GWR advance ticket: acceptance on a Crosscountry service

[whole diary]

[Mark A]

Hypothetically, if someone has an advance ticket Bath Spa to Cornwall and the through GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) train from Bath Spa is cancelled, is it the practice that Crosscountry accepts travel on the ticket between, say, Bristol and Taunton?

Mark

[grahame]

Hypothetically, if someone has an advance ticket Bath Spa to Cornwall and the through GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) train from Bath Spa is cancelled, is it the practice that Crosscountry accepts travel on the ticket between, say, Bristol and Taunton?

Mark

The theory is that it's the next train of the same operator.  In practise if there we no GWR express for hours and if you asked the train manager before you got on, you would probably be accepted.

Where there is major disruption to one TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company), you'll often see that arrangement have been made for tickets to be accepted by another operator and by "any reasonable route".

[ChrisB]

Unlikely for one train though - you are passed on the next available same-TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) service. You might also be carried on the one earlier too, but you would need permission from the operator/train manager.

[Mark A]

Thanks, both, for the advice. Looks as though in the event of the through train to Penzance being cancelled, the best plan 'b' is the 7:34 and then change at Westbury and Taunton.

Our hypothetical traveller will be hoping that the day is not similar to June 21st, with the Penzance train terminating short at Exeter and, also, much from Bath in the Westbury direction running late.

Also, the risk of westbound connections at Westbury is that since the morning and afternoon trains heading west of Exeter ceased to call there, trains to Taunton have several 2+ hour gaps in the timetable.

Mark

[Mark A]

This morning's Paddington - Bristol - Penzance for some reason left Paddington 20 minutes late and after Chippenham was then diverted via Melksham. Realtime trains loses sight of the service at Thingley and then picks it up again at Taunton. Not exactly reassuring.

Mark

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:G44677/2024-06-25/detailed#allox_id=0

[stuving]

Realtime trains loses sight of the service at Thingley and then picks it up again at Taunton. Not exactly reassuring.

RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) does "know" where it went, but has chosen not to tell you - at least arguably. Off-route timing reports were available from TRUST^▸ (Train Running System TOPS):
07:50    Bradford Junction
07:57    Westbury
08:00    Fairwood Junction
08:03    Clink Road Junction
08:05    Blatchbridge Junction
08:08    East Somerset Junction (Witham)
08:14    Castle Cary
08:22    Somerton Ground Frame
08:28    Athelney Crossing

RTT has made the web design choice to present times against the current working timetable, which only has rows for timing points on the planned route. This makes the display more comprehensible, and is likely to satisfy the majority of users. It also avoids some difficulties in interpretation of off-route reports, though of course RTT still gets confused at times and can report impossible nonsense train itineraries.