Routing enquiry

Well outside my usual area - this Sunday Longbridge to Stourbridge Junction - the fastest route appears to be changing at Bromsgrove and Droitwich Spa but this is coming up as needing multiple tickets, whereas the much longer route changing at Birmingham New Street and walking to Snow Hill is coming up as cheaper and a through journey. Is this correct - the fastest way here isn't a permitted route. I don't know the routing maps around there at all.

Longbridge-Stourbridge tickets all have a "via Birmingham" route, so you can't use them the other way.

Yeah it will be because the fare setter is WMPTE, and Bromsgrove & Droitwich are outside of the PTE area.

As an aside, whilst the "normal" via Birmingham fare is £7.80, a n-Network Daytripper can be bought from any staffed station in the PTE area for £6.90, which will not only cover your journey, but allows rail, bus and metro travel throughout the WMPTE area for the day. Whilst this doesn't solve your problem of wanting the fastest route, it gives you a lot more options for travel if you want to for less money.

noted, thanks

maxbarnish said:

Well outside my usual area - this Sunday Longbridge to Stourbridge Junction - the fastest route appears to be changing at Bromsgrove and Droitwich Spa but this is coming up as needing multiple tickets, whereas the much longer route changing at Birmingham New Street and walking to Snow Hill is coming up as cheaper and a through journey. Is this correct - the fastest way here isn't a permitted route. I don't know the routing maps around there at all.

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I've had to do this a couple of times from Bromsgrove and have travelled both ways round. It varies as to which is quickest. Sometimes you can make a tight (unofficial) connection at New St head up to Smethwick Galton Bridge then change onto the Snow Hill lines, which shaves some time off; going the other way, there are some connections at Droitwich which are worryingly tight even though it's only a dash across the footbridge!

As noted above the Longbridge ticket is via Birmingham only, but a Barnt Green to Stourbridge Junction ticket allows you to travel either way round, and also has an easement allowing doubling back via Longbridge. There is a big caveat with that however - I'm not sure whether entering or leaving the double back station is allowed, even though break of journey is permitted, (although of course you could be validly breaking the journey travelling the Birmingham way). It's also more expensive.