Chichester to Oxford permitted routes

Hi all,

Just had a friend come to me to ask advice about getting from Chichester to Oxford. He was quite confused, as different booking applications (Trainline, NRE, Trainpal etc) were giving different trains for a journey from Chichester to Oxford. Some digging on my part revealed that while some were offering journeys that changed trains in Southampton Central, some were only offering the route via Havant, Eastleigh etc or via Guildford/Reading. Those that were offering the Southampton journey were only offering this by buying 2 separate tickets (one CCH-SOU and the second SOU-OXF), which is marginally more expensive than the single ticket via the other routes.

This seemed a bit odd to me, but having consulted the Routing Guide, it seems (to my understanding) that CCH-OXF via SOU is not a valid routing. Routing points for Chichester are Ford and Havant, while OXF is its own routing point. This gives three valid routes (XB from Ford and BB and XS from Havant). I was surprised that neither of these routes appeared to make via SOU as a valid option, even though many journey planners are selling those tickets.

Have I misunderstood this, or does anyone know why via SOU is not a permitted route? It seems kind of odd to me that the journey with arguably the simplest connections is not valid? Is there something the routing guide is trying to stop by blocking out the SOU route?

Thanks

Am no expert on the routing guide but looking at what tickets/ roures are available, it looks as if Chichester - Havant - Cosham (either direct or via Fratton)- Fareham - Eastleigh- Winchester - Oxford route is valid and tickets are available for this 'direct' route. Perhaps try forcing this route by putting in 'via Botley'

Suspect route via Southampton exceeds the 3 mile rule.

Also if you were to go Chichester - Fareham direct and change there for train to Winchester and change there for Cross Country train to Oxford, it is same platform interchange.

Edited to add final sentence

It's interesting that Easement 700308 exists:

Customers travelling via Southampton Airport Parkway to Bitterne, Woolston, Sholing, Netley, Hamble, Bursledon, Swanwick, Fareham and beyond may double back between St Denys and Southampton Central. This easement applies in both directions.

However, since Southampton isn't included on the mapped route BB in the first place, this doesn't help. However the easement looks like it might be intended to allow the route, were the map changed to include Southampton.

Nostalgia warning: I used to live in Fareham and would often travel on DEMU to Southampton for fast (non-stop) REP+TC to London, this pre-dates electrification in Fareham and the Routing Guide of course. I never had a problem taking this route with a day return Fareham-London. (And the Routing Guide isn't recursive anyway.)

AlexB said:

(Trainline, NRE, Trainpal etc)

Click to expand...

I can't get any of those to show the route via Southampton as being permitted on a through fare. It is indeed not a mapped route. I think the easement is a red herring; the doubleback is entirely within Southampton Routeing Group. The problem is it can't be traced on any of the maps for the journey.

Atos/Wordline sites (e.g. GWR) are permitting it via Southampton. They are known to have many bugs in their interpretation of easements though, so maybe that is what is happening here.

Hi, probably too late now I am doing a similar journey. Oxford to Emsworth. In the past I used to get a cheap advance 1st class Oxford to Southampton and then a standard single to Emsworth. This time, 1st advance are too expensive so I looked at just a standard off peak return. As the OP says, the routing is Oxford/Winchester/Fareham/Emsworth. The daft thing is, the train I would catch at Fareham is the same one I would catch if I continued to Southampton on XC but that specific route involves 2 tickets and is more expensive. However, if I look at Bedhampton (the stop before Havant), it seems to fall into a different fare group and the route given is via Southampton. The partly ludicrous thing is that to get to Bedhampton, you have to go from Southampton, down to Fratton and then back up.
The fare I got is also valid via Reading and Guildford as per OP which is pretty much the same time and distance. It seems too that there is also an easement in place to allow travel via Ford which the OP mentions. So even though its a hell of a long way round I was offered Oxford/Reading/Gatwick/Emsworth and on another post someone confirmed that is still a valid route even though its probably 50 miles further and at least an hours travel time longer although with connections it can be a bit less than the hour longer.

I don't know what "beyond" means here either in the easement - it's not really "beyond" in that direction!

But, it's the only easement that comes up in the routing point calculator, and presume that must be the reason, as it fails the fares check via Ford, there's no direct train that way, and it's much longer (hopefully someone else will confirm!)