Permitted Route Query

[Proud Salopian]

I will be travelling from Church Stretton to Euston in March and want to buy advance single tickets to get me there and back (the return journey is the following day). Having checked online for such tickets, which I found with good prices, I went to Shrewsbury station this morning to buy them.

The woman at the counter was adamant that I could not buy Church Stretton-Euston via Crewe tickets. Instead she recommended that I go via Shrewsbury and Birmingham, which takes longer and at a far greater cost. I decided to have a look online again.

I have just bought the advance singles online (which I didn't want to do, as I prefer to buy tickets at a ticket counter and have them straight away). Church Stretton to Euston via Crewe (and vice versa for the return journey). Now I am thinking something is not right..? So I'm hoping that someone here can give me the answers to the following...

1) Simply, is Church Stretton - Euston via Crewe a permitted route?

2) Why did the woman at Shrewsbury not sell me the tickets, also stating that if I tried online it wouldn't work, when I then was able to buy the said tickets online less than an hour later. (She stated that it was not a permitted route.)

3) The advance tickets bought do stipulate that "This ticket is only valid for travel on Virgin Trains West Coast services and connections" - is this going to cause me any problems (i.e. going from Church Stretton to Crewe with Arriva)? The seat reservations are for both the Virgin and Arriva trains.

:roll:

 

[Death]

Hail, Salopian!
My knowlege/experience of using the Routeing Guide and determining permitted routes isn't that good admittedly, but - From reading previous discussions on this forum - I believe that if your itinerary shows a route running Ch. Stretton > Crewe > Euston, then neither Arriva nor VT can claim thy route to be invalid as it's a booked route.

Personally, I would advise printing off a copy of thy itinerary (Preferably with a ticket number or booking reference on it, if possible) and carrying it with ye whilst travelling. If any staff raise queries over the validity of thy route, showing them that should hopefully lay the matter to rest. 8)

 

[philjo]

I asked this question on this forum a few months ago, & it was generally agreed that it is a permitted route.
I travelled via Crewe to get to Church Stretton last month (using Potters Bar-Church Stretton super-off peak return "any permitted" ticket) & had no problems with ticket acceptance on either the Pendo from Euston or the ATW from Crewe-CTT.

I have not seen many advance fares available to CTT from London (if there are they are generally via Newport), but lots are available to Shrewsbury using exactly the same services.

I have used Advance London-Shrewsbury tickets in the past - always via Crewe.

I have had problems in the past trying to purchase tickets to CTT via Crewe online if wanting to make seat reservations. At one stage, only the national rail website was allowing me to print out a journey plan showing this route.

However, checking recently for another trip to Church Stretton at Easter, I see that the VT website now shows this as the default route option - previously it always sent you via Birmingham, but booking just to Shrewsbury it would always show up the option of going via Crewe.
In fact, I tried entering "via Wolverhampton" as a journey option to see what fares were offered, & for some journey options it made me get the pendo from Euston to Wolves, then get XC from there via Stafford & change at Crewe for the onward service to CTT!

If you try to purchase Euston-Shrewsbury tickets, it is easy to book these online via Crewe.
I would try purchasing the tickets online - selecting collect from machine at your local station if you don't want them posted to you.
Alternatively, print out the journey option from the VT website or national rail website & take this to the station to show to the ticket clerk.

London-church Stretton via Crewe takes almost exactly 4 hours, with 1 cross-platform change at Crewe.
(the only issue is that you normally have to get the Chester/holyhead voyager service northbound from Euston to Crewe - 20-25 minute wait- the Manchester Pendo just misses the ATW train so you would have a 57 minute wait. (when I went it was a special timetable just after Christmas so the Liverpool pendo also stopped at Crewe about 3 minutes ahead of the voyager - it doesn't normally stop there.)
Going via Crewe is the quickest route from London.
it takes at least 30 minutes longer via Birmingham with an additional change.
On several occasions I have travelled from Paddington & changed at Newport - this is also about an hour longer than going via Crewe, but much better than changing in Birmingham! on sundays this can be a better route.

There is also a london-Shrewsbury "route Birmingham" ticket which is much cheaper than the "any permitted" - an easement in the routeing guide says that "route birmingham" tickets are also valid via Crewe (it think this is basically just preventing travel via Newport). However, I haven't tried booking these tickets for a journey via Crewe.
Only thing is that you can only get day tickets for Shrewsbury-CTT, so need to get 2 singles to get to/from CTT if using with the cheaper london-shrewsbury advance singles or the "route birmingham" off-peak return ticket. This would reduce the cost savings made from the "any permitted" ticket through to CTT.
I haven't yet verified whether the "route Birmingham " tickets would be valid also on WSMR from London to Shrewsbury - can anyone confirm this? - the WSMR service passes through Birmingham International so I would take it that this would be OK.
I have always returned back to London using WSMR from Shrewsbury-Marylebone - There isn't a suitable northbound service at the times I want to travel (i.e. leaving London around 9-10:30 am on weekdays), so this is not an option for me on the outward journey.

