Invalid itinerary but ticket sold

[Jason12]

IIRC it was Finsbury Park to London Terminals which was a mapped route via Cambridge and into Liverpool Street in the first edition of the Routeing Guide.

My understanding is that Clive searched for these oddities, queried them with ATOC and published them as "errors", rather than actually exploiting them for the purpose of cheap travel.

 

[Dai Corner]

My understanding is that Clive searched for these oddities, queried them with ATOC and published them as "errors", rather than actually exploiting them for the purpose of cheap travel.

He had quite a long and detailed correspondence with ATOC which he published and I remember reading at the time. I think it was on his website https://www.davros.org/ at one time but it isn't now.

He's still a track basher and there's a page about his latest adventures using an all-line rover.

Away from railways, he was involved with the early days of the Internet working for Demon, the first consumer ISP in the uk.

 

[Ediswan]

Away from railways, he was involved with the early days of the Internet working for Demon, the first consumer ISP in the uk.

'tenner a month' worked for me.

 

[urpert]

IIRC it was Finsbury Park to London Terminals which was a mapped route via Cambridge and into Liverpool Street in the first edition of the Routeing Guide.

Amazing, I can also remember that discussion (must have been around 2001 I think).

 

[87 027]

He had quite a long and detailed correspondence with ATOC which he published and I remember reading at the time. I think it was on his website https://www.davros.org/ at one time but it isn't now.

Yes, I remember that too. I think his view was that in BR days the concept was 'any reasonable route' but with privatisation this changed to 'any permitted' according to a set of rules, and so he wanted to explore, not unreasonably, what was permitted by the rules as codified and what wasn't. Especially given they form the basis of the contract between the railway and the customer, and the railway has legal remedies for non-compliance. I recall one of the published items of correspondence was a rather brusque brush-off from ATOC stating they weren't prepared to engage in answering any further queries of a research nature and he shouldn't darken their doors again unless he had encountered a specific problem when travelling on a specific route with a particular ticket.

 

[_toommm_]

Yes, I remember that too. I think his view was that in BR days the concept was 'any reasonable route' but with privatisation this changed to 'any permitted' according to a set of rules, and so he wanted to explore, not unreasonably, what was permitted by the rules as codified and what wasn't. Especially given they form the basis of the contract between the railway and the customer, and the railway has legal remedies for non-compliance. I recall one of the published items of correspondence was a rather brusque brush-off from ATOC stating they weren't prepared to engage in answering any further queries of a research nature and he shouldn't darken their doors again unless he had encountered a specific problem when travelling on a specific route with a particular ticket.

Are his findings still on the website or somewhere else? I'm drawing a blank as to where to find them/where they are on that website.

 

[87 027]

Are his findings still on the website or somewhere else? I'm drawing a blank as to where to find them/where they are on that website.

I remember CORE (Clive's Online Routeing Engine) where you could input 2 stations and be presented with all the permitted routes between them, but I think that was retired when there was a major update to the Routeing Guide, so I rather suspect it is now a relic of history even if captured by an archive somewhere (which I haven't been able to find)

 

[island]

He had quite a long and detailed correspondence with ATOC which he published and I remember reading at the time. I think it was on his website https://www.davros.org/ at one time but it isn't now.

He's still a track basher and there's a page about his latest adventures using an all-line rover.

Away from railways, he was involved with the early days of the Internet working for Demon, the first consumer ISP in the uk.

Was that the legendary email chain where he got them to admit that sometimes "not via London" tickets are valid via London?

 

[Dai Corner]

Was that the legendary email chain where he got them to admit that sometimes "not via London" tickets are valid via London?

Happily it has been preserved and includes the quote from ATOC "The routes "London" and "not London" are not necessarily mutually exclusive."

http://web.archive.org/web/20050211155353/www.rossrail.co.uk/central/routeqn1.html

The amazing routeing question​

by Clive D.W. Feather​

Part one​

The question is simple: what ticket should you buy to travel from London to Inverness ? The answer seems to be less simple: London to Carlisle.

Carlisle?

Well, yes. Valid routes for tickets are determined by something called the ATOC Routeing Guide. For every possible pair of stations this tells you what routes are valid. And it appears that a valid route from London to Carlisle is to start at King's Cross, ride up the ECML via Edinburgh and Aberdeen to Inverness, then back down via Aviemore and Stirling to pick up the WCML.

Feeling somewhat flummoxed, RossRail ticket expert Clive Feather wrote to ATOC. Here's his letter:

I remember CORE (Clive's Online Routeing Engine) where you could input 2 stations and be presented with all the permitted routes between them, but I think that was retired when there was a major update to the Routeing Guide, so I rather suspect it is now a relic of history even if captured by an archive somewhere (which I haven't been able to find)

It's linked from his website but I doubt if he's going to fix it.

Clive's On-line Routeing Engine​

Last changed: 2009-05-07​

Alert: this page is not up to date. ATOC have made several detail changes to the Guide recently and I haven't got time to keep up right now. Therefore do not rely on these results.
If someone wants to manage the data for now, please email me.

Apology: CORE is not currenly operational. I have moved my site to a new host and not yet got all the scripts converted and working.

 

[yorkie]

I remember CORE (Clive's Online Routeing Engine) where you could input 2 stations and be presented with all the permitted routes between them, but I think that was retired when there was a major update to the Routeing Guide, so I rather suspect it is now a relic of history even if captured by an archive somewhere (which I haven't been able to find)

Some software developers have created replacements for CORE, but they are not available to the general public.

IIRC it was Finsbury Park to London Terminals which was a mapped route via Cambridge and into Liverpool Street in the first edition of the Routeing Guide.

There are one or two interesting routes on this scale left; I tend to demonstrate them at fares workshops (if those in attendance don't appear to be subject to a conflict of interest in being shown such anomalies )

 

[Paul Kelly]

The routes "London" and "not London" are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

It isn't as daft as it sounds though; I think the intended meaning was that you can use a fare routed "Not London" when following mapped routes to and from London, i.e. that it is acceptable to change short of London.