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Excess Fares When Two Possible Routes

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SpacePhoenix

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Say I was going from the Poole/Bournemouth area to Yeovil (was thinking of doing it by train for the airshow). I know that there's 2 possible routes:

* SWT to Weymouth then GWR to Yeovil Penn Mill
* SWT to Southampton Central then GWR to Salisbury then SWTs to Yeovil Junction

If I went one way and for whatever reason wanted to return by the other route, would I be able to get an excess fare ticket for the difference of the return fare or would I have to get a new single ticket for the return journey?
 
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Romilly

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I can get a journey planner such as that on the Virgin Trains East Coast site to give me itineraries for a Beaulieu Road-Yeovil Junction, or Brockenhurst-Yeovil Junction, offpeak day return (super offpeak day return on a Saturday or Sunday) either: via Southampton and Salisbury; or via the walk between the Dorchester stations and the Yeovil Pen Mill-Yeovil Junction buslink.

Going both ways via Dorchester, no further tickets would be needed. To go via Salisbury would require an additional ticket between Bournemouth and Beaulieu Road/Brockenhurst.

NB the Saturday/Sunday super offpeak ticket comes with break of journey restrictions on the outward journey, so couldn't be used for outward travel via Dorchester (because you would be starting short at Bournemouth, and possibly wanting to finish the journey short at Yeovil Pen Mill), but the offpeak day return is fine for either route any day of the week.
 
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hairyhandedfool

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Say I was going from the Poole/Bournemouth area to Yeovil (was thinking of doing it by train for the airshow). I know that there's 2 possible routes:

* SWT to Weymouth then GWR to Yeovil Penn Mill
* SWT to Southampton Central then GWR to Salisbury then SWTs to Yeovil Junction

If I went one way and for whatever reason wanted to return by the other route, would I be able to get an excess fare ticket for the difference of the return fare or would I have to get a new single ticket for the return journey?

Okay, to start with, what doesn't work in your favour......

An "Off-Route" excess fare would require the same origin and destination and an "Overdistance" excess fare is actually "travelling beyond the destination on the ticket".

But here is the good news.....

Whilst Yeovil doesn't have a "...stns" (or similar) ticket, there are, apparently, some SWT trains between the two stations (an example being the (Mon-Fri) 1350 London Waterloo to Salisbury), and this works in your favour because it avoids unnecessarily complicated arguments about whether "shorter" is just another way of saying "longer by a negative number of miles", or whether a permitted route "can begin or end with a walk/bus" and so on. But it is not without it's potential hazards, partly because it relies on a definition of "regular" that is never given, not even once.

Different staff may have different opinions on this one and the safest way is "a new single ticket", but IMO, you could get a ticket to Yeovil Junction as that is routed 'Any Permitted' and therefore no excess fare is required, I will re-emphasise the warning though, not everyone will see this the same way and if they should disagree you might be faced with buying a new single ticket.
 
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