The tickets from London to Shrewsbury are priced by VT.
tickets to CTT are priced by FGW, so these are super-off peak.
I think this is where problems have occurred in the past with trying to book journeys via Crewe to CTT, as the advance fares from CTT are generally routed via Newport, whereas the ones from Shrewsbury were routed via Crewe or Wolverhampton.

 

[Proud Salopian]

Thanks for the replies. I have bought my advance singles online and will print out and take with me the itinerary and booking confirmation.

Church Stretton-Crewe-Euston (and vice versa) is a mere 3 hours!

I'm still wondering why on Earth that woman at Shrewsbury said that it wasn't allowed. Either doesn't know what she's talking about or, erm... she's been working there for years! Is she giving poor advice to customers all the time? She did (seem to) check her computer but I can't see how that would give a different result to all the online systems. When I enquired how it could be that it wasn't a permitted route when the online systems showed it AND gave the various prices for the advance singles, she just said "oh that's the internet... it just gives you the fasted route... when you try to book it, it won't work..."

I might write to Arriva to complain.

Just to add, the advance singles I got are only £8.25 each! That's Church Stretton-Euston via Crewe and Euston-Church Stretton via Crewe.

The online systems don't mention the via Newport or via Shrewsbury/Birmingham routes for the times I searched.

 

[dan_atki]

This is an interesting one. I would say that a Potters Bar to Church Stretton allowing travel via Crewe isn't definitive in the scheme of things (especially where the Routeing Guide is concerned!).

My interpretation of the NRG is that on an 'Any Permitted' Church Stretton to London Terminals, the ticket is not valid. WebTIS (i.e. the Govia/East Coast booking engine) seems to agree with me, refusing to give me any fares from Church Stretton to Euston.

On the other hand, this leaves two questions unanswered:
1) Why does TheTrainLine (and its TOC variants) give Crewe as the default (and valid) route?
2) Why are there VWC+Conn tickets available for Church Stretton to London?

I suspect I have the answers for both.

In the case of 1) we have to apply the fares check to determine which associated routeing point we can use: Craven Arms or Shrewsbury.

Let's note the following:
Church Stretton - London Terminals Any Permitted SVS £39.00
Shrewsbury - London Terminals Any Permitted SVS £56.30
Craven Arms - London Terminals SVS £39.00

Church Stretton - London Terminals Any Permitted SOS £89.50
Shrewsbury - London Terminals Any Permitted SOS £111.00
Craven Arms - London Terminals SOS £89.50

It would seem that Craven Arms is the valid Routeing Point in this case... but wait.

Church Stretton - London Terminals Any Permitted SVR £68.00
Shrewsbury - London Terminals Any Permitted SVR £57.30
Craven Arms - London Terminals SVR £68.00

It would appear that Shrewsbury could be used as an appropriate routeing point too. However, we note that comparisons must be made using types SOS, SDS, SVS, or CDS as per the routeing guide instructions.

This got stricter with the 'new' NRG - in the old one it just said to 'compare fares of the same type', allowing the SVR comparison to be legitimate. I suspect, without checking, that Shrewsbury to London is valid via Crewe into Euston. If this is the case, then it is likely TheTrainLine has not been reprogrammed to do the fares check as the current rules stipulate - hence allowing your journey.

Craven Arms to London most certainly isn't valid into Euston, let alone be valid at Crewe!

As for 2), either Virgin think it should be a valid route and so have provided Advance tickets for the flow, or these have existed since the time of the old routeing guide which would have allowed travel via Shrewsbury anyway.

Either way, such a thing is not your fault and with reservations for both services, the guard/TM would have to accept your itinerary as given.

With regards to why the ticket clerk was unable/unwilling to sell your ticket, I suspect RJIS has been updated and so will not allow routes via Crewe as TheTrainLine does. Put another way, she could have known (either through checking the NRG herself, or through a previous customer query) that such a route was invalid, and suspected online systems would not allow it either.

 

[janb]

Just checked on Journey Planner (RJIS replacement) and picking a random time and date (10.37 24/02) it shows Church Stretton to Euston via Crewe as valid offering the chance to book Advance (from £9.50!) and Any Permitted tickets on those trains.

 

[dan_atki]

Just checked on Journey Planner (RJIS replacement) and picking a random time and date (10.37 24/02) it shows Church Stretton to Euston via Crewe as valid offering the chance to book Advance (from £9.50!) and Any Permitted tickets on those trains.

Now that is interesting - it would seem then it is only WebTIS religiously sticking to the rules of the NRG!

 

[Proud Salopian]

I got my advance tickets for £8.25 each way, but if I went at other times on those days I could have got £6.25 tickets!

 

[philjo]

The East Coast booking system is refusing to come up with fares/times via Crewe, but both NR & VT sites will do so.
However, the East coast site does give the option of returning using WSMR from Shrewsbury- this does NOT appear on the NR/VT sites.

The NR site also gave me one unlikely journey option for Potters Bar-CTT on Good Friday (2/4/10) changing at Peterborough & Stockport !!! (journey time is shown as 8hours so won't bother trying this as it is under 4 via Euston & crewe!)

 

[Proud Salopian]

It amazes me how there can be such chaos with the ticketing system! I'm sure other European countries don't have such problems. In Switzerland, for example, the ticketing is simple and fair.