Okay, my assumption was that this was hypothetical as there isn't a 'rte Not London' fare between Newquay and Kyle. The question was worded such that I made the assumption there was no 'rte London' fare available or that it was of a higher price. I agree that if a lower fare existed it would be valid that way, but I would point out that joe public will not pay more than they have to in 99.9% of cases, based on my experience of working in a ticket office. This is ofcourse irrelevant in our case because no lower through fare exists for travel from Manchester to Alloa via the West Coast.
Apologies - bad example; I thought it was routed Not London, it is routed Any Permitted and the cheaper ticket is routed +London. There are still, however, people who would claim that the Any Permitted is not valid via London because it lacks a +, which is nonsense. I'm glad we agree. But a better example would be a Newquay to Aberdeen FOR, this is £886 Not London or £724 +London. Clearly, the Not London is valid via London (if the guard insists on excessing, the excess is clearly £0.00). I think this is relevant in the example of Manchester to Alloa, as you state that the fact it is routed "York" means that you must travel via York. However that isn't the case, as if a ticket is routed "Not London" that does not necessarily mean that you cannot travel via London, as we have just seen. That is the point I am trying to demonstrate!
The point here is that York is a more expensive route[1] than the shortest, most direct route, and therefore the excess to use the shorter route should be £0.00. The shortest route is always a permitted route. There is no fare for it, so we can only assume that the 'correct' fare is no higher than the via York fare. No other assumption can possibly make sense. Alternatively you can excess from Irlam, and this also gives a £0.00 excess. Alternatively you can look up the cost of split tickets via Carlisle, and find the total price, and excess the customer to this price - but this is a lower price, so again the excess is £0.00. I am not saying any one method is correct, but whichever method is chosen it is impossible to get an excess greater than £0.00, so that leaves guards 2 choices 1) do a complicated excess for £0.00 using any of the methods above or, 2) accept it. There is no other option really.
I wasn't sure where the Irlam bit came in to your question before, but I now realise it has nothing to do with the Newquay-Kyle ticket in question 1, but infact the Manchester-Alloa ticket, now it makes a little sense. The clerk would not have to offer this fare as the passenger is requesting travel from Manchester, daft it may be but thems the rules, if the passenger requested it, no problem. Could a Conductor use it as a basis for an excess? I don't see why not.
I agree with that.
EDIT: Curiously the FRPP doesn't know the Irlam-Alloa fare, although I see it on the ticket machine, makes me wonder if the FRPP hasn't been updated properly.
Interesting. Isn't FRPP (or "The Manual" as it is now known!) meant to be authoritative?
I had a thought about this and it goes back to another thread that was around a little while ago. I can't remember exactly but it was a journey something like Havant to Bristol (rte AP Slough). Now I believe the routeing on the ticket was basically intented to provided travel via Paddington, because the routeing guide doesn't allow for doubling back. Yet ticket machines and websites gave a route like Havant-Guildford-Reading-Slough-Reading-Bristol.
The question asked was "did they really need to travel to Slough and back". My point here is that this was clearly the shortest route via Slough and therefore doubling-back was permitted because the routeing guide was not used (13a & 13d combined rather than opposed).
Should we therefore consider that "the shortest route" takes into account the routeing of the ticket? The shortest route would then always be permitted as indicated in the NCoC. In our case it would make "the shortest route" between Manchester and Alloa one that passes through York because the ticket is routed that way.
I believe that you are right in that the shortest route via Slough must be valid on a AP Slough ticket, even if it involves doubling back, as no other explanation would make sense.
As this ticket is AP then there is a good case to say the customer must travel via Slough, although as mentioned in the thread originally, if the trains were merely "suggested services" (ie, unreserved) then it may not be compulsory and would not, in any case, be picked up on if the customer took a break in Reading instead.
[1] Yes, you can argue it's the only route in this case so it isn't more expensive, but if the customer requests travel via Carlisle then you have a situation where no one ticket exists that meets the customers' needs. In this case, ticket office staff are supposed to offer split tickets (e.g. if I ask for a Travelcard from York, they will offer to split - at London, although Grantham is a lot cheaper), and it would then be discovered that splitting the ticket will in fact enable a cheaper option via Carlisle and for similar journeys Route Carlisle or Route Lancaster is cheaper than Route York.
