Liverpool to Edinburgh validity on journey planners

[tony_mac]

This one seems a bit strange to me...

There is a direct Liverpool Lime St to Edinburgh service on Sunday (11:08, 4th August),
but some journey planners, including National Rail, Trainline, and Trainscanbecheaper, are not allowing it, other than for a journey from Lime St. only.

e.g., Moorfields to Edinburgh does not allow using this service.
Other services, seemingly taking the same route but changing at Preston, are being allowed.
Journeys from Lime St to stations beyond Edinburgh, as well as from Moorfields to Carlilse are also ok (so it's not just direct trains).

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any idea why this is?

I was intending to buy a ticket from Wirral to Edinburgh on Virgin's website, in order to use the seat selector; I bought from the station instead, but I am now wondering what's going on...

(It's a mapped route - on GV. Moorfields & Edinburgh are group stations, so no fares check. Tickets are routed via Preston or Any permitted. Hopefully I haven't missed anything really obvious!)

 

[JB_B]

View attachment 66571 This one seems a bit strange to me...

There is a direct Liverpool Lime St to Edinburgh service on Sunday (11:08, 4th August),
but some journey planners, including National Rail, Trainline, and Trainscanbecheaper, are not allowing it, other than for a journey from Lime St. only.

e.g., Moorfields to Edinburgh does not allow using this service.

As you say it's definitely a valid route. It wasn't difficult to get Trainscanbecheaper to offer this service starting from Moorfields. (See below) but I had to to select 'Fast' rather than 'Popular' or 'Value'.

 

[tony_mac]

Interesting - that's a bit strange it shows for 'fast' and 'value', but not 'popular' (even when looking at flexible fares, which are all the same price).
If you start at Hamilton Square, it doesn't show it at all - but will let you change on to that service at Preston! (9:56 - 14:21 rather than 10:51 - 14:21)

 

[M28361M]

According to RTT that service goes via Newton-le-Willows and Golborne Junction to Wigan North Western. Is this what is confusing the journey planners? I notice that map GV on http://data.atoc.org/routeing-maps does not have a line from Newton-le-Willows to Wigan via Golborne.

No problem booking tickets from Lime Street as the "direct train" rule overrides the routeing guide, but as soon as you make a journey requiring a connection, there will be problems.

 

[tony_mac]

Aha - well spotted!
Yes, it looks like this isn't actually a mapped route at all. That would explain why changing onto it at Preston is allowed.

I still don't know why it is being accepted for some journeys, and not others, and by some journey planners, but at least I can summise that the unusual routeing is likely to be causing problems.
Lime St to stations beyond Edinburgh are allowed on this service, despite not being a direct train, so it's not entirely down to that.

 

[yorkie]

This train takes a non permitted route.

But if the origin is "Liverpool Stations" , it's a through train so there is no need to consult the Routeing Guide.

Hopefully it won't be long before someone at RDG sees this thread and fixes it

(You could contact Virgin Trains customer services, but the message may or may not get through to the right person and it could be a while before it's fixed, so posting here is probably the fastest way to get it resolved!)

 

[tony_mac]

My origin is just outside Liverpool, so can't rely on the through train rule.

This problem also shows up with the (regular) 1759 Lime St to Glasgow Central itinerary - that's also shown as invalid because it takes this route to Wigan, but that's the only one that I can see in normal service.

 

[M28361M]

Hopefully it won't be long before someone at RDG sees this thread and fixes it

Hopefully it will be fixed before the regular Liverpool-Glasgow TPE services start. At least one of them is planned to travel via Newton-le-Willows, as I understand it.

I assume Newton-le-Willows to Wigan has been left off map GV because it only gets a parliamentary service at the moment.

My origin is just outside Liverpool, so can't rely on the through train rule.

Even though it is technically invalid, I cannot imagine any member of staff would take issue with you travelling on this train with a through walk-up ticket from the Wirral.

 

[yorkie]

I assume Newton-le-Willows to Wigan has been left off map GV because it only gets a parliamentary service at the moment.

Looks like more than one service per week is booked to use this route but yes it's an oversight.

Even though it is technically invalid, I cannot imagine any member of staff would take issue with you travelling on this train with a through walk-up ticket from the Wirral.

Tickets are arguably de-facto valid for this route but just can't be offered by booking engines; it's a similar concept to the 'hidden' electronic time restrictions in some ways.

 

[tony_mac]

I'm really not worried about having a problem with the journey, it was just a minor inconvenience that I had to go to a station to get a seat reservation.
And even that didn't really matter, as I took the opportunity to get a Weekend First - which you can't seem to do online either for Liverpool - Edinburgh. In fact, I couldn't even find the price online, until I remembered that BRFares has it!

 

[tony_mac]

So, another related (ish) question...
I have a return ticket from New Brighton to Edinburgh, route via Carlisle.
But I might like to return via Darlington, to visit friends, but the only route for this journey is via Carlisle.

Is there any way to do this?
The last time I did this it was with a ticket from Liverpool, which does have an Any Permitted fare, so I just paid the route excess.

Would there be any chance of getting an 'excess' to return only as far as Liverpool - and then excessing the route?
Any other thoughts? I could get a return from Carlisle, but that adds a lot of time onto the journey.
(And it seems like a perfectly reasonable route to have absolutely no fares available!)