In the past few weeks I've seen (as an RPO at Euston) a number of people with Any Permitted tickets from London to Huddersfield wanting to travel via Manchester. To me that sounds completely illogical, and that the best way would be travelling via King's Cross and changing at either Wakefield or Leeds.
I got one of my colleagues to check on the Avantix machine and there's a separate fare for London to Huddersfield Route Manchester, but the fares seem rather odd. A saver return on Any Permitted is 30p cheaper via Manchester, but the open tickets are all much more expensive via Manchester.
Looking at timings they're actually pretty similar (all around the 3 hours mark, give or take ten minutes), but the existence of a route Manchester ticket is confusing. Would an Any Permitted ticket be valid via Manchester? Or just on the East Coast? I tried to get my head around the route manual last night but it confused me entirely.
(Incidentally, I had one person wanting to go to Harrogate via Manchester, and another wanting to go to Newcastle via Manchester. I was right in saying that isn't allowed wasn't I? They're completely stupid routes to my mind, in that you spend just as much time going to Manchester as you would to go as far as Leeds/York, and you have to spend an extra hour going across the Pennines).
I got one of my colleagues to check on the Avantix machine and there's a separate fare for London to Huddersfield Route Manchester, but the fares seem rather odd. A saver return on Any Permitted is 30p cheaper via Manchester, but the open tickets are all much more expensive via Manchester.
Looking at timings they're actually pretty similar (all around the 3 hours mark, give or take ten minutes), but the existence of a route Manchester ticket is confusing. Would an Any Permitted ticket be valid via Manchester? Or just on the East Coast? I tried to get my head around the route manual last night but it confused me entirely.
(Incidentally, I had one person wanting to go to Harrogate via Manchester, and another wanting to go to Newcastle via Manchester. I was right in saying that isn't allowed wasn't I? They're completely stupid routes to my mind, in that you spend just as much time going to Manchester as you would to go as far as Leeds/York, and you have to spend an extra hour going across the Pennines).