Looks like TPE fixing the illogical structure that exists currently.
Off Peak Day Return currently code H2, no time restriction just not valid on the Jacobite (!), changed to I1, valid after 0930.
Off Peak Return currently 8F, valid after 0915, changed to TP, valid after 0815.
It's not exactly illogical. The "counterintuitive" situation of period returns having more restrictions than a day return makes sense when you consider the paucity of the Lockerbie-Edinburgh service, which means that the new I2 restriction significantly reduces the length of a day trip you can have. If you're travelling on a period return you can afford to be slightly more limited in terms of the trains you can take. That's certainly the way a lot of restrictions work in London and the southeast.
It's simply yet another example of beleaguered TPE increasing restrictions, as they have been wont to do over the last 2 or 3 years, to make extra cash because they know they have a captive market in many places (fancy driving from Manchester to Sheffield or Leeds at rush hour?). It's an easy way for them to plug the gap between the revenue they're making (which is less than they predicted) and the increasing franchise premiums (or is it a decreasing subsidy) they signed up to. Not all that different to what happened over on CrossCountry about 12 years ago.
The fares regulation system clearly isn't working when fares that a lot of people rely on for affordable transport can be ramped up in price almost overnight without any recourse. The justification for not having substantially greater fares regulation was, at the time, that it limited operators' commercial freedom. In reality the truth is probably that it's just another way for operators to squeeze passengers whilst the Government can wash its hands of the fact it's pushing ever more of the costs of the service onto passengers.
It could hardly happen at a more inopportune moment, either, with TPE delivering nothing even remotely close to being worthy of the epithet of a "service" in recent weeks and months (especially on the WCML route).
If the TOCs wanted to show that they really were sorry for their part of the blame, they'd freeze fares for a year and certainly not add new restrictions. But no, up they go every year, and down the pan the service goes.
