On 20 Apr, 15:55, Mr Thant
wrote:
On 20 Apr, 15:40, Alistair Bell wrote:
it's clear that the shortest rail-only route to
Vauxhall is on the direct train to Clapham Junction. ...

I don't think you can do that - it's the shortest route to a London
Terminal (ie the nearest one), with allowances for journeys through
London Bridge etc. Otherwise - as you mention - it starts getting
silly. Not that this is codified anywhere.

If it's not documented anywhere, then my opinion is the opposite. In
the absence of a documented restriction, the passenger can choose
which station to travel to within a group by a permitted route, and
doubling back is often specifically allowed:
"GROUP STATIONS
The stations listed at the bottom of this page are grouped together to
improve interchange between trains by offering customers access to a
wider choice of train services and station facilities. A customer may
travel via any station in a group, including doubling back, provided
that the group is on one of the permitted routes between their origin
and destination stations. This extended availability is for
interchange purposes only and does not apply where the origin or
destination stations are part of a group."
(http://www.atoc.org/rsp/_downloads/R...ctions.htm#how
%20to%20determine)

On Apr 22, 1:49*am, "John @ home" wrote:
If it's not documented anywhere, then my opinion is the opposite. In
the absence of a documented restriction, the passenger can choose
which station to travel to within a group by a permitted route, and
doubling back is often specifically allowed

But that only applies when the station group is in the middle of a
journey.
"This extended availability is for interchange purposes only and does
not apply where the origin or destination stations are part of a
group."

So it can never apply to tickets to/from London Terminals.

The relevant verbiage is in the conditions of carriage:

"You may travel between the stations shown on the ticket you hold in
[...] trains which take the shortest route which can be used by
scheduled passenger services"

I can't interpret that as allowing anything other than the nearest
London Terminal.

The fares manual says:

"Fares for travel to and from London Terminals are shown in Section B
and are valid at the following London Stations subject to the route of
the rail journey being undertaken,"

Which is a fairly explicit declaration that only a subset of terminals
is available, and dependent on where you start from.

U

On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:18:57 -0700 (PDT), Mr Thant
wrote:

"You may travel between the stations shown on the ticket you hold in
[...] trains which take the shortest route which can be used by
scheduled passenger services"

I can't interpret that as allowing anything other than the nearest
London Terminal.

You missed the bit about other routes permitted using the Routeing
Guide!

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Apr 22, 7:04*am, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
You missed the bit about other routes permitted using the Routeing
Guide!

Well yes! This sub-thread was about whether you can use the "Shortest
Route" rule to get yourself to an arbitrary London Terminal when the
Routeing Guide doesn't have a route that gets you to it.

U