Ticket London Bridge to Eastbourne

[lawried123]

Hi, could I have some advice please from the ticket experts here. I'm travelling from London Bridge to Eastbourne on the 26th March. The national Rail travel planner says there are engineering works and a special bus service between Three Bridges and Brighton. Yet when I put in the obvious alternative route via St Leonards it doesn't show a fare.

BR Fares shows a fare Any Permitted but no indication of what the Any Permitted means. The journey via St leonards simply involves one change and does the journey about half an hour quicker then going via Brighton and avoids the probably unreliable and inconvenient special rail bus from Three Bridges.

Does anyone know no if this means I have to buy a ticket to St leonards and then a separate ticket from there to Eastbourne, which appears that it would be then more expensive. Does it really seem right that when they are doing engineering works you have to pay more more to get a quicker and much more convenient journey.

Or could I use the the Any Permitted ticket ?
Any advice would be appreciated, please.

Lawrie

 

[jfollows]

London to Eastbourne "Any Permitted" routes are shown on maps LB and VB at https://data.atoc.org/routeing-maps which do not include via St Leonards.
Unless there is an "easement" specifically covering this engineering work (I looked and I can't see one) you can't use a London-Eastbourne ticket via St Leonards.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

There are half hourly rail replacement buses from Three Bridges to Lewes at xx08 and xx38 on Sunday 26th March 2023. Then half hourly trains onwards from Lewes to Eastbourne. Not ideal, but you don't necessarily have to travel via Brighton.

 

[Haywain]

Trainsplit will offer split tickets for the journey via St Leonards.

 

[Watershed]

Unfortunately London to Eastbourne is not permitted via St Leonards. It is only permitted via Three Bridges, and thus you would have to buy a combination of tickets to travel via St Leonards if you wish to avoid the bus.

In practice I think there's a reasonable chance that staff would simply accept a ticket to Eastbourne via St Leonards anyway, especially when you explain why you're travelling that way, but you won't get any journey planner to offer that route to you.

The railway's position is effectively that permitted routes are primarily there to prevent fares being used in an 'anomalous' manner. It has no interest in facilitating the use of the most convenient route. This is exemplified by the risible claim in the Routeing Guide that "most passengers want to travel by the shortest route" - because naturally, passengers travelling from Birmingham to York want to travel via Alrewas and Pontefract Baghill, the former route having one train a week and the latter three trains a day!

If the Routeing Guide admitted that passenger almost always just want to travel by the fastest route, it would completely undermine the legitimacy of restricting people to direct trains, the shortest route, or mapped routes - which in cases such as this, thereby excludes the fastest and most convenient route.

 

[lawried123]

Trainsplit will offer split tickets for the journey via St Leonards.

Thank you for all your replies. Special thanks to Haywain for the split ticket suggestion. By splitting at Sevenoaks, not only do I avoid all the rail replacement stuff, I also get a cheaper journey. Thats a win-win !
While I do use split tickets quite often, it hadn't occurred to me to split it on the alternative route.
Thanks

Lawrie