London Midland Super Off Peak Milton Keynes to Lichfield City

[IanD]

The restriction code on this £18 ticket has the wording

"Not valid for travel on London
Midland services timed to
DEPART the origin station on
the ticket between 1630 and
1930 in either direction,
except on the 1902 Crewe to
Northampton service and on the
1846 Saturday service from
London Euston to stations
between Nuneaton and Crewe
inclusive."

I'm planning a visit to Lichfield on a Saturday in a couple of weeks, returning from Lichfield City approx 1500 but wish to break my journey at Tamworth 1519 resuming at 1720, then Atherstone 1728 resuming at 1828. Would this be valid as neither the Tamworth nor the Atherstone train will have departed Lichfield City during the prohibited period?

The other alternative would be to use the LM only off-peak return ticket which is £22.95 in the current LM 15% off sale but I'd rather spend that £5 extra in the pubs in Tamworth and Atherstone!

 

[Romilly]

The restriction then goes on to say:

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

 

[bb21]

Is it still a connection if the journey has been broken?

 

[Romilly]

It's not the easiest restriction to apply to what the OP proposes. Each train the OP will catch will have come from Lichfield Trent Valley which is the station at which the OP will have needed to make a connection. In that sense, each of the the three southbound trains that the OP catches will have connected at Lichfield TV with the OP's train from Lichfield City. Does it matter that the second and third of them are not the first possible connection out of the train from Lichfield City? Not obviously: after all, we talk about having to get a later connection, or we might miss a tight connection as a result of having to use station facilities.

On the other hand, the later connections can be said not to be the trains that connect with the particular train from Lichfield City: the connecting train is the train that, in all the particular circumstances (railway and personal), is the first possible connecting train. The later southbound trains are connections out of later trains from Lichfield City.

I therefore wouldn't like to say what the correct answer is, although I personally wouldn't do what the OP proposes on the particular ticket as it seems to run contrary to the spirit of the restriction, and its technical validity appears to turn on an unpredictable balancing of arguments.

 

[IanD]

Thanks for this. Looks like the trip is cancelled anyway because the organiser has decided it is too much to pay a fiver extra (can't disagree) and won't consider GroupSave on the off-peak ticket (which would bring that down to £17.80 each so cheaper than the super off peak with full flexibility) in case some people want to come home early. Those with railcards will just have to whistle.