Is the Marylebone 8:37am departure to Oxford an off-peak train?
Chiltern rules say no:
But Chiltern's website will sell it to you, see first attachment. And Trainline will sell it to you as well, see second attachment.
This past Friday, one suddenly could not buy this ticket, which I complained to Chiltern about on Twitter:
They were convinced this rule had always been in place. It has been on the website for a long time (at least since 24 Sept 2020, as far back as https://archive.org/web/ goes for the relevant website) but apparently not properly enforced.
For a short but very frustrating time recently, it was not possible to buy ANY tickets from MYB -> OXF, see thread here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...948-mustnt-go-via-oxford.218904/#post-5187505 Now that it is possible to buy tickets at all again, one can again buy the 8:37am departure as an off-peak train.
My question is: given Chiltern will sell me the ticket, is it OK for me to use it? My opinion is that they sold me an off-peak ticket as an option explicitly for this departure time. If they didn't want me to use it for this train, they shouldn't have sold it to me!
I hope they don't read this forum too closely and close whatever possibly strange loop hole (unenforced rule?) I've found. At least one station manager at Marylebone was convinced most ticket agents at the station were not aware of the rule given most Chiltern trains are off-peak after 8:30; it is just the Oxford route that is special...
I also wonder if it might somehow be related to the 'negative easement' uncovered by @yorkie in the thread mentioned above? Could they have been trying to code this in some 'embuggered' way (to borrow a term used by @Nicholas43 on that thread), bungled the whole job, and just went back to the way things were? I am aware they seem like very unrelated topics.
Chiltern rules say no:
(source: https://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/off-peak-ticket)Please note that Off Peak tickets to Oxford (only) are not valid on weekday departures from Marylebone before 0900 . This is because the fare is set and controlled by Great Western Railways.
But Chiltern's website will sell it to you, see first attachment. And Trainline will sell it to you as well, see second attachment.
This past Friday, one suddenly could not buy this ticket, which I complained to Chiltern about on Twitter:
They were convinced this rule had always been in place. It has been on the website for a long time (at least since 24 Sept 2020, as far back as https://archive.org/web/ goes for the relevant website) but apparently not properly enforced.
For a short but very frustrating time recently, it was not possible to buy ANY tickets from MYB -> OXF, see thread here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...948-mustnt-go-via-oxford.218904/#post-5187505 Now that it is possible to buy tickets at all again, one can again buy the 8:37am departure as an off-peak train.
My question is: given Chiltern will sell me the ticket, is it OK for me to use it? My opinion is that they sold me an off-peak ticket as an option explicitly for this departure time. If they didn't want me to use it for this train, they shouldn't have sold it to me!
I hope they don't read this forum too closely and close whatever possibly strange loop hole (unenforced rule?) I've found. At least one station manager at Marylebone was convinced most ticket agents at the station were not aware of the rule given most Chiltern trains are off-peak after 8:30; it is just the Oxford route that is special...
I also wonder if it might somehow be related to the 'negative easement' uncovered by @yorkie in the thread mentioned above? Could they have been trying to code this in some 'embuggered' way (to borrow a term used by @Nicholas43 on that thread), bungled the whole job, and just went back to the way things were? I am aware they seem like very unrelated topics.