London-Norwich weekend train disruptions Late Jan-April--potential fare overcharge warning

MilesT6060842

BBC R4 Today programme had a item on London-Norwich weekend train disruptions Late Jan-April, confirmed by a few other websites and Greater Anglis website if you know where to look (the website is highlighting holiday season strike disruptions at the moment). 

Mostly between London-Shenfield (so also no Elizabeth line on that section)

Be aware that rail ticket booking websites may offer a via Ely/Cambridge route to London on days when there is a rail replacement bus, and this is often more expensive (although quicker, but fares on that route are not matched to the direct route). Can also affect validity of the Greater Anglia Club 50 railcard

If you want the cheapest fare and can tolerate the replacement bus, add a "via Colchester" to your travel request to force the usually cheaper "Great Eastern Main Line" route

Of course the right thing to do for passengers would be to match the fares on the "Via Ely/Cambridge" route, but that would require agreement between multiple train companies (the Ely leg is EMR, not GA, and the leg on from Cambridge is possible with more than one company: GA maybe, Thameslink, maybe another)

Coaches are possible to get to/from Norwich, but inconvenient both ends (Victoria/Stratford, not especially near a train/tube station, and the bus station in Norwich is a 15+minute walk from the train station if travelling in from other stations, up a hill).  No experience in coaches from Ipswich.

yorkie2

MilesT6060842 said:

If you want the cheapest fare and can tolerate the replacement bus, add a "via Colchester" to your travel request to force the usually cheaper "Great Eastern Main Line" route

Or simply use a booking site that automatically looks for slower, cheaper routes, as well as split ticketing opportunities. No need to faff with any via points.

MilesT6060842 said:

Of course the right thing to do for passengers would be to match the fares on the "Via Ely/Cambridge" route, but that would require agreement between multiple train companies (the Ely leg is EMR, not GA, and the leg on from Cambridge is possible with more than one company: GA maybe, Thameslink, maybe another)

London to Norwich tickets are valid via Ely/Cambridge; there is no additional 'agreement' needed; if anyone is claiming London to Norwich tickets are not valid via Ely, they are wrong.

MilesT6060842

yorkie2 said:

MilesT6060842 said:

If you want the cheapest fare and can tolerate the replacement bus, add a "via Colchester" to your travel request to force the usually cheaper "Great Eastern Main Line" route

Or simply use a booking site that automatically looks for slower, cheaper routes, as well as split ticketing opportunities. No need to faff with any via points.

MilesT6060842 said:

Of course the right thing to do for passengers would be to match the fares on the "Via Ely/Cambridge" route, but that would require agreement between multiple train companies (the Ely leg is EMR, not GA, and the leg on from Cambridge is possible with more than one company: GA maybe, Thameslink, maybe another)

London to Norwich tickets are valid via Ely/Cambridge; there is no additional 'agreement' needed; if anyone is claiming London to Norwich tickets are not valid via Ely, they are wrong.

1/ To be 100% helpful, can you be specific as to which websites do this better, in your opinion?  Others would like to know.
 Over many years of this abusive fare quoting happening, trying various websites, I have seen similar results with most defaulting to "shortest time" routings unless you do something specific to override this, and a "Via COL" always works in this case. 

And most people would not know to check unless warned, hence my warning.  Bear in mind that under the covers I believe all the websites use the same routing/lookup engine that is provided by ATOC/RDG, although they can choose to call it differently to get different answers

2/ No, London-Norwich tickets are NOT always valid via Ely/Cambridge;  the cheapest ones (e.g. Advances, GA only, or if you want to use the GA Club 50 discount card) will NOT be valid via Ely/Cambridge unless specifically routed that way (will be printed on the ticket), because this almost always involves a non-GA train for part of the route.  The cheapest fare London-Norwich is almost always locked into a "Via COL", GA only routing, even if "split ticketing" to use e.g. Network card to cambridge and/or a special deal from the likes of GTR (Thameslink) as far as Cambridge.

You would be correct (potentially) if travelling on a less restrictive ticket (full fare, basic off-peak), but that's already a much more expensive ticket.

