Routing Guide Help Please

[Weary Walker]

This may be a daft question and badly worded but here goes.

I intend to travel on Sunday as follows.

Three Bridges to Wye

walk to Folkestone

Folkestone to Three Bridges.

For ticketing I am getting a Three Bridges to Wye return (travelling via Ashford Int) & a single Folkestone to Ashford International
[With Network Card & via Southern website this seems best value]

Going is fine - I will go Three Bridges - Redhill - Tonbridge - Wye

Coming back Folkestone to Ashford Int and this is where my question really starts. I can see that returning the way I came is valid. Is it valid to travel via Rye?

I have tried to use the routing guide and got a bit stuck.
First part identifying routing points: Wye has four associated points - which one do I use? (Ashford Int, Dover Priory, Ramsgate & Faversham)
Notes say to compare one of the ticket types:
• Standard Open Single (SOS)
• Standard Day Single (SDS)
• Saver Single (SVS)
• Cheap Day Single (CDS)
How do I find these prices - I know let's try the National Rail journey planner.

Ooops
Single from Ashford International to Three Bridges on Sunday gives me 6 different prices from £14.90 to £38.40 just for Off-peak. No clue which of these I should be using.

Can anyone explain simply how I proceed please.

 

[N Levers]

National rail Enquiries comes up with £13.15 single Folkstone - Three Bridges via Rye (with network card)

 

[yorkie]

Someone with more time may be able to go through the Routeing Guide for this particular query manually, but...

National rail Enquiries comes up with £13.15 single Folkstone - Three Bridges via Rye (with network card)

...the National Rail Enquiries planner will be checking the Routeing Guide, though the interpretation used by this planner does differ slightly from that used by WebTIS, and also Thetrainline-based sites, and also with what experts here come up with.

For most journeys the interpretations will be the same. For some, the interpretations may differ.

The fact that National Rail enquiries comes up with an itinerary means you have strong evidence that it is valid. I recommend printing it off if in doubt.

If you can get a booking site to come up with such an itinerary, and you book it, and print the confirmation showing the itinerary, that is even stronger evidence of a contract which shows you are entitled to take the route shown in the itinerary.

 

[sonic2009]

From what i can see your ticket is valid to come back via Rye. Valid on Maps LB + CW

Wye-Ashford International-Hastings Group-Lewes-Three Bridges, you can also go Lewes-Brighton-Three Bridges.

 

[island]

Can I ask what the question is? Do you mean "Is a journey from Folkestone to Three Bridges via Rye valid using a single from Folkestone to Ashford International and the return half of a ticket from Three Bridges to Wye?"

 

[Weary Walker]

Thank you Sonic - how did you work out that Ashford is the appropriate routing point not Ramsgate, Dover or Faversham?
(I worked out that if Ashford was valid I could do it from the maps but couldn't resolve how to decide if it was)

Yorkie, thank you - but not sure how to get an itinerary of a return with different routes coming and going. Might have a play on the journey planner and see if it will co-operate.

N-Levers, thank you but my tickets will be Three Bridges - Wye (return) £8.80 with Network Card & Southern online discount + £4.10 Folk-Ash = £12.90

It isn't essential but as I don't know what time I will be returning any more than late afternoon I was looking for flexibility.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Can I ask what the question is? Do you mean "Is a journey from Folkestone to Three Bridges via Rye valid using a single from Folkestone to Ashford International and the return half of a ticket from Three Bridges to Wye?"

Possibly.

Let me reword it slightly.

The question is what routes are valid from Ashford to Three Bridges using the return portion of Three Bridges to Wye. (Looking at ticket I from a fortnight ago it is route Not London)

 

[sonic2009]

In answer to your reworded question. Valid routes Wye to Three Bridges with a NOT London Ticket are :

Maps LB + CS = Map CS = Wye (Ashford Roueting Point) - Ashford INTL - Tonbridge - Redhill - Gatwick Airport - Three Bridges

Maps LB + CW = Map CW = Wye (Ashford Roueting Point) - Ashford Intl - Rye - Hastings. Map LB = Hastings - Eastbourne - Lewes then you can go either Plumpton - Haywards Heath - Three Bridges or Lewes - Falmer - Brighton - Haywards Heath - Three Bridges.

These are the only routes i can see that avoid london.

 

[clagmonster]

First part identifying routing points: Wye has four associated points - which one do I use? (Ashford Int, Dover Priory, Ramsgate & Faversham)
Notes say to compare one of the ticket types:
• Standard Open Single (SOS)
• Standard Day Single (SDS)
• Saver Single (SVS)
• Cheap Day Single (CDS)
How do I find these prices - I know let's try the National Rail journey planner.

Ooops
Single from Ashford International to Three Bridges on Sunday gives me 6 different prices from £14.90 to £38.40 just for Off-peak. No clue which of these I should be using.

Can anyone explain simply how I proceed please.

