Lidlington to London U1-3 Super off peak day single

[andythebrave]

Wife and 2 children tomorrow leaving 11.23 and travelling via Bedford.
Trainsplit offering:
1. Off peak single
or
2. split at Kempston Hardwick Anytime and Super off peak singles.

The Super off peak through single is offered on the 12.23 but why is it not offered on the 11.23 when the time restrictions appear to only apply to Euston and not St Pancras?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It appears that the implementation of LK is different to the text and it does also block St Pancras.

http://www.brfares.com/#faredetail?orig=LID&dest=1072&rte=210&tkt=SOK

 

[andythebrave]

It appears that the implementation of LK is different to the text and it does also block St Pancras.

http://www.brfares.com/#faredetail?orig=LID&dest=1072&rte=210&tkt=SOK

But not, apparently, from Kempston Hardwick!
Suppose I could just tell them to get a slightly later train from Bedford. That would then make the cheaper ticket valid I assume.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But not, apparently, from Kempston Hardwick!
Suppose I could just tell them to get a slightly later train from Bedford. That would then make the cheaper ticket valid I assume.

LK is the same for Kempston Hardwick. It appears to me that you may have found a bug in Trainsplit.

Yes, it does appear the restriction is on the train that arrives into St Pancras/Euston. I therefore can't see any reason you couldn't use the same train from Lidlington and hang around in Bedford until a valid train. Some might consider that break of journey (though it isn't the classic definition), but you are going to "use station facilities" - the waiting room!

 

[OwlMan]

What ticket is the OP buying, the title says to London U1-3 but that does not appear to exist

 

[andythebrave]

What ticket is the OP buying, the title says to London U1-3 but that does not appear to exist

http://www.brfares.com/#faredetail?...ert=on&flow=12&multi=0&fare=6&rte=200&tkt=SOK

 

[andythebrave]

I see now there are further unpublished restrictions which explain why Kempston Hardwick is ok.
If they are unpublished though....

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

I see now there are further unpublished restrictions which explain why Kempston Hardwick is ok.
If they are unpublished though....

Unpublished restrictions cannot be enforced - they are for the use of booking engines only, in determining which tickets they can offer for a given itinerary. A passenger can either follow the itinerary they have been offered by their booking site (whether or not this complies with the published restrictions), or they can follow any itinerary that complies with the published restrictions (whether or not this complies with the unpublished restrictions). That way passengers can have the best of both worlds!

 

[Bletchleyite]

I see now there are further unpublished restrictions which explain why Kempston Hardwick is ok.
If they are unpublished though....

Which one specifically?

 

[andythebrave]

Which one specifically?

No Lidlington departure between 0230 and 1129

 

[Bletchleyite]

No Lidlington departure between 0230 and 1129

Ah, I see. That's because of the cack-handed way LK has had so much crowbarred into it.

The text is:

Outward Travel

Not valid for travel on services timed to arrive London Euston before 13:00.

Not valid for travel on northbound services timed to depart London Euston or any other station, before 10:30.

Not valid for travel on services timed to depart London Euston after 15:59 and before 19:01.

So not only are those wrong (it should be 0230 - 1029, not 1129), but because they can't be bothered to do a separate restriction for tickets involving Euston/St Pancras that one is triggering when it shouldn't.

Looking at the other times, it appears that someone has gone through and set the individual station restrictions to be based on the first train from that station to Euston that arrives after 1300, which is unnecessary as the Euston restriction does that. What should be the case is that all of them should say 0230 - 1029.

Or maybe they did it because the eased restriction is only northbound? Presumably they did it to give tickets to Watford Jn the same restriction as Euston?

So, not unusually for LNR and their predecessor, they have made a right mess of it, and lots of people will pay too much as a result. They really need to split the code into 2 or 3 different ones rather than trying to crowbar it all into one.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

So, not unusually for LNR and their predecessor, they have made a right mess of it, and lots of people will pay too much as a result. They really need to split the code into 2 or 3 different ones rather than trying to crowbar it all into one.

I agree - one issue that is raised here is that a particular restriction code that the public can see only be associated with one set of electronic restrictions. If it were possible to associate a given restriction code to different electronic restrictions depending on, say, the origin station, the destination station, and any stations called at or changed at en-route (in effect, sort of mimicking the existing 'barred trains except for alighting/boarding at' hack then this might work. But I agree that there is no reason to feel so limited in terms of the restriction codes used - there are just under 500 as of the last count I did recently, and there are 1,300 odd combinations of two alphanumeric characters. So you could double the number of restriction codes (which would surely suffice, and there are many unused and duplicated ones out there) whilst still having some leeway.

 

[Clip]

So not only are those wrong (it should be 0230 - 1029, not 1129), but because they can't be bothered to do a separate restriction for tickets involving Euston/St Pancras that one is triggering when it shouldn't.

Dont know where you get that idea from - it seems to be useful as the same restriction for Euston as there is an 11:23 departure from Lidlington which gets in just before 1300. A 1030 restriction would have every one going that way

 

[andythebrave]

Follow on from the above.

LK again.

If I wish to travel from Lidlington to London using a Super off peak day travel card this coming Saturday and ask for this ticket on board will the train manager's machine use the published restrictions when determining validity or will it apply the unpublished too?
If the latter, presumably I could just buy the tickets ahead of time from a ticket office somewhere.

 

[yorkie]

Follow on from the above.

LK again.

If I wish to travel from Lidlington to London using a Super off peak day travel card this coming Saturday and ask for this ticket on board will the train manager's machine use the published restrictions when determining validity or will it apply the unpublished too?
If the latter, presumably I could just buy the tickets ahead of time from a ticket office somewhere.

If it was me, I'd be buying in advance with an itinerary.

 

[andythebrave]

If it was me, I'd be buying in advance with an itinerary.

Thanks Yorkie. Impossible to get itinerary with an arrival at St Pancras before 1300 due to the unpublished restrictions but I am confident in my conflict management skills and will take a copy of the National Rail restriction with me.

 

[Joe Paxton]

If it was me, I'd be buying in advance with an itinerary.

I think the issue is that you cannot get a journey planner to produce such an itinerary because of the unpublished restrictions, which contradict the published restrictions.