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National Rail vs Trainline timetables

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paulas99

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Joined
3 Feb 2010
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1
Hi all

Possibly a stupid question, but are the trainline timetables accurate?

There are different number of changes between routes and missing trains from trainline?

Regards
Paul
 
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dan_atki

Established Member
Joined
1 Nov 2006
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1,879
This sort of problem occurs as a result of how the different engines work.

National Rail tends to find the quickest route from A to B, although this may not necessarily be valid on an A-B ticket (telling you later you need an A-C and a C-B to travel on that journey).

thetrainline (also its TOC based variants and webTIS as used on the East Coast site) will find you routes and trains valid on an A-B ticket as they actually sell tickets. Selecting the 'timetables only' option on webTIS will bring up a whole range of different trains for which a through ticket is also not valid on.

There will also be differences between thetrainline and webTIS as each have a slightly different interpretation of the National Routeing Guide (which determines which routes are valid for your journey). For obscure routes, printing out the itenerary and getting seat reservations for the trains (if possible) will normally be enough for on train staff to be sure you're on a permitted route.
 
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