And GA also have some other abusive fare practices, e.g. you can't get an Advance to get to Sudbury (or any other station on the GEML that is only served by slow trains), as GA never release Advances on the slow trains, only the faster ones.  Generally will save £10 for e.g. LST-SUY with some sort of sort of split ticket, usually the fastest option for SUY is a "beyond and back" split via COL--Advance on the LST-COL leg, and then an offpeak local for COL-SUY vai MKT (and I have yet to find a spilt ticketing website that will find and propose a "beyond and back" split, agreed it wouldn't be a common situation).

yorkie2

MilesT6060842 said:

yorkie2 said:

MilesT6060842 said:

If you want the cheapest fare and can tolerate the replacement bus, add a "via Colchester" to your travel request to force the usually cheaper "Great Eastern Main Line" route

Or simply use a booking site that automatically looks for slower, cheaper routes, as well as split ticketing opportunities. No need to faff with any via points.

MilesT6060842 said:

Of course the right thing to do for passengers would be to match the fares on the "Via Ely/Cambridge" route, but that would require agreement between multiple train companies (the Ely leg is EMR, not GA, and the leg on from Cambridge is possible with more than one company: GA maybe, Thameslink, maybe another)

London to Norwich tickets are valid via Ely/Cambridge; there is no additional 'agreement' needed; if anyone is claiming London to Norwich tickets are not valid via Ely, they are wrong.

1/ To be 100% helpful, can you be specific as to which websites do this better, in your opinion?  Others would like to know.'

I use Trainsplit.com; it will find cheaper fares which are slower and it has advanced options too.

 

Over many years of this abusive fare quoting happening, trying various websites, I have seen similar results with most defaulting to "shortest time" routings unless you do something specific to override this, and a "Via COL" always works in this case. 

And most people would not know to check unless warned, hence my warning.  Bear in mind that under the covers I believe all the websites use the same routing/lookup engine that is provided by ATOC/RDG, although they can choose to call it differently to get different answers

Booking sites can generate any itinerary, subject to the relevant rules, however train company websites tend to only offer the fastest permitted route, as you discovered. Websites like Trainsplit do offer the fastest journeys regardless of permitted routes (offering a combination of fares, if it is not permitted on a through fare) as well as alternatively offering the cheapest journeys.

2/ No, London-Norwich tickets are NOT always valid via Ely/Cambridge;  the cheapest ones (e.g. Advances, GA only, or if you want to use the GA Club 50 discount card) will NOT be valid via Ely/Cambridge unless specifically routed that way (will be printed on the ticket), because this almost always involves a non-GA train for part of the route.  The cheapest fare London-Norwich is almost always locked into a "Via COL", GA only routing, even if "split ticketing" to use e.g. Network card to cambridge and/or a special deal from the likes of GTR (Thameslink) as far as Cambridge.

You would be correct (potentially) if travelling on a less restrictive ticket (full fare, basic off-peak), but that's already a much more expensive ticket.

I just did a search on Trainsplit for Norwich to London and it found a 10 pound advance ticket via Cambridge; this was for 11th February departing at 1027. I did not have to enter any via points. Norwich to London is permitted via Cambridge; it may not be offered on websites that only find the cheapest journeys but if you use Trainsplit you will get around that problem. If Trainsplit does not produce the exact itinerary you want, you can change the advanced options accordingly.

MilesT6060842

Good to know that trainsplit gets it right;  nationalrail.co.uk and greateranglia.co.uk also offered via Cambridge on those dates (and an all GA route so Club50 railcard would get the price to £8)  

Maybe the core ATOC/RDG engine has been changed to show all options (or the calling websites are requesting and showing all options by default, replacement bus and alternative) and not penalising avoiding a replacement bus when there are alternatives.  It may help that the Norwich-Stansted train is will timed and now has an interchange with Cambridge North (a relatively new station).

The final proof would be if there wasn't availability of a matching fare via Cambridge, but this is looking better than what I have seen in previous times because all the options are shown (which didn't used to happen).

Trainsplit is also finding the "beyond and back" split for LST-SUY (one way), which I haven't seen train split websites do in the past; , but GA seems to have adjusted the fares so there isn't a good split discount for SUY-LST (and hence no split discount overall vs. a flexible offpeak return)