Advance ticket via London Query

[whole diary]

[teamsaint]

I travel every so often from Andover to Norwich, on advance tickets.

When I order the tickets, they usually route me
Andover to waterloo.
Tube to Liverpool Street. I usually walk to embankment and pick up the circle line,  get a stretch of legs and avoid the hell that is Waterloo  tube rush hour.
Liverpool St to Norwich.

But coming back they route me to Stratford, and then Tube to Waterloo.(Which is fine actually, as it means I can get a seat on the Jubilee line as it starts there.)

This time I am going an hour earlier than usual, and the outward journey routes me to Waterloo to Stratford, and join the Norwich train there. I didn't notice this when booking.
Question is, would I be within my rights to go via Liverpool street ? would it be a permissible route , as I would be catching the same train?
Thanks for any advice.

[JayMac]

Advance tickets usually require you to stick to the route and changing points specified on the itinerary. Your seat reservation coupon for the leg to Norwich will show a reserved seat from Stratford. If you go via London Liverpool Street you may encounter issues at the gateline if you are asked to show your reservation. Your travel ticket may well work the barriers though.

I'd stick to the itinerary. Alternatively you could ask Greater Anglia through social media whether you'd be permitted to board the Norwich train at Liverpool Street. If they say yes, then keep a record of the conversation as back up should you meet any disobliging gateline staff.

[paul7575]

The leg of the route on the underground isn't really fixed by an advance is it?

I reckon you could justifiably use any reasonable route on LU including the Central line towards Stratford, and doesn't that have inter-availability with National Rail from Liverpool St anyway?

Paul

[teamsaint]

Thanks both.
Yes , I'll probably stick with the itinerary ( Waterloo tube at 7.45 ) but I guess an alternative would be to go to Embankment and tube it to Stratford on the central line.

Shame though, as Liverpool St is a rather nicer environment that Stratford.

That'll learn me........

No doubt it will be a nice trip anyway.
Incidentally, those tickets are great  value. You can get £42 return on advance if you book early, and usually something around £50 up to the day before. First class usually available at £60, and from even further away than Andover. Cheaper than driving the 400 miles.

[IndustryInsider]

I've always found advance fares readily available on Greater Anglia.  Even looking as soon as tomorrow, a Friday, and you can get advances from London to Norwich for £9 or £13.80 on pretty much all the departures from the start of service until lunchtime, and there's only a handful of trains where silly money needs to be paid.

[Tim]

There are two parts to your question really....

1, is your ticket valid on the tube from Embankment to Liverpool Street, and
2, is your ticket valid on the train from Liverpool Street to Stratford.

I think the answer to question 1 is yes?  You are permitted to make one cross London journey and so Embankment to Liverpool Street is fine.  It would not be permitted to exit at Liverpool Street and re-join the tube to Stratford without buying another tube fare (which is an option available to you for the price of a tube fare)

The answer to Question 2 is no.  Although you could of course buy a Liverpool Street to Stratford single train fare to make it legal.

[teamsaint]

Thanks Tim

As I said, need to check more carefully when booking. Still , no real harm done, and lesson learned. In fact on checking, I could have got the same fare and just by adding  " Travel via Liverpool Street".

And of course, although I can walk to embankment and tube it to Stratford whichever way I want( without exiting), I can't do that from Temple, one stop further round the circle line.......

[plymothian]

Embankment is classified as interchange with Charing Cross, Temple isn't.

[John R]

Historically Embankment was part of Charing Cross prior to the Jubilee Line opening, if I'm not mistaken. Although the history of the tube stations and renaming in that area is rather confusing and would take us significantly off topic!

[teamsaint]

Oh, I think the topic/my query  has pretty much been resolved JohnR,   feel free to chat about the huge number of changes to Charing Cross/Embankment/Strand tube stations over the years.

Incidentally,  can anybody remind me of the actual point of having only certain tube  stations allowable  on journeys that require cross London Travel?

[teamsaint]

I've always found advance fares readily available on Greater Anglia.  Even looking as soon as tomorrow, a Friday, and you can get advances from London to Norwich for £9 or £13.80 on pretty much all the departures from the start of service until lunchtime, and there's only a handful of trains where silly money needs to be paid.

