London to Church Stretton - permitted route via Crewe?

[philjo]

I am going to church Stretton on 28th December.
The ticket will originate from Potters Bar (boundary of my season ticket) & I will travel via London.

I usually travel to CTT via Paddington & Newport but that option is not available this time due to engineering works that week in the Severn tunnel area so there will be no through trains from Paddington to South Wales all week.

The online journey planner on national rail site shows that the quickest (& easiest) journey is to get the xx:07 liverpool train from Euston (or the xx:10) & change at Crewe - there is a cross-platform change there onto a train direct to Chruch Stretton.
However, it is indicating that there are no return fares available for this route (other than advance fares which are available)

on the NXEC site, all journey options shown involve several changes & take at least 30 minutes longer than it would travelling via Crewe due to connection times in Birmingham & shrewsbury (plus a least 1 extra connection and the ones a Birmingham/wolverhampton etc would not be a convenient as a cross-platform change at Crewe)

If you specify Shrewsbury as the destination, fares on the NEXEC site do now provide a journey option to travel via Crewe, using the same trains that I would use for Church Stretton (if the any permitted fare is used).
there is also a lower priced "route Birmingham" fare to Shrewsbury.

The Church Stretton fares are slightly higher than those to Shrewsbury, so why are the journey options to Church Stretton not showing up as being valid via Crewe when it is the quickest route?
The only difference I can see is that fares to shrewsbury are priced by VT and use off-peak returns. CTT fares are priced by FGW and a super off-peak is available, but still costs more than the off-peak return to Shrewsbury.

On the Routeing guide, they are essentially the same London-Shrewsbury journey
Maps BD+LM show Euston-Crewe & also Crewe-Shrewsbury (& onwards to Newport)

On the basis that this is the quickest & easiest journey option & I am using exactly the same trains as a journey to Shrewsbury which is permitted via crewe I would argue that travelling to church Stretton is also valid that way but there is probably an error in the online booking systems.
Would the experts on this forum tend to agree with this?

Fyi, on the return journey I will be using WSMR back to Marylebone (Can't use WSMR on the outward journey as there isn't a northbound train at the time I need to arrive in Shrewsbury)

As an afterthough: if you try Potters Bar-craven Arms on National rail site for 28th Dec, default journey time outwards is 5 hours 38 minutes
if you add "via crewe" the journey time is dramatically reduced to 3 hours 56 minutes, but the return fares are again not shown.

Many thanks,
Jeremy

 

[John @ home]

The online journey planner on national rail site shows that the quickest (& easiest) journey is to get the xx:07 liverpool train from Euston (or the xx:10) & change at Crewe - there is a cross-platform change there onto a train direct to Chruch Stretton.
However, it is indicating that there are no return fares available for this route (other than advance fares which are available)

The routeing points for Church Stretton are Craven Arms and Shrewsbury. The routeing points for Potters Bar are Finsbury Park and Stevenage Group. We need to do a fares check to determine which are the appropriate routeing points to use for a Potters Bar - Church Stretton journey.

The routeing guide tells us how to do this.

If you are unsure whether a particular routeing point for the origin station is the correct one compare the fare from that routeing point to the destination with the fare for the throughout journey - it is an appropriate routeing point only if that fare is the same or lower than the fare for the throughout journey from the origin station to the destination station.
Follow the same procedure if you are not certain that a particular routeing point for the destination station is the correct one. Compare the fare from that routeing point to the origin station with the fare for the throughout journey - it is an appropriate routeing point only if that fare is the same or lower than the fare for the throughout journey from the origin station to the destination station.
All fares comparisons must be made using one of the following single ticket types:
• Standard Open Single (SOS)
• Standard Day Single (SDS)
• Saver Single (SVS)
• Cheap Day Single (CDS)
In exceptional circumstances, due to local fares policies, a direct comparison may not be possible. If this is the case and the origin station or destination station has a lower fare of the type selected than all its routeing points, the Standard Single (Day or Open) fares should be used for comparison purposes.

First, determining the origin routeing point:
Potters Bar - Church Stretton route + Any Permitted SVS £76
Stevenage - Church Stretton route + Any Permitted SVS £85
Finsbury Park - Church Stretton route + Any Permitted SVS £77

Ah! Both Stevenage and Finsbury Park fail the fares check. So let's try again, using SOS fares:
Potters Bar - Church Stretton route + Any Permitted SOS £89.50
Stevenage - Church Stretton route + Any Permitted SOS £93
Finsbury Park - Church Stretton route + Any Permitted SOS £89.50

So the appropriate routeing point for Potters Bar is Finsbury Park. Now, determining the destination routeing point:
Church Stretton - Potters Bar route + Any Permitted SVS £76
Craven Arms - Potters Bar route + Any Permitted SVS £76
Shrewsbury - Potters Bar route + Any Permitted SVS £59.90
So both Craven Arms and Shrewsbury are appropriate destination routeing points for a Potters Bar - Church Stretton journey.

Permitted routes for Finsbury Park - Craven Arms and Finsbury Park - Shrewsbury are both: LONDON.
Permitted routes for London Group - Craven Arms are: BD+CE+WR, BD+LW+WW, BD+WR or CA+CS.
None of these allow London - Crewe - Craven Arms.

Permitted routes for London Group - Shrewsbury are: BD+LM, BD+LW+WW, CA+GC, CS or LM.
BD+LM allows Euston - Rugby - (Birmingham or Lichfield) - Stafford - Crewe (on map LM), then Crewe - Shrewsbury (on map BD).

Therefore a Potters Bar - Craven Arms SVR ticket is permitted via Crewe.

Maps BD+LM show Euston-Crewe & also Crewe-Shrewsbury (& onwards to Newport) ... I would argue that travelling to church Stretton is also valid that way but there is probably an error in the online booking systems.
Would the experts on this forum tend to agree with this?

Different online booking engines use different approximations of the routeing guide. Sometimes this works in favour of the passenger and a route which would not be valid in the guide is available by one or more of the booking engines. In that case, we advise passengers to print a copy of the itinerary offered. We have not known a passenger in possession of a booking engine's itinerary to be challenged.

But sometimes one or more booking engines do not offer a route which is permitted according to the guide. But the guide is part of the contract between with the train companies and travel by that route must be allowed. Where passengers are in doubt, we advise them to print out the relevant pages of the guide and carry them on the journey. In this case, that would be maps BD and LM, and Section C page 612 (of 1149) which shows permitted routes between London Group and Shrewsbury.

John

 

[philjo]

John,

many thanks for this
Much appreciated.

Jeremy