Carnet tickets, Cambridge to King's Cross

[gpmartin]

I have a set of off-peak carnet tickets from Cambridge to London Kings Cross. The route stayed in the ticket is 'Any permitted'. Would these be valid for trains to St Pancras (for a nominal transfer on foot to KGX)? In practice, would this be challenged by a ticket inspector, a revenue protection officer, or at the gateline?

 

[furlong]

Let's see...

Firstly you can't use the 'direct train' rule because the ticket says Kings Cross instead of London Terminals.

Next, both St. Pancras and Kings Cross are part of the London Group. All mapped routes (using ECML) require you to travel through Finsbury Park (map KE), which the trains to St. Pancras do, so it is indeed a mapped route for this journey between Cambridge and London Group.

Finally, the rules have this poorly-worded paragraph that can be interpreted in several different ways.

LONDON GROUP STATIONS
These stations form the London Group of routeing points for travel from to or via London.
Customers may travel to or via any of the stations which is on the permitted route or train
service for the journey being made.

If you decided St. Pancras is on a permitted route, then everything here is logically consistent and you may travel "to" it.
If you board a train to St. Pancras, then you "may travel to" "any of the stations (St. Pancras) which is on the " "train service for the journey being made" - you can say St. Pancras is on that train service.
If you decided St. Pancras was not on a permitted route, then that sentence doesn't apply - the paragraph tells you nothing useful - yet you'd still be left with it being on a mapped route (map KE) and have nothing to say you can't travel that way - a contradiction.

So on balance I'd suggest it's likely to be valid to St. Pancras but it's not as clear as it ought to be.

 

[gpmartin]

Thank you for this thorough reply. I thought the letter of the law might not be clear! Do you have any thoughts on the spirit of the law? Would travelling via STP cause trouble, raise eyebrows, or just be seen as perfectly reasonable? At the moment the problems with Thameslink mean that taking Great Northern services to KGX is by far the better option, but if/when things improve, that may change. I'm also conscious that GTR are keen to reinstate the distinction between their TOCs / brands, and that although the ticket is not operator-specific, it's probably intended as a GN rather than a TL 'product'.

 

[furlong]

Well I'd suggest the idea was to exclude Liverpool St, only the tiniest last part of the route varies, and St. Pancras has only become an option recently. If you want to try it, use it in reverse from St. Pancras first and consult staff and see if they programmed the ticket gates to accept the tickets.

 

[717001]

I have a set of off-peak carnet tickets from Cambridge to London Kings Cross. The route stayed in the ticket is 'Any permitted'. Would these be valid for trains to St Pancras (for a nominal transfer on foot to KGX)? In practice, would this be challenged by a ticket inspector, a revenue protection officer, or at the gateline?

Not sure if this helps, if your tickets specify Kings Cross, but following the splitting of services between the Great Northern and Thameslink brands, the RailPlan20/20 website advises (first and third points):

https://www.railplan2020.com/frequently-asked-questions

 

[bb21]

Only on this website can we scrutinise everything so much and end up losing sight of the bigger picture.

You will be absolutely fine at St Pancras. Some of you are expecting gateline staff to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the TSA, Routeing Guide, etc rather than just what makes sense.