A Journey Within a Journey

[TheJRB]

I'm going to Birmingham in a couple of weeks time on a Saturday and as I've got about four and a quarter hours between booked journeys, I've been putting a plan together as to what to do.

My current plan is for my grandfather and I to get off peak day return (with Family & Friends railcard) Birmingham-Worcester Foregate Street tickets and travel out via Bromsgrove on the Hereford service from New Street and return via Kidderminster to Moor Street. I'm aware of LM's offer at the moment and it certainly will be worth consideration.

But my real question is: if we wanted to fit in the Stourbridge Town branch on the return leg of our journey, would it be possible to leave the train at Stourbridge Junction, purchase return tickets to Stourbridge Town (travel the branch) and then resume our journey to Moor Street on our previous tickets from Worcester?

 

[MidnightFlyer]

That's absolutely fine.

 

[TheJRB]

That's absolutely fine.

Ah, thanks.

 

[HowMuch?]

Please treat this with a pinch of salt, and wait for someone else to check my working, but I believe the restriction on your off-peak day return from Birmingham to Worcester is to do only with peak trains Monday-Friday.

There is no mention of a restriction on breaking your journey. So provided Stourbridge Jcn is on a permitted route for the ticket (cleverer people than me can tell you that) then you can do the side trip you mention. It might be best to get your second ticket before you set off from Bham.

It's possible that someone who can read the mind of the person who wrote the routeing guide and drew the maps will come up with an even cleverer wheeze that will let you do what you want as a hi-falutin three-way trip with a 21p excess fare on your first ticket....

 

[IanD]

Isn't BOJ immaterial? If the plan is to do a round trip, junction to town without exiting at the town end then no BOJ has occurred at all as the OP won't have left railway premises.

 

[yorkie]

There is no mention of a restriction on breaking your journey

While his ticket is valid for break of journey, he is not breaking it anyway (as defined in the NRCoC).

 

[HowMuch?]

While his ticket is valid for break of journey, he is not breaking it anyway (as defined in the NRCoC).

Thanks for the correction.

That's stopped me in my tracks. .......

But, but, but.....

OK. Suppose the OP's ticket DIDN'T allow Break of journey.

When they got on the train to Bham in the evening, and show the guard a non-BOJ ticket, wouldn't the the guard say "Oi, what are you doing getting on here? Broken your journey, eh?"

I suppose that wouldn't happen if you had to change here to get to Bham (unless the guard noticed an earlier stamp was 8 hours old or something). But wouldn't it ALWAYS happen if you did your side trip from a station where you didn't NEED to change in order to complete your first journey.

Anyway, in the real world (if that's what the railway is) what are the odds that a guard who DID query the apparent break of journey would accept the sidetrip story (the tickets would no doubt be better) as evidence of a non BOJ as defined in NCoC?

If it's less than 100% then depending on the OP's hassle-tolerance, it might still be worth having looked up the BOJ rule for the ticket because the OP might find it comforting to hear "Your ticket allows BOJ - so the guard won't raise any problems when you join the second Bham train".



Perhaps a rating scheme would be useful. We could match an OPs "Iron Underpants" score against the reply's "Chances of a TM never having come across this before" score ?

GoodAdvice% = (IronUnderpants)% / (PullTheOtherOne)%


Joking apart, I admit that I was wrong in my post (in not knowing that a side trip isn't a BOJ) and am genuinely glad to be corrected and learn something.

("You can tell a man from Yorkshire, but you can't tell him much." is definitely not true here.)

 

[yorkie]

OK. Suppose the OP's ticket DIDN'T allow Break of journey.

When they got on the train to Bham in the evening, and show the guard a non-BOJ ticket, wouldn't the the guard say "Oi, what are you doing getting on here? Broken your journey, eh?"

Then you confirm you have not broken your journey.

I suppose that wouldn't happen if you had to change here to get to Bham (unless the guard noticed an earlier stamp was 8 hours old or something). But wouldn't it ALWAYS happen if you did your side trip from a station where you didn't NEED to change in order to complete your first journey.

I've never known that happen, but there are very few walk-on tickets that prohibit break of journey. In order for this to apply, it is a requirement that "the relevant Train Companies will make this clear in their notices and other publications".

Anyway, in the real world (if that's what the railway is) what are the odds that a guard who DID query the apparent break of journey would accept the sidetrip story (the tickets would no doubt be better) as evidence of a non BOJ as defined in NCoC?

The onus is surely not on a passenger to prove they did not exit station premises. If a guard is making that allegation, I would expect the guard to have some evidence.

Joking apart, I admit that I was wrong in my post (in not knowing that a side trip isn't a BOJ) and am genuinely glad to be corrected and learn something.

No problem, glad IanD and I could be of assistance