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Travel from Eastleigh to Paddington instead of Waterloo on strike day

martlj

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Hi, I need to travel to London on Monday 8th April, but my usual Eastleigh to Waterloo route isn't running due to the strike. Does anyone know if I'm allowed to travel from Southampton Airport Parkway or Winchester via Reading to Paddington (Cross-country + GWR) with my existing season ticket as an alternative route, or do I need to buy a new ticket?

I have an annual season ticket.

Thanks!
Martin

(sorry, just to add, I'll need to travel to London arriving for around 9am, and return the same day, leaving around 8pm, but that can be more flexible)
 
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Watershed

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Welcome to the forum!

Season tickets from Eastleigh (ESL) to London Terminals are routed 'Any Permitted'. Therefore you can use all operators along all of the permitted routes from ESL to London - which include travelling via Reading (RDG) into London Paddington (PAD). In other words, travel via RDG would be permitted even if it weren't a strike day.

The only slight issue is that your season ticket is from ESL, whilst Southampton Airport Parkway (SOA) is one station south of there. However, one of the ways that a route can be permitted is for it to be within 3 miles of the shortest route; it's just under 1.5 miles from ESL to SOA, so 'doubling back' from ESL to SOA is within 3 miles of the shortest route to London. Accordingly I would argue it is a permitted route and you could travel that way even if it weren't a strike day.

That being said, it is possible that staff onboard the XC service will claim otherwise and will attempt to charge you for a new ticket. They may even try and charge you as far as Winchester or Basingstoke, wherever the next stop is. If you buy an extra ticket before boarding, you would only have to buy one as far as ESL because you can conduct a 'non-stop split' when one of your tickets is a season ticket (the idea is to allow you to extend your journey without being restricted in your choice of trains). As a SOA-ESL ticket is only a few pounds, you may decide to buy this to mitigate against any risk of being incorrectly charged.

In terms of the additional rights that you have on a strike day given that SWR likely won't be running any trains to or from Eastleigh, you are entitled to require them to re-route you at the earliest opportunity under Article 16 of the Passenger Rights and Obligations Regulation (PRO) - in other words, for them to make arrangements for your ticket to be accepted on other operators or routes to allow you to make your journey. Most train companies haven't given their staff any training on the PRO, so it's highly likely that this request will be wrongly denied unless it happens to align with ticket acceptance or other policy that's already been agreed. But if they refuse your re-routing request, you'd be entitled to recover any reasonable costs you incur as a result - for example, the above cost of a SOA-ESL ticket.

As you would be stranded without SWR's assistance, condition 28.2 of the National Rail Conditions of Travel (NRCoT) is also engaged, requiring any train company to help you complete your journey if they can reasonably do so. As XC will still be running services normally, they fall into this category and would again be obliged to accept your ticket to allow you to make your journey. So even if SWR refuse to re-route you under the PRO, and even if XC wrongly claim that your season isn't valid via SOA, they would still have to accept your ticket and allow you to travel for free under condition 28.2. Again, this is something that train companies don't tend to train their staff on properly so it's possible that an unsympathetic member of staff will wrongly attempt to charge you. But as above, this is something you'd be entitled to claim back if that did happen.

In summary, you should first contact SWR to ask them to re-route you under Article 16 of the PRO, which effectively entails arranging (or confirming) ticket acceptance with XC to allow you to travel from SOA. If they refuse to do this, you can choose whether you either board the XC service anyway (as it's within 3 miles of the shortest route so your season is valid, and they are obliged to assist you under condition 28.2 of the NRCoT), or you could just buy an additional SOA-ESL ticket and contact SWR or XC to claim this back afterwards.

In no scenario should you be left out of pocket, although I appreciate that if you do want to buy the SOA-ESL ticket for peace of mind, you may decide it's not worth your while to try and claim this small amount back.
 

swt_passenger

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It’s interesting though, how many announcements I’ve heard over the years along the lines of “during this disruption SWT/SWR tickets are being accepted via Reading and Paddington”. I think these announcements hint that they’re doing some sort of special favour.

AIUI Basingstoke has a choice of “via Woking” fares, but for origins to the west of there the normal Any Permitted has been valid into Paddington for as long as I remember.

NRES and the SWR journey planner won‘t plan or sell an Eastleigh to London journey changing at Parkway. I’m not convinced they believe in the 3 mile rule, I’d be tempted to buy the extra single to remove any hassle factor.
 

Watershed

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It's more likely to be about interpretations of 'rules' around doubling back.
There is a widespread, incorrect belief amongst staff (and some passengers too) that doubling back is always barred. This is, of course, not the case. It is barred in specific circumstances - when tracing a mapped route, for example - but there is no general, inherent bar on it. There are many tickets or journeys that require double-backs.

In particular, the '3 mile rule' makes no reference to double-backs being barred. Indeed, it could be argued this is exactly the kind of "reasonable" but otherwise non-permitted route (that happens to involve a double-back) which it is intended to permit.
 

swt_passenger

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It's more likely to be about interpretations of 'rules' around doubling back.
There’s an explicit double back restriction 700993 between Eastleigh and Parkway concerning Romsey/Chandlers Ford journeys via Winchester, I often wondered why that was specifically disallowed, as it implies that other journeys via Parkway might be OK.
 

Haywain

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There is a widespread, incorrect belief amongst staff (and some passengers too) that doubling back is always barred.
I agree, but I was referring to the fact that the booking engines that provide the fares and timetable information to retailers have slight variations on the way they they interpret some aspects of the Routeing Guide.
 

island

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You can only use the 3 mile rule if you are taking the shortest route, which for that journey is to Waterloo. You cannot combine the 3 mile rule with a mapped route.

A Southampton Airport Parkway to Eastleigh ticket is needed.
 

Watershed

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You can only use the 3 mile rule if you are taking the shortest route, which for that journey is to Waterloo. You cannot combine the 3 mile rule with a mapped route.

A Southampton Airport Parkway to Eastleigh ticket is needed.
As we are talking about a season ticket, unlimited travel is permitted along all permitted routes, including break of journey or starting late/finishing short.

Therefore it is perfectly permissible to 'change horses mid-stream' by changing from a permitted route via Southampton Airport Parkway to Waterloo, to a permitted route via Reading to Paddington, when the XC service stops at Winchester or Basingstoke. Arguably there isn't even a need for that stop as you aren't changing from one ticket to another (and non-stop 'splits' are permitted on season tickets anyway) but those stops make it unambiguously permitted to change permitted routes.
 

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