Great Western Coffee Shop

It might be that Worcestershire Parkway, which rejoices in a somewhat politically incorrect three letter station code, also has a slightly special place in the fares firmament. Or perhaps it's just joined the many other stations, which, when it comes to fares, are a bit special.

Both Crosscountry and GWR offer fares, and GWR's can be up to half the price but at the same time not confined to 'GWR services only'.

https://www.brfares.com/!expert?orig=BTH&dest=WOP

In terms of split ticketing opportunities, perhaps Worcestershire Parkway is 'The new Didcot'. But a flea in the traveller's ointment is that there's ~1 direct train to and from Bristol. My new year bank holiday monday experience of connecting into an Edinburgh - Plymouth voyager there seems to have been a one off.

Also, the meaning and implications of 'Flow origin' and 'Flow destination'. If someone can point me to some reading on *that*...

Mark

(https://i.postimg.cc/xjgp0Pp6/worcestershire-parkway-january-night-1000.jpg)

GWR don't offer any direct services so a change necessary in Worcester SH/FS and a lot longer journey.

Edit  - mention of BTH and WOP to help out the Automatic Acronymy system

I don't see that you need to change in Worcester SH/FS. Looking at the standard class walk-up fares on offer at https://www.brfares.com/!fares?orig=BTH&dest=WOP (https://www.brfares.com/!fares?orig=BTH&dest=WOP) (see attached screenshot), they're only marked "not via Birmingham".

How the industry can explain CrossCountry's Anytime Return price of £181.70 (any permitted route) as against GWR's £44.90 (not via Birmingham) is beyond me. 

Perhaps any fare that has not been sold for (say) two years should be deleted from the Fares Manual.

On the good side, I'm still in awe at the number of routing possibiliities on a day return from Bath Spa. Out or return via Swindon and the Stroud Valley, via Bristol Parkway and Gloucester, or... the juries still out as to whether via Newport and Hereford is valid too, but that's a lot of railway - scenery - and breaks of journey - for the money.

Mark

I have been give a fare via Didcot and Oxford, and given a service with a single change at Reading, but "no fares available".   I wonder about Bath - Swindon - Parkway - Gloucester - Worcestershire Parkway.    A also wonder about a change at Severn Tunnel Junction.

Perhaps better with an easement to Newport.

Very much doubt those fares are valid via Newport?

There are several ... but there is a difference between "to/from" and "via", and 700233 which is the closest is for Bristol Parkway - so if you do the Severn Tunnel from Bristol Temple Meads it does not apply.

So NOT to Worcestershire Parkway

Agreed - I am offered BTH -> WOP fares with a change at Severn Tunnel Junction, (18:53 tonight) but not doubling back via Newport.

And change again at Gloucester/Worcester Stations (GWR) or Cheltenham (XC)

It's (sort of) there in the BRfares.com page itself though it's all a bit arcane.  Stations are sometimes grouped into clusters where it makes sense for them to have the same fares to somewhere else, noting that a single station might actually be in several clusters for fares purposes as well as being a standalone station, eg to another station in the same cluster or another nearby. A "Flow" is then the full set of fares between two clusters via a specific route, such as "NOT BIRMINGHAM", "ANY PERMITTED" etc. The Flow Origin and Flow Destination are just the start and end points (station or cluster as appropriate) for that Flow.  A particular operator sets all the fares for a Flow, but as in this case there may be different owners of different Flows covering the same Origin/Destination pair. A cluster incidentally might involve stations close to each other, or further apart but comparable in other ways, such as in a ring around a major station for pricing to that station.

I can't track down any documentation on Flows though it must exist if only in the contractual details of rail franchising, and the Routing Guide https://data.atoc.org/routeing-guide (https://data.atoc.org/routeing-guide) doesn't help.  I would though say that in general it's not something the average passenger needs to worry about, and even as a so-called expert I rarely used BRfares.com in Expert mode as it just adds clutter. "Simple" mode is complicated enough for me!

In terms of the specific journey, I suspect the "ANY PERMITTED" fare which presumably allows travel via Birmingham and Didcot (or Reading, even?) has to be ridiculously high to stop it undercutting fares for parts of the allowed route. I'm guessing that some hard-pressed civil servant back in 1996 when the valid routes were defined felt it had to be included as an option, but it's hard to see why, though having decided it should exist then Cross Country is the logical fare setter. Just maybe it's the sort of thing that will be dealt with under the long-promised simplification of fares and only the more logical routes will be valid at all so there won't need to be separate fares.

Thanks for this, appreciated.

Mark

Ah, looks like BTH - WOP 'Via Hereford' - including a change at Newport - is fine for that day return fare, at least as far as the National Rail web site is concerned. Screenshot to follow.

It's also possible to find a fare to travel (expensively and rather more quickly but not that quick) via Newport and then on a direct train to WOP via Chepstow etc.

(https://i.postimg.cc/g0YGykVz/National-Rail-Bath-Spa-WOP-via-Hereford.jpg)

Mark