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Super Off Peak Return Bradford - Syon Lane

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IanD

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My parents bought a Super Off Peak Return [SSR] from Bradford Stations to Syon Lane for travel next Sunday. To keep the number of changes to a minimum they planned to use the Grand Central service from Bradford to London but needed a bit more flexibility for the return (and need to be back before that last GC train gets in to Bradford). However, the lady at the ticket office has told them that they can only travel via Leeds and not use the GC service (although they can get on it at Doncaster if they want to make additional changes!). Apparently, a SSR from Bradford Stations to London is valid on any off-peak train but they were advised that the through ticket is not. Is that correct? If so presumably they won't be able to catch any of the 2 earlier GC returns either.
 
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Paul Kelly

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I got rather confused by your first sentence there. SOR is the ticket-type code for an anytime return (formerly known as standard open return) which costs £250 for Bradford to Syon Lane! The super off-peak return is more correctly known by the short code SSR (formerly known as supersaver).

Anyway travel by the Grand Central route on a Bradford Yorks Stations to Syon Lane ticket is permitted by the routeing guide:

Bradford Gp is a routeing point
Syon Lane has associated routeing points Barnes and Hounslow.
Both of these have the same SOS and SSS fares from Bradford as Syon Lane and thus both pass the fares check rule.
For both of these "LONDON" is the only mapped route.

Valid maps from Bradford Gp to London are:
EE EE+WA ER GU LY+EE LY+ER
SY TP+EE TP+ER WK+SY WY+SY

And map GU covers the Grand Central route. Other maps cover the return route via Leeds.

Of course if you are travelling on a Bradford Yorks Stations to London Terminals ticket, then the Grand Central route will always be valid because it is a through train, and there is no need to even check the routeing guide. Maybe this is where the booking clerk got confused?
 

John @ home

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This advice from the ticket office is nonsense!

The rules about which route you are allowed to take are in the National Routeing Guide.

To identify the Permitted Routes between Bradford Stations and Syon Lane, you first have to identify relevant Routeing Points.

A list of Routeing Point Groups shows that Bradford Forster Square and Bradford Interchange comprise Bradford Group for routeing purposes.

Syon Lane is associated with Barnes and Hounslow Routeing Points. To find out which of these two can be used for a Bradford - Syon Lane journey, you need to perform a fares check. The rules for this are in Step 4 of the Routeing Guide Instructions.

In this instance, the Anytime Single fares Bradford - Syon Lane, Bradford - Barnes and Bradford - Hounslow are identical (£125), so both Barnes and Hounslow are appropriate Routeing Points for a Bradford - Syon Lane journey.

Then you need to look up Permitted Routed for Bradford - Barnes and Bradford - Hounslow. For both, the only routeing code is LONDON.

Page A4 of the Instructions tells us that "If the routeing code is "LONDON", for all journeys via London you will need to cross reference routeing codes applicable "to London" with the code for the "from London" leg of the journey."

Therefore the Permitted Routes for the Bradford - London portion of a Bradford - Syon Lane journey are identical to the Permitted Routes for a Bradford -London journey.

These Permitted Routes include the Grand Central route (map GU) and, alternatively, local routes Bradford - Leeds followed by the East Coast route (map ER).

It really is surprising and disappointing that booking office staff (at Bradford?) didn't know this.

By the way, IanD, welcome to the forum! The railway industry is full of abbreviations and one of them is that Super Off-Peak Return is abbreviated to SSR. Indigo2 has explained why SOR is not appropriate.
 

Paul Kelly

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Actually, if you're talking about the 08:05 GC train off Bradford Interchange, the booking clerk may have a point. This not take the normal Grand Central route, but heads off towards Leeds to start with but does not go into Leeds station; it stops and reverses at Whitehall Junction outside Leeds and then heads out to Wakefield Kirkgate via Westgate.

I guess it is quite possible that Bradford to Wakefield avoiding both Halifax and Leeds is not a mapped route for Bradford to London; there can't be very many trains that go this way.

But - it should be allowed anyway as extra routes are allowed when trains are diverted for engineering work. It just looks like an explicit easement hasn't been added to the routeing guide for this particular diversion.
 

John @ home

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it should be allowed anyway as extra routes are allowed when trains are diverted for engineering work. It just looks like an explicit easement hasn't been added to the routeing guide for this particular diversion.
An explicit easement for this particular diversion isn't needed. Page A6 of the National Routeing Guide Instructions gives adequate general rules allowing the use of this, and other diverted trains.

The sentence "Any through train diverted from its usual route will count as a permitted route between the stations it is normally scheduled to call at." allows holders of a Bradford - London ticket to travel by this train.

The sentence "This provision will also apply to connecting services which are not directly affected." extends that permission to holders of a Bradford - Syon Lane ticket.
 

IanD

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Thanks guys. Sorry about the confusion with the abbreviation!

They were travelling today not next week and wanted to catch the 11:44 GC from Bradford Interchange but had to catch the 11:25 to Leeds instead!

They bought the tickets yesterday at Bradford Forster Square.

Anyway, I'll tell them they should be able to catch the GC trains back. The 14:48 from KX is the last train before the afternoon peak so they may want to catch that one rather than waiting until the 19:03 to Leeds.

Cheers again.
 
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SS4

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Anyway, I'll tell them they should be able to catch the GC trains back. The 14:48 from KX is the last train before the afternoon peak so they may want to catch that one rather than waiting until the 19:03 to Leeds.

Cheers again.

Peak trains? On a weekend? Are you sure? I don't have the ticket restriction to hand but I'd be surprised if there was a restriction
 

John @ home

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These are Mon-Fri times. The outward leg is today (Sunday). The date of the return leg is not specified.
 

IanD

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They don't know when they are coming back. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. Could be Saturday or Sunday in which case they know they can catch any train back.
 
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