London Euston to Sheffield LNR Super Off Peak Return

[JV_hunter]

Just checking this ticket for a return trip to Sheffield over Christmas:

London Euston to Sheffield Super off-peak return LNR & XC only.

I'm travelling to Sheffield on the 27th, where I believe I can take any train on that day as the restrictions don't apply on bank holidays.
Returning on the 30th, there seems to be a CrossCountry train departing Sheffield at 15:56, arriving at Tamworth at 16:48.
This connects with the 17:20 LNR train back to Euston.

The issue is I can't seem to find any journey planners to offer this to me, only offering the 13:55 and 19:56 departures, which are uncomfortably early / late.
The restrictions on brfares only say I can't depart the origin between 16:00 and 19:00, so is it OK to be travelling on the 15:56? Will Crosscountry be ok with this?

Thanks all.

 

[Watershed]

Just checking this ticket for a return trip to Sheffield over Christmas:

London Euston to Sheffield Super off-peak return LNR & XC only.

I'm travelling to Sheffield on the 27th, where I believe I can take any train on that day as the restrictions don't apply on bank holidays.
Returning on the 30th, there seems to be a CrossCountry train departing Sheffield at 15:56, arriving at Tamworth at 16:48.
This connects with the 17:20 LNR train back to Euston.

The issue is I can't seem to find any journey planners to offer this to me, only offering the 13:55 and 19:56 departures, which are uncomfortably early / late.
The restrictions on brfares only say I can't depart the origin between 16:00 and 19:00, so is it OK to be travelling on the 15:56? Will Crosscountry be ok with this?

Thanks all.

The problem is that the electronic data used by journey planners doesn't incorporate the 'exception' that:

A connecting service can be used to complete a journey begun at a valid time.

This is down to the fact that West Midlands Trains (the company that set the fare) have used the same restriction code - and hence electronic data - for journeys ranging all the way from London to Rugby as far as Liverpool and Sheffield.

Really there should be one restriction code for each plausible route (and in particular a different one for journeys which require a change of trains) - but they've gone for an overly simplified approach.

You are perfectly fine taking the 15:56 train and changing at Tamworth.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I should perhaps mention that this issue has existed for over 10 years now, and at least all LNR guards and barrier staff know about it. If you can't buy the itinerary you want, just grab it from the TVM on the day or book for another time and ask XC Twitter for a reservation for that bit if you want one.

 

[Llandudno]

Just checking this ticket for a return trip to Sheffield over Christmas:

London Euston to Sheffield Super off-peak return LNR & XC only.

I'm travelling to Sheffield on the 27th, where I believe I can take any train on that day as the restrictions don't apply on bank holidays.
Returning on the 30th, there seems to be a CrossCountry train departing Sheffield at 15:56, arriving at Tamworth at 16:48.
This connects with the 17:20 LNR train back to Euston.

The issue is I can't seem to find any journey planners to offer this to me, only offering the 13:55 and 19:56 departures, which are uncomfortably early / late.
The restrictions on brfares only say I can't depart the origin between 16:00 and 19:00, so is it OK to be travelling on the 15:56? Will Crosscountry be ok with this?

Thanks all.

May I ask why you have chosen this route to travel between London and Sheffield, are there engineering works taking place on the MML or are EMR charging ridiculous fares?

 

[Watershed]

May I ask why you have chosen this route to travel between London and Sheffield, are there engineering works taking place on the MML or are EMR charging ridiculous fares?

I imagine it's down to price - it's £51.90 vs £84 for the equivalent Super Off-Peak. The Off-Peak, with much less onerous restrictions, is £62.50 vs £134.

 

[JV_hunter]

I imagine it's down to price - it's £51.90 vs £84 for the equivalent Super Off-Peak. The Off-Peak, with much less onerous restrictions, is £62.50 vs £134.

Yes, it's due to price. LNR have been great in these cheap trips to Manchester and Liverpool, so rather happy when I discovered Sheffield too.

They don't make it easy to find those tickets though, which is a shame as LNR are more than acceptable in my view, and for Sheffield, the timings are only 30min slower compared to the MML, and broadly similar with the ECML.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[robbeech]

Yes, it's due to price. LNR have been great in these cheap trips to Manchester and Liverpool, so rather happy when I discovered Sheffield too.

They don't make it easy to find those tickets though, which is a shame as LNR are more than acceptable in my view, and for Sheffield, the timings are only 30min slower compared to the MML, and broadly similar with the ECML.

Thanks for the advice.

Part of the issue is journey planners tend to focus heavily on time (aswell as the aforementioned restriction data) . I’m surprised the timings are so close I always thought it was about an hour longer than straight up the MML. Perhaps connections aren’t better on these particular journeys. It’s well worth the saving if you have the time, the only issue is being an operator restricted ticket you can’t excess out of it if you wanted to go back a different way.

 

[richardderby]

I have taken the 1556 from Sheffield with this ticket, and it is perfectly fine. I prefer the 8 car electric train from Tamworth to Euston, rather than chancing a 4 car meridian turning up full and standing to St Pancras. The significant fare saving is a bonus too..

 

[sonic2009]

The saving is a bonus as if you were to walk up and take the 1600 EMR service to London St Pancras you would arrive at 1826. If you take the 1556 XC service to Tamworth and then the LNWR service at 1720 you would arrive into London Euston at 1850.

A 24 minute time difference for a cheaper ticket. I know which route I would take.

That's why personally now unless a 350/2 turns up, i don't mind using LNWR between Crewe and Euston.