London to Manchester Any Permitted - Journey with a Lot of Different Operators?

[rhizomergence]

My company is buying me an off peak return - any permitted from London to Manchester, which is a lot more than what I would usually spend on railway tickets. So I'm interested in taking advantage of it!

Am wondering what are some interesting routes I can take with this, involving a large number of different train operators / circuitous routes? For example I've noticed that via Oxford is allowed, so I can technically take a GWR.

Some operators I've never been on / would like to try more for the sake of it, that I think could be relevant:

Chiltern, West Midland Trains, LNWR, GWR, EMR, CrossCountry (if not on a route that is too crowded), and Hull Trains/Grand Central (but I'm assuming those are only possible with a split ticket at Doncaster, and not actually on a permitted route between London and Mcr)

Don't mind changing trains even when completely unnecessary to do so, if it ticks off a new operator.

Also interested in the theoretical maximum number of train operators you could use on a single permitted route journey

 

[jfollows]

See https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...anchester-routings.257391/page-3#post-6495579 for information on permitted routes if you don’t already know this.
Doncaster isn’t on a valid route, you’re correct.

 

[rhizomergence]

Would this theoretically be permitted under routeing maps RM + RG?:

London Padding to Slough (Elizabeth Line)
Slough to Reading (GWR)
Reading to Banbury (CrossCountry)
Banbury to Solihull (Chiltern)
Solihull to Birmingham Snow Hill (West Midlands Trains)
Birmingham New Street to Wolverhampton (TfW)
Wolverhampton to Stafford (Avanti West Coast)
Stafford to Stoke-on-Trent (London Northwestern Railway)
Stoke-on-Trent to Crewe (East Midlands Railway)
Crewe to Stockport (Northern)
Stockport to Manchester (TransPennine Express)

 

[alistairlees]

Sure is

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

You can use TfW Manchester-Crewe, and TPE Manchester-Sheffield.
There are times when TPE runs Manchester-Sheffield via Huddersfield and Wakefield, during engineering works.
Reading-Waterloo via Staines used to be an option from the north into London in BR days, but that's now invalid.

 

[A S Leib]

Also interested in the theoretical maximum number of train operators you could use on a single permitted route journey

I think any flexible ticket including Edinburgh Haymarket – York would allow ScotRail from Haymarket to Waverley, Lumo from Edinburgh to Morpeth, Northern to Newcastle, LNER to Durham, CrossCountry to Darlington, TransPennine Express to Northallerton and Grand Central to York (not necessarily in that order for every part, except ScotRail and Lumo), which makes 7.

The Haymarket – Cheltenham tickets are set by CrossCountry, so Sheffield – Derby with EMR, Birmingham New Street – University with WMT and Ashchurch – Cheltenham with GWR (the gaps with CrossCountry) gives 10.

There's probably better ones, but either flexible ticket (any permitted or not via London) from Dalmuir to Portchester would be valid for a lot, unless I'm getting it massively wrong.

• Caledonian Sleeper from Dalmuir to Glasgow Queen Street
• ScotRail to Edinburgh
• Lumo to Morpeth
• Northern to Newcastle
• LNER to Darlington
• TransPennine Express to Northallerton
• Grand Central to York
• CrossCountry to Sheffield
• East Midlands Railway to Derby
• CrossCountry to Birmingham New Street
• TfW to Birmingham International
• London Northwestern to Coventry
• West Midlands Railway to Leamington Spa
• Chiltern to Banbury
• GWR to Basingstoke
• SWR to Southampton Central
• Southern to Portchester

So, if I'm right, 15 or 16, depending on how you count LNR / WMR. Not all of that needs to be taken on those operators in that order, and I don't know if the Tyne and Wear Metro can be used between Heworth and Sunderland to fit another in.

Edit:

• Edinburgh – Morpeth with LNER
• Morpeth – Newcastle with Lumo
• Newcastle – Sunderland with Tyne and Wear Metro
• Sunderland – Thornaby with Northern
• Thornaby – Northallerton with TransPennine Express
• Northallerton – York with Grand Central
• York – Leeds with Northern
• Leeds – Sheffield with CrossCountry

Adds in the Tyne and Wear Metro without losing any of the main ECML ones, as long as via Thornaby's valid.

