In message , at 14:19:35 on Sat, 30 Mar
2019, Basil Jet remarked:
On 30/03/2019 12:51, Guy Gorton wrote:
I had a look at my line, the Chiltern. Possible journey Brum Moor
Street to one of the stations between South Ruislip and Wembley. The
timetable sites insisted that I go beyond my destination and double
back at either Wembley or Marylebone. I decided I could not be
bothered to look up detail timetables - sorry to be so idle.

So the timetable sites refuse to give the cheapest route... not good!

Not an issue I see here. One change at Gerrards Cross or High Wycombe,
and nowhere near Marylebone.
--
Roland Perry

John Williamson wrote:
On 29/03/2019 00:48, Richard J. wrote:
In reply to this post from Theo to
onÂ* 28 Mar 2019 at 16:52 ...

Travelling on a Sunday in the winter, try Bourg St Maurice to Stratford
International. I make 5 changes:

Bourg St Maurice - Moutiers-Salins-Bride-les-Bains - Paris Gare de Lyon -
Chatelet les Halles - Paris Gare du Nord - Ashford/Ebbsfleet
International -
Stratford International

(on weekdays the ski train stops at Ashford.Â* I don't know if there are
direct trains from Moutiers to Lille in the winter which would cut the
changes to 3)

Theo

A "sensible & perfectly informed passenger" would know that you can get
from Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord by RER D without the need to change at
Châtelet-Les-Halles.

I read the original post as applying to journeys on a single line, not
one where you change lines on the way.

So if the only train you can catch at your local station doesn't stop
where you want to get to, but there is a station where both trains stop,
you have to change trains.

As such, you should never need to change trains on the Underground short
of a service problem on the District, Circle and Hammersmith and City
lines, where they occasional change a Circle line train to H&S, stopping
short. (Probably not the only place it can happen, but it caught me out
recently, and ignoring the length where the Picadilly and District
lines run on parallel tracks, but share some stations. I count those as
different lines.)


What about the Metropolitan line, that has Fast, Semi-fast and All-stops
services? So, for example, if you board a fast train from Chalfont,
wanting to travel to Nothwick Park, you'd need to change to a stopper ar
Harrow-on-the-Hill.

Ian Clifton wrote:
Let’s suppose you’re going from Reading to Hanwell. You might have to
make as many as 2 changes (at Slough, and Hayes & Harlington), to reach
a station you’d simply pass through if you didn’t change. What’s the
most such changes a (sensible & perfectly informed) passenger ever has
to make?

How about something like Thirsk - York - Peterborough - Stevenage - Welwyn
North?

Robin

In message , at 20:57:41 on Mon, 1 Apr 2019,
bob remarked:
Ian Clifton wrote:
Let’s suppose you’re going from Reading to Hanwell. You might have to
make as many as 2 changes (at Slough, and Hayes & Harlington), to reach
a station you’d simply pass through if you didn’t change. What’s the
most such changes a (sensible & perfectly informed) passenger ever has
to make?

How about something like Thirsk - York - Peterborough - Stevenage - Welwyn
North?

Apart from there being a regular service from York to Stevenage, meaning
two changes eminently possible.

Journey planners also offer the occasional one-change, at Kings Cross.
Which goes back to my earlier question about how challenges like this
interact with doubling-back.

Sun-Fri Shippea Hill to Ely[1], for example, always requires doubling
back; but still results in only two changes.

[1] And of course anywhere further east on that line, *to* Shippea Hill.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 20:57:41 on Mon, 1 Apr 2019,
bob remarked:
Ian Clifton wrote:
Let’s suppose you’re going from Reading to Hanwell. You might have to
make as many as 2 changes (at Slough, and Hayes & Harlington), to reach
a station you’d simply pass through if you didn’t change. What’s the
most such changes a (sensible & perfectly informed) passenger ever has
to make?

How about something like Thirsk - York - Peterborough - Stevenage - Welwyn
North?

Apart from there being a regular service from York to Stevenage, meaning
two changes eminently possible.

I obviously didn’t do my timetable checking properly, but I think the
concept is clear enough: Stevenage has a limited set of stations north of
Peterborough that are directly served, and Welwyn North has no direct
service to Peterborough, so pick a station up the ECML not served from
Stevenage with a station beyond not served directly by either Stevenage or
Peterborough, but where direct Anglo-Scottish services pass directly
through.

Journey planners also offer the occasional one-change, at Kings Cross.
Which goes back to my earlier question about how challenges like this
interact with doubling-back.

Doubling back makes finding examples much harder.