Personally, I find the National Rail site a bit tricky for the purposes of the fare comparison test, I prefer www.eastcoast.co.uk
Essentially, search for a single for the whole journey, then when determining whether a routeing point is appropriate for you origin station, find the corresponding single fares for each origin routeing point to your destination. If said fare is less than or equal to the fare for the full journey, then the routeing point is appropriate. If said fare is greater than the fare for the full journey, then the routeing point is not appropriate.
It may become more clear if I work the example.
As you say, Wye is related to four routeing points: Ashford Int, Dover Priory, Ramsgate & Faversham. First, we look up the Wye-Three Bridges single fares, and get the following:
CDS £34.00 (any permitted)
SDS £35.80 (any permitted)

Next, we look up the fares from each of the routeing points
Ashford Int-Three Bridges
CDS £34.00
SDS £35.80
Both these fares are equal to the fares from Wye, so Ashford is an appropriate routeing point.

Dover Priory-Three Bridges
CDS £42.20
SDS £44.60
Both these fares are greater than the fares from Wye, so Dover is not an appropriate routeing point.

Ramsgate-Three Bridges
CDS £42.60
SDS £45.40
Both these fares are greater than the fares from Wye, so Ramsgate is not an appropriate routeing point.

Faversham-Three Bridges
CDS £32.10
SDS £33.70
Both these fares are less than the fares from Wye, so Faversham is an appropriate routeing point.

Hope this helps, and if you have any further questions, feel free to ask.

 

[globetrotter]

There's an alternative solution to questions like this.

I'm not sure if I agree that eastcoast.co.uk is better. Why is it better for this purpose? What eastcoast does NOT allow is multiple options in Advanced Search.

If multiple options are available (e.g. National Rail or First Great Western) one can add one by one as many as THREE 'via' selections. Or two 'via' selections and an 'avoid' selection. The eastcoast site has only one option, the choice between 'via' and 'avoid'. For example, you have the idea that a complicated journey might be possible by a routing that passes through different places that perhaps you wanted to visit and that it might be cheaper to 'avoid London'.

I've found that entering one 'via' option may not be enough and the website might respond that no fares can be found or not offer trains using the routing you were hoping for. You can enter up to three selections to change trains and/or avoid e.g. London to follow a selected routing. Let's say you don't have access to, can't work out or simply don't want to work through the maps and the SDS/CDS fare test mentioned above. Also worth trying is increasing the increments from "use recommended" upwards to 1/2 hr, 1 hour and so on. In other words you're telling the website exactly how and which way you would like to go - it does not take too long to do this compared with messing around with routing guide maps and fare checks.

So instead you can just look at a general rail map and see where you pass through or might have to change trains and enter those points. If the website comes up with the same fare as a more straightforward route or direct route, then you know that the routing you selected is valid. You can print this out and show it if required, a huge advantage although it seems impossible to print the routing and the fare at the same time as they come up in separate overlapping windows.

To see if you can go one way and come back by another route, you do a new search again using Advanced Options. Of course it's trial and error to some extent but it does not take too long and is not as tedious as establishing routing points and then working out all the routing point fares one by one and comparing.

Using the CDS/SDS method, you never know if you made some mistake along the way ... until challenged and then it's too late.

For the experts, try SEF-BIT via SOU (offpeak) and back via GUI. Eastcoast says no fares are available via SOU but does allow via GUI. If you put in BSK instead of SOU it offers trains via CLJ not via SOU. National Rail (after selecting the right options - I had a lot of trouble with that at first, especially entering them all one by one) offers me a well priced (by FGW) one month offpeak open return 'not London' via either SOU or GUI (so both routings are valid). What was interesting, as I discovered in the course of researching this, is that it also allows travel via Banbury and Bicester North as well as Oxford. Looking at any map, at first sight such a journey might seem impossible but it IS a permitted route.

 

[dzug2]

Isn't an off peak day return from Three Bridges to Folkestone cheaper still. Stopping short on outward journey. Or is BoJ not allowed?

Wye is unstaffed on a Sunday anyway.....

 

[AlterEgo]

Isn't an off peak day return from Three Bridges to Folkestone cheaper still. Stopping short on outward journey. Or is BoJ not allowed?

Wye is unstaffed on a Sunday anyway.....

Break of Journey is allowed on the CDR (restriction C4).

 

[clagmonster]

There's an alternative solution to questions like this.

I'm not sure if I agree that eastcoast.co.uk is better. Why is it better for this purpose? What eastcoast does NOT allow is multiple options in Advanced Search.

If multiple options are available (e.g. National Rail or First Great Western) one can add one by one as many as THREE 'via' selections. Or two 'via' selections and an 'avoid' selection. The eastcoast site has only one option, the choice between 'via' and 'avoid'. For example, you have the idea that a complicated journey might be possible by a routing that passes through different places that perhaps you wanted to visit and that it might be cheaper to 'avoid London'.

Essentially it comes down to personal preference. My interpretation of Weary Walker's post was that he was trying to navigate the manual routeing guide. When doing so, in order to carry out the fare comparison test, there is no need to specify a route as we are merely looking for the 'any permitted' single fares, for which I find the East Coast interface easiest to see these.

