depending on the day

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The minimum interchange times at Stafford are 5 mins and Crewe 10 mins at all times of day.

BluePenguin said:

Does anyone know of any reasons why this might be? It would be great to replicate these itineraries for other days as advance tickets with railcard are only £7.90! Of course making tight connections is always a risk so having an itinerary to guarantee your right to get on the following service is important to avoid the saving being wiped out

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I do not know why these are showing but you should not be offered a invalid itinerary when making a purchase.

Thank you for your detailed explanations yorkie. The 11:46 is certainly a very good contender for this journey when in need of a valid itinerary. The leg from Euston to Stafford on this service is only 1 hour 44 minutes whilst it usually timetabled to take 1 hour 49 or 51 minutes. This shorter journey allows those all important extra few minutes to allow an valid connection to be possible. If only this was the case throughout services for the rest of the day.

yorkie said:

The minimum interchange times at Stafford are 5 mins and Crewe 10 mins at all times of day.

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I knew a 3 minute interchange time was too good to be true! Mind you, it is good to know that you can shave off a good 40 minutes if you can be quick.

yorkie said:

I do not know why these are showing but you should not be offered a invalid itinerary when making a purchase.

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It was very interesting that TheTrainLine presented me with these itineraries because of what you said and I wonder if anyone did make a purchase against of them. Oddly, this was only yesterday and I am not offered these itineraries on the same services today or anytime in the future. I can only assume it was a blip