Hull - Middlesbrough / Saltburn

[lightning76]

Hi all,

I want to travel on Tue 26/01/16 on the following trains:

1012 Hull - York (1120)
1154 York - Darlington (1220)
1232 Darlington - Saltburn (1324)
(there may be slight variations to times in the new timetable)

As the VTEC trains should be available for booking this week, I tested it today using the previous Tuesday.

Firstly, BRFares lists various Advance fares (using XC / TPE) from Hull to either Middlesborough or Saltburn, but I can't get these to show, only the full price ticket on the GWR website and no fares at all on the VTEC site! Does anybody know a reason for this?

Secondly, if using my preferred trains as above, is there a way, if I buy an Advance from Hull to Darlington route VTEC&connections, of getting a website to offer me the 1154 YRK-DAR rather than the 1136 for the reservable leg? If I'm going to spend half an hour or so waiting I'd rather do it in the pub at York! Or would a ticket office (ie Swindon) be able to do it?

Many thanks for any replies.

 

[causton]

Ticket offices should be able to do it depending on the software, I can add a "stop at" a place for xx minutes, so could put 30 minutes at York.

 

[Romilly]

I think one issue is that the only Hull-Saltburn advances are for Cross Country trains & connecting services. The only way to build a Cross Country train into a Hull-York-Darlington-Saltburn journey is on the York-Darlington leg.

NRE will offer a £22.30 advance for the 1012 departure, using the 1132 XC departure from York to Darlington. I have not found a way of forcing the VTEC website to offer that itinerary & fare: even asking it to show "XC & connections" journeys only doesn't work (whether the Tuesday is in November or January).

If I click "buy" on NRE, I am then taken through to the XC website to buy the ticket.

 

[causton]

Advance fares may not be showing for the full journey as it says "Journey must include travel on the following main TOC: CrossCountry" which it will be falling foul of.

 

[cuccir]

Cross Country's own journey planner shows the Advances for this route (10:12 departure) on the 19th. I think that because the journey is stretching the "&connections" deal somewhat, different journey planners are implementing the rules differently!
--
If you route 'via Darlington' on other journey planners then they also show the Advances. They won't be available for journeys using TransPennineExpress York - Middlesbrough or on journeys using an East Coast train York-Darlington, as they must use Cross Country.

 

[Romilly]

Using trainsplit.com to try to book for 19th January, I used the Advanced options to specify changing at Darlington, and then specified 14 minutes as the minimum interchange time (this will elongate the stay at York without pushing you onto a later train out of Darlington). This ended up with me being offered a £22.30 advance for Hull 1012 - York 1120/1148 - Darlington 1213/1232 - Saltburn 1327.

 

[lightning76]

Many thanks for the replies. I didn't really want to use a Crosscountry train as such, it just confused me why the XC&cons advances weren't showing. Come Friday, I shall use Romilly's idea of using trainsplit.com (which I didn't realise had that interchange time feature) to try and get a ticket for my preferred trains. Thanks again to all.

 

[Romilly]

I don't think that you will achieve that and get a Hull-Saltburn Advance because, unless I am missing something, the only Hull-Saltburn Advances are those which use a Cross Country train for the York-Darlington leg of the journey. All my suggestion did was put you on a later Cross Country train between York and Darlington so as to maximise the wait at York, and minimise the wait at Darlington, whilst still getting you a Hull-Saltburn Advance.

In other words, there are no VTEC&connections Advances for Hull-Saltburn (presumably because VTEC don't see a need to set Advance fares for that journey).

As regards the interchange time feature on trainsplit, do note that where you have multiple interchanges it only allows you to set the same minimum interchange time for each and every one of those interchanges. In this case, when I selected 19 minutes, although it worked for York, it meant that the planner was looking for a later train out of Darlington than the one you wanted.