Trivia - route via Lancaster

I've just (via the app, cannot face the machine) bought an Arnside to Preston (Lancs) off peak return. Why is it routed via Lancaster? I cannot see any other viable route. Mrs S suggests it is to exclude via Skipton, but surely there is no way that would be covered by "any permitted". Obviously this is trivial and trivia because you simply cannot go any other way.

Northern have been adding descriptive routes to tickets even where it is the only logical route. In the name of simplification/removing all doubt but commonly causes people to ask "oh do I need to change trains at <via point>?"

The DfT believe that if you tell people you can take any permitted route, people will become confused because they may wonder what the permitted routes from Arnside to Preston might be, and people may also think that any route is a permitted route apparently. People won't be capable of checking a journey planner to see if their chosen route is a permitted one.

However by routeing tickets via Lancaster, it becomes really simple and everyone will now know which route to take. People who previously would have been put off taking the train, because they did not know you had to go via Lancaster, will now easily and confidently purchase the ticket, knowing that they need to travel via Lancaster. People will of course know that it is valid to take trains which pass through Lancaster without stopping, and of course everyone, even people new to rail, will know that these trains go via Lancaster. Previously they may have worried that it was the wrong train, but they can be confident now. At least by the DfT's logic!

Though by this logic, you'd also need to break down Arnside to Lancaster even further and put a via station in for that, and so on... until you get a list of all intermediate stations. I assume that is the DafT's plan eventually, in their quest to bamboozle people.

I assume it's similar to a Hull - Doncaster ticket only being valid "via Brough" - as if there's any other route to realistically take!

Another factor may be that many fares aren't set individually, but as part of clusters. The clusters for Arnside-Preston walk-up tickets are shown here:
http://www.brfares.com/#expert?orig=ARN&dest=PRE. All tickets of a particular type and route between the origin cluster and the destination cluster have the same fare.

Thus Arnside-Preston is in the same cluster as, say, Bentham - Bamber Bridge, for which someone might consider travelling via Hellifield-Clitheroe on a Sunday. In this case the printing of "via Lancaster" makes it clearer that via Hellifield is not valid.

Not that this excuses the point that, as the OP and Yorkie observe, the specification of "via Lancaster" makes things no simpler for Arnside-Preston - if anything, adding more to think about.

yorkie said:

People will of course know that it is valid to take trains which pass through Lancaster without stopping

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There aren't any relevant to a journey via Carnforth, only the Windermeres and some Scottish services.

Bletchleyite said:

There aren't any relevant to a journey via Carnforth, only the Windermeres and some Scottish services.

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The point remains. This is happening on flows all over Britain!

jawr256 said:

...In this case the printing of "via Lancaster" makes it clearer that via Hellifield is not valid...

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The DfT should admit that it's about restricting what people can and/or try to do, not about helping people.

In fact there are many examples where such route restrictions take away entirely reasonable routes that ought to be permitted.

jawr256 said:

Not that this excuses the point that, as the OP and Yorkie observe, the specification of "via Lancaster" makes things no simpler for Arnside-Preston - if anything, adding more to think about.

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Indeed!