Wrexham and Shropshire

[adrianboult]

Does anyone out there know why W&S trains do not allow you to buy a ticket to Banbury station from Marylebone - even though they stop there to pick passengers up?
I tried to book a ticket for travel at the weekend (thinking I could get a proper breakfast on the train) and the website will not validate this journey; although you CAN join the train at Banbury and purchase tickets for stations up to Wrexham.

Is this their way of stopping those commuters from Banbury using this service, or some deal that they have done with Chiltern trains to maintain their monopoly there?
Whatever the case it is bloody annoying.

 

[Max]

Does anyone out there know why W&S trains do not allow you to buy a ticket to Banbury station from Marylebone - even though they stop there to pick passengers up?
I tried to book a ticket for travel at the weekend (thinking I could get a proper breakfast on the train) and the website will not validate this journey; although you CAN join the train at Banbury and purchase tickets for stations up to Wrexham.

Is this their way of stopping those commuters from Banbury using this service, or some deal that they have done with Chiltern trains to maintain their monopoly there?
Whatever the case it is bloody annoying.

It's basically to prevent an ORCATS raid on Chiltern. WSMR set down only at Banbury heading towards London, and pick up only out of London. If you board the train heading towards London, there is a reasonable chance that you'll get a bit of a telling off, and you could be forced to buy a ticket from the previous station to London (Tame Bridge Parkway in this case).

 

[glynn80]

Does anyone out there know why W&S trains do not allow you to buy a ticket to Banbury station from Marylebone - even though they stop there to pick passengers up?
I tried to book a ticket for travel at the weekend (thinking I could get a proper breakfast on the train) and the website will not validate this journey; although you CAN join the train at Banbury and purchase tickets for stations up to Wrexham.

Is this their way of stopping those commuters from Banbury using this service, or some deal that they have done with Chiltern trains to maintain their monopoly there?
Whatever the case it is bloody annoying.

They do not stop to pick up passengers in the southbound direction or set down passengers in the northbound direction. This is basically as Max has said to prevent an "OCRATS Raid". ORCATS is the mechanism by which train companies distribute the revenue that is gained on interavailable fares and if they were to stop and pick up / set down London passengers at Banbury this would take money from Chiltern Railways ORCATS revenue as WSMR would now get a share of that flow.

The same situation occurs at Wolverhampton to prevent an ORCATS raid on Virgin's flow.