Of course, it is quicker, and probably simpler, to use an electronic routeing engine, for which I agree that examples which allow more than one 'via point' are going to be more effective. I suppose I see the Routeing Guide as giving the difinitive answer, rather than a computer's interpretation, which I often disagree with (sometimes they are overly generous, sometimes they fail to provide something I believe to be a valid route).

Thanks for your tip about the Great Western site allowing multiple 'via points', I'll give that a go a some stage if booking something obscure.

 

[bnm]

Sorry. But just how do you input multiple 'via' points using First Great Western's (trainline based) booking engine?

I can't see a method to do it.

 

[globetrotter]

Sorry, the mention of GFW offering multiple options was incorrect - apologies. What one CAN do there is include 'via SOU' and then it shows SEF-BIT as a valid route on a 1 month open return.

I am attempting to get National Rail's website to produce the right fare in order to illustrate how multiple options work. The very first time I tried it, it failed to produce any return fares at all. The second time, starting from scratch, it worked. Now trying again at first it refused to display any return fares but in fact it now looks as if the site may be down as no search will work for me right now.

Once I get National Rail's website to cooperate, I'll post some images. It seems that using this facility may not be reliable.

 

[John @ home]

It seems that using this facility may not be reliable.

Yes. My experience is that it operates correctly for me when I have specified only one 'via' point. But if I add a second 'via' point, it gives me journeys via the second place instead of the first place, rather than the first place and then the second place on a single journey.

 

[lemonic]

You can add two via points using WebTIS sites. Add the first 'via' as normal when filling in the details in the search box but then instead of clicking 'Search', click 'Timetables only'. On this page, enter the second 'via' under 'Services which call at' and click Update. Then click 'Buy a ticket' and all the prices should come up and the timetabling options should take into account the two 'via's'.

 

[globetrotter]

Well really I wish I had not posted my suggestions. I have to say, as John@Home points out, that the National Rail website often does not work properly for complex searches. But when it works, because of the additional options, it's a better tool to use.

Anyway, I persevered and after very much time and experimentation once more I was able to enter two "via" points and one "avoid" on the National Rail website and eventually get the routings that I wanted offered to me. It's so complicated that I think most people would give up along the way. Please take a look at the five screenshots (last one is with extra trains after "changing trains time" from "use recommended" to "1/2 hour increment"). So FGW's website which lacks this option misses out those extra trains, although journey time is similar.

I see that I was wrong and cannot travel via Banbury on this fare. But specifying "via Banbury" does mean that trains via Banbury are shown as well - the ones with 4 changes in my second attachment.

If doing everything on the FGW website it does not state what trains are permitted on the return journey. Just "any valid train". Also, it seems impossible ANYWHERE to see there what the conditions are on this ticket (code 5K). For this routing, FGW's website is unusable yet this fare is priced by them.

So the point of all this is that one needs to grasp the rules, find the cheaper or more flexible fares then force the system to tell you if you can travel the route(s) you'd like to take at a fare you're willing to pay. With a 1 month open return and several routes the possibilities are many, but the system is so tedious that efforts to coax useful results out of it are a huge challenge.

One more word of advice (after so many searches produced errors) - if using National Rail's website and you get errors try removing the third option and running a simpler search again and once that works put the additional option back in.

Planning UK train journeys is a complete mess, as pointed out in the press this week. It needs a huge effort to reprogram the system and make it more user friendly. In fact it's very much easier to plan and book flights around the world using dedicated software than it is to plan and book a multi-sector cross country train journey at a reasonable price. The possibility of split tickets at intermediate points (where trains might have to call) makes it impossible easily to determine the lowest price for any journey. Instead of a calculation (that computers are so good at, once the rules are clear) it becomes as we see in this thread a long series of comparisons and trial and error.

 

[island]

In fact it's very much easier to plan and book flights around the world using dedicated software than it is to plan and book a multi-sector cross country train journey at a reasonable price.

That's arguable, but accepting it as true for the sake of argument, that is because there are just about no flexible or walk-up plane tickets.

 

[Paul Kelly]

You can add two via points using WebTIS sites. Add the first 'via' as normal when filling in the details in the search box but then instead of clicking 'Search', click 'Timetables only'. On this page, enter the second 'via' under 'Services which call at' and click Update. Then click 'Buy a ticket' and all the prices should come up and the timetabling options should take into account the two 'via's'.

WOW! This really works! Looking at the screen you'd think adding subsequent via points is only filtering the services it has already retrieved - but no, it seems to be doing a whole new search! And I can use it to make those elusive XC & Connections fares between Nottingham and Blackpool North appear...

Another interesting thing is that, on first appearances anyway, the "timetables only" list of services appears to show all reasonable-looking routes the journey planning engine has been able to find, regardless of whether they are permitted routes. It seems the routeing guide is only applied when you select buy a ticket. Very very interesting.

Very well done on discovering this...