Joining short?

caramba61

[FONT=&quot]I want to travel from London to city A on a Sunday. I have discovered that an advance single from city B, via London, to city A on the same Sunday is much cheaper. The latter journey involves arriving at one London terminus and taking the tube to another London terminus for the second leg. So: I could buy the latter ticket and simply use it for the second leg only. (This seems to be what is described on the MSE “Cheap Train Tickets” guide, item 22. However, that item is not very clearly written. It is headed “travelling short”, but it doesn’t describe the usual form of travelling short, which is to get off a train at a station before the ticketed destination.) So: would my journey – which I call “joining short” – be within the rules?[/FONT]

KeithP

If I understand what you have written correctly, then yes you can use that ticket as you plan to do.

That is simply because there is no possible way for anyone to know whether or not you have travelled by train to get in to London.

The actual rules are spelt out in The National Rail Conditions of Travel:

16.5 If you start, break or resume your journey at an intermediate station where you are not entitled to do so, you will be liable to pay an excess fare. The price for this will be the difference between the amount paid for the Ticket you hold and the lowest price Ticket available for immediate travel that would have entitled you to start, break or resume your journey at the station concerned.

Manxman_in_exile

KeithP wrote: »

If I understand what you have written correctly, then yes you can use that ticket as you plan to do.

That is simply because there is no possible way for anyone to know whether or not you have travelled by train to get in to London.

The actual rules are spelt out in The National Rail Conditions of Travel:

Out of curiosity (I'm afraid I don't know the answer to the OP's question) isn't there a possibility that the ticket won't open the gate barrier in London if it hasn't already been used to travel into London? Or am I completely misunderstanding how this works?

agrinnall

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

Out of curiosity (I'm afraid I don't know the answer to the OP's question) isn't there a possibility that the ticket won't open the gate barrier in London if it hasn't already been used to travel into London? Or am I completely misunderstanding how this works?

I'm only guessing, but I would expect that the barriers are read only, i.e. they read the stripe on the ticket, open the gate if the ticket is valid, and if it's leaving the station at the destination it may retain the ticket rather than return it. I'd be surprised if it had any understanding of how the ticket had been used in other barriers - and there's no guarantee that a ticket has even gone through a previous barrier, the gates may have been open anyway, or the holder might have been let through a gate by station staff.

Manxman_in_exile

agrinnall wrote: »

I'm only guessing, but I would expect that the barriers are read only, i.e. they read the stripe on the ticket, open the gate if the ticket is valid, and if it's leaving the station at the destination it may retain the ticket rather than return it. I'd be surprised if it had any understanding of how the ticket had been used in other barriers - and there's no guarantee that a ticket has even gone through a previous barrier, the gates may have been open anyway, or the holder might have been let through a gate by station staff.

OK. Good points.

cookie365

Are you sure this is a like for like ticket? Occasionally advance tickets to a popular destination cost more than ones to less popular stations further along the same line, but I've never come across one like this.

If so it's still against the rules, but you'd have to be really really stupid or really really unlucky (most likely both) to get caught.