Second edit:

The total is 17 or 18, if you take ScotRail from Glasgow to Haymarket then Avanti to Waverley.

Even if it's allowed, I don't know if it's possible to fit in 17/18 TOCs, mostly because of timings with LNER services at Morpeth and Lumo and Grand Central.

The first TfW service from Birmingham International gets to New Street at 07:20, so south of New Street would have to be another day to fit them all in.

• 07:19 Birmingham New Street – Derby (CrossCountry)
• 08:32 Derby – 09:06 Sheffield (EMR)
• 09:32 Sheffield – 10:17 York (CrossCountry again)
• 10:25 York – 10:58 Northallerton (Grand Central)
• 13:05 Northallerton – 13:28 Thornaby (TransPennine Express)
• 13:37 Thornaby – 14:30 Sunderland (Northern)
• 14:36 Sunderland – 15:05 Newcastle (Tyne and Wear Metro)
• 15:17 Newcastle – 15:30 Morpeth (Lumo)
• 16:57 Morpeth – 18:16 Edinburgh (LNER)
• 18:52 Edinburgh Waverley – 18:56 Haymarket (Avanti)
• 19:20 Haymarket – 20:04 Glasgow Queen Street (ScotRail)
• 05:48 Glasgow Queen Street – 06:05 Dalmuir (Caledonian Sleeper)

I don't know if it would be allowed to split either the outbound or return journey over more than two days.

 

[rhizomergence]

I don't know if it would be allowed to split either the outbound or return journey over more than two days.

I guess it should be allowed.
According to BRfares, neither the Anytime Return nor the Off-Peak Return prohibits break of journey. The Anytime Return allows outward travel over 5 days and return over a month; the Off-Peak Return allows outward over 1 day and return over a month.

Interestingly the only other restrictions for the off-peak return is that trains must not depart between 2:30 and 4:15 am. I didn’t realize that trains were extremely busy then!

The total is 17 or 18, if you take ScotRail from Glasgow to Haymarket then Avanti to Waverley.

Wow, that’s certainly an impressive total!

Wonder how many arguments you would get into with gateline staff and train guards, and how many erroneous penalty fares you could accumulate during the journey

 

[Krokodil]

Interestingly the only other restrictions for the off-peak return is that trains must not depart between 2:30 and 4:15 am. I didn’t realize that trains were extremely busy then!

I noticed a "no departure before 04:15" restriction when I went to Edinburgh for the late Queen's procession with an Off Peak Return from Warrington. There would have been no Avanti departures at that time of night anyway so I wonder if it is to stop people using the ticket on sleeper services or something.

As it happened, once I'd got out of St Giles, used buses to charge my phone and watched the Up Highlander shunt (an interesting exercise, worth staying up for), I decided that rather than take up Crosscountry's offer of an unlocked Voyager for comfort until the first train, I would take one of Scotrail's overnight specials to Glasgow and catch the first Avanti departure from there. The Scotrail guard didn't notice or mind that it wasn't yet 04:15.

 

[Watershed]

Wonder how many arguments you would get into with gateline staff and train guards, and how many erroneous penalty fares you could accumulate during the journey

It looks like an entirely reasonable route (which, despite the introduction of the Routeing Guide nearly 30 years ago, remains the test applied by 99% of frontline staff in practice!). So I can't imagine any difficulties in practice.

I noticed a "no departure before 04:15" restriction when I went to Edinburgh for the late Queen's procession with an Off Peak Return from Warrington. There would have been no Avanti departures at that time of night anyway so I wonder if it is to stop people using the ticket on sleeper services or something.

As it happened, once I'd got out of St Giles, used buses to charge my phone and watched the Up Highlander shunt (an interesting exercise, worth staying up for), I decided that rather than take up Crosscountry's offer of an unlocked Voyager for comfort until the first train, I would take one of Scotrail's overnight specials to Glasgow and catch the first Avanti departure from there. The Scotrail guard didn't notice or mind that it wasn't yet 04:15.

I can't think of many trains that depart during that period - probably just the TPE and Thameslink overnights. I think it's just a nominal restriction which exists so that they can charge you for an Anytime fare if you buy onboard (having passed a purchasing opportunity), or when calculating season ticket refunds.