DBY-EUS Super Offpeak Return validity

[CrazyTom]

My reading of the restrictions for this ticket means that it would be valid on the following itinerary on a weekday (Friday 14th June to be exact):

15:37 Derby
16:00 Tamworth
--
16:19 Tamworth
17:50 London Euston

I'm basing this on the section that says:

Not valid for travel on services timed to depart the origin station on the ticket after 15:59 and before 19:01 in either direction​

Meaning I should be in the clear as it leaves the origin station on the ticket (Derby) before 15:59.

Online journey planners (I've checked trainline and Loco2) don't agree with me on this and try and sell an off-peak return instead. They seem to be programmed that you can't leave any station after 15:59 which conflicts with the written restriction.

Am I missing something here? I wanted to double check before attempting to make the journey.

 

[higthomas]

Yep, if you look down that page you'll see the unpublished restrictions, used by said journey planners have a

Not valid to depart any location 1600–1718 on any TOC

restriction.

This means your ticket is valid, and you should be able to use it. But just not book a journey unfortunately.

 

[Bletchleyite]

London Northwestern have an issue with the tickets they price (which they inherited from London Midland) - almost all their Off Peaks and Super Off Peaks seek to apply restrictions only from the first point of boarding. The reason for this was that a large number of these journeys require a change (e.g. at New St), and the quite tight restrictions would otherwise make them near useless. Like this one they have "A connecting service may be used to complete a journey begun at a valid time".

Unfortunately the electronic restrictions cannot implement this, and will apply it to each train you board including connections.

I did expect WMT on takeover to remove this as it's a bit of an anomaly, though the only likely way to remove it would be to make things stricter. However the issue has existed for something like 10 years or thereabouts, I wouldn't expect it to be fixed soon even though it is causing people to be overcharged when booking online.

Good news, though - because it has been about so long, WMT guards and RPIs are well aware of it and you will not have a problem.