And from here, ( Andover, Salisbury) if you want to go to London on say the 07.35 tomorow, you can book an advance to Norwich for £24.30, whereas an anytime single to Waterloo is about £34.10. Never done this, but its a good standby in case of a last minute peak time trip to London.
And you can save a couple of quid more by booking to Ipswich.

[Trowres]

Teamsaint, I presume that you have purchased a ticket from Andover to Norwich that has something like "Route GRTANG+CONCTS" - meaning use of a Greater Anglia franchise train and other services that connect to it. The ticket would also have a Maltese Cross indicating cross-London validity.

What are the reservations that you have? - I presume that you have a Stratford-Norwich seat reservation, but were you given one from Andover to Waterloo?

(PS I am interested in your case because it seems to be yet another case where the rules of the system are not as clear as they should be...)

[teamsaint]

Trowres. Yes that is exactly what my ticket has.

There is a seat reservation from Stratford to Norwich, and I have a " seat reservation" ticket from Andover to Waterloo, but as is normal on that route the coach and seat are just starred out, with no seat numbers.
Same on the route back. This is what usually happens.


I can only assume that the NRE^‡(resolve) site automatically routes me via the supposed quickest tube route ? If I book  the 07.35, by default it seems to send me to Liverpool Street .

One more slightly daft thing about this also strikes me now. If I miss the 8.38 Stratford to Norwich, because of delays on my trains, I would then have to wait an hour for the next  direct train at 9.38, or go back to Liverpool street to try to catch the 9.00, which doesnt stop at Stratford.

[Trowres]

OK, so the restrictions for this ticket are:

Tickets are valid ONLY on the date and train service(s) shown on the ticket(s).

...

Tickets may only be used on the services of the Train Company (or geographic route where applicable) shown next to 'Route' on the ticket.

If the 'Route' also states 'and Connections' travel is allowed on appropriate connecting trains where shown on the ticket(s) or other valid travel itinerary.

If the route is prefixed with a 'Maltese Cross', the ticket includes the cost of travelling across London on London Underground, Docklands Light Railway or Thameslink Great Northern services as appropriate to the journey

...

Customers may not start, break and resume, or end their journey at any intermediate
station except to change to/from connecting trains as shown on the ticket(s) or other valid travel itinerary.

Now, I don't see any problem with the Andover-Waterloo and Stratford-Norwich parts of the journey - you are using the trains prescribed by the seat/train reservations.

There is nothing in the ticket details that prescribes your route between Waterloo and Stratford. My analysis is that it is covered a part of the "and connections" clause. The Maltese Cross allows you to use LU/DLR^▸ (Docklands Light Railway) as appropriate, which will get you to Liverpool St.

Then for Liverpool St-Stratford it would be down to the interpretation of "allowed on connecting trains where shown on the ticket(s) or other valid travel itinerary".

The last four words could be interpreted in more than one way. I will give some more thought to these (and would welcome input from others!)

[Trowres]

Bizarre postscript to my previous comment:

In trying to recreate a similar ininerary to yours, I tried Andover to Norwich on 4th April starting at 10:00 (using National Rail website). This gave Liverpool Street as the route for all offerings so I clicked on "earlier trains" and was offered:

Andover d09:06
Waterloo a10:19
Waterloo LT d10:34
Stratford LT a11:07
Stratford d11:38
Norwich a13:27

I then repeated the enquiry but starting with trains from 09:00 as the initial enquiry. This time:

Andover d09:06
Waterloo a10:19
Waterloo LT d10:34
Liverpool St LT a11:02
Liverpool St d11:30
Norwich a13:27

Both share the £21.20 advance fare.

I don't know why the journey planner should offer different routes for the same start and end times, depending on how it was asked (or maybe for other reasons).

However the National Rail site is regarded as definitive, so whichever of the two routes you prefer could be taken as a valid itinerary. This would seem to cover travelling Liverpool St - Stratford as a "connecting service".

(aside thought: can a train be it's own "connecting service"? - in this case Liverpool St - Stratford)

Was that intelligible? 

I must add the disclaimer here that I dont' work for the railway and you use this advice at your own risk. Is anyone around to give a second opinion?