I disagree. There's nothing wrong with a bit of "mystery shopping" as long as it doesn't cause conflict. robbeech may well know that his ticket is valid for use on the day after and could argue his case should the need arise, but that is possibly because he's a member of this forum and is thus in a tiny minority of train passengers. The rules regarding break-of-journey are not that complicated, yet railway staff continue to get them wrong and spread "fear, uncertainty and doubt", either by what they are telling passengers or by the way that they are marking tickets.
The ability to break your journey is a very useful right and something that rail travel has in its favour compared to other forms of transport. However, it is something that is not well known amongst the general public and it only takes one incident of being told "that's not allowed" to stop a passenger ever trying to exercise the right again.
No doubt there are people within the management of the railway industry who would like to see break-of-journey rights abolished altogether and to move to an airline like ticketing system. ATOC would issue a statement saying that only a tiny proportion of passengers use the break-of-journey facility and that it is being removed to "simplify" the ticketing system for the benefit of passengers. That is why I think that BoJ rights should be vigorously defended and any staff wrongly denying them, either outright or by implication, should be educated as to what the rules actually are.
I think you have completely missed my point.
Try answering the two questions I asked the OP, and you may then start to appreciate why this whole exchange is pointless.
Did you think it's going to change the guard's understanding of the rules? What do you think will happen when he runs into another customer with a similar request?
I agree with you. Problem is, no matter how many times you brief staff on BoJ, there's always some that make it up. Why? It's the same with any ticketing matter. The battle is lost. Burn the restrictions.
Spot on. I think some people are rather lost in their own minds and not appreciating what the reality we are facing is.
This has to be about informing people more than anything else.
Informing whom? The guard? Why would he listen to a passenger? Informing other customers? Why would anyone care about a situation that almost certainly has no relevance to them? Informing TOC revenue managers? They already know in all likelihood but whether their instructions are followed on the front line is a whole different question. They can issue as many bulletins as they like but if they usually get ignored then they get ignored.
Sorry but I am in agreement with AlterEgo. The battle is lost, unfortunately. The only way to gain the upper hand is for people to join this forum and learn the specifics themselves so they can out-think unknowledgeable staff, or to massively simplify the fares system.
This isn't meant to be flippant, just genuinely interested in what anyone thinks can be achieved by such actions.