Robin

In message , at 19:01:22 on Tue, 2 Apr 2019,
bob remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 20:57:41 on Mon, 1 Apr 2019,
bob remarked:
Ian Clifton wrote:
Let’s suppose you’re going from Reading to Hanwell. You might have to
make as many as 2 changes (at Slough, and Hayes & Harlington), to reach
a station you’d simply pass through if you didn’t change. What’s the
most such changes a (sensible & perfectly informed) passenger ever has
to make?

How about something like Thirsk - York - Peterborough - Stevenage - Welwyn
North?

Apart from there being a regular service from York to Stevenage, meaning
two changes eminently possible.

I obviously didn’t do my timetable checking properly, but I think the
concept is clear enough: Stevenage has a limited set of stations north of
Peterborough that are directly served, and Welwyn North has no direct
service to Peterborough, so pick a station up the ECML not served from
Stevenage with a station beyond not served directly by either Stevenage or
Peterborough, but where direct Anglo-Scottish services pass directly
through.

That only produces a fairly long list of 2-change scenarios. I think we
ought to be aiming for 3+

Journey planners also offer the occasional one-change, at Kings Cross.
Which goes back to my earlier question about how challenges like this
interact with doubling-back.

Doubling back makes finding examples much harder.

I'm wondering that (if allowed as a strategy) we might find
circumstances where it 'adds one' to the list.

--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 19:01:22 on Tue, 2 Apr 2019,
bob remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 20:57:41 on Mon, 1 Apr 2019,
bob remarked:
Ian Clifton wrote:
Let’s suppose you’re going from Reading to Hanwell. You might have to
make as many as 2 changes (at Slough, and Hayes & Harlington), to reach
a station you’d simply pass through if you didn’t change. What’s the
most such changes a (sensible & perfectly informed) passenger ever has
to make?

How about something like Thirsk - York - Peterborough - Stevenage - Welwyn
North?

Apart from there being a regular service from York to Stevenage, meaning
two changes eminently possible.

I obviously didn’t do my timetable checking properly, but I think the
concept is clear enough: Stevenage has a limited set of stations north of
Peterborough that are directly served, and Welwyn North has no direct
service to Peterborough, so pick a station up the ECML not served from
Stevenage with a station beyond not served directly by either Stevenage or
Peterborough, but where direct Anglo-Scottish services pass directly
through.

That only produces a fairly long list of 2-change scenarios. I think we
ought to be aiming for 3+

It appears I overlooked the one per day each way King’s Cross - Aberdeen
services that call at Stevenage, I’d been working on the assumption all
Stevenage trains were Yorkshire only, that would make Stevenage - Newcastle
or Edinburgh impossible without a change. That would have made stations
north of Newcastle only served by Northern into 3 changers.

Thinking a little further afield, start with the Eurostar Amsterdam
service. This calls at StP, Brussels, Rotterdam Centraal and Amsterdam
Centraal. Take Stratford International and Rotterdam Zuid, both of which
the Eurostar passes through. Disallowing doubling back, the best I can
figure is Stratford International - Ebbsfleet - Brussels Midi - Breda -
Dordrecht - Rotterdam Zuid. From what I can tell this is possible to do
without deviating from the route followed by the through train, and doesn’t
involve spurious extra changes other than those needed to avoid doubling
back.

Robin

bob wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 19:01:22 on Tue, 2 Apr 2019,
bob remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 20:57:41 on Mon, 1 Apr 2019,
bob remarked:
Ian Clifton wrote:
Let’s suppose you’re going from Reading to Hanwell. You might have to
make as many as 2 changes (at Slough, and Hayes & Harlington), to reach
a station you’d simply pass through if you didn’t change. What’s the
most such changes a (sensible & perfectly informed) passenger ever has
to make?

How about something like Thirsk - York - Peterborough - Stevenage - Welwyn
North?

Apart from there being a regular service from York to Stevenage, meaning
two changes eminently possible.

I obviously didn’t do my timetable checking properly, but I think the
concept is clear enough: Stevenage has a limited set of stations north of
Peterborough that are directly served, and Welwyn North has no direct
service to Peterborough, so pick a station up the ECML not served from
Stevenage with a station beyond not served directly by either Stevenage or
Peterborough, but where direct Anglo-Scottish services pass directly
through.

That only produces a fairly long list of 2-change scenarios. I think we
ought to be aiming for 3+

It appears I overlooked the one per day each way King’s Cross - Aberdeen
services that call at Stevenage, I’d been working on the assumption all
Stevenage trains were Yorkshire only, that would make Stevenage - Newcastle
or Edinburgh impossible without a change. That would have made stations
north of Newcastle only served by Northern into 3 changers.

Thinking a little further afield, start with the Eurostar Amsterdam
service. This calls at StP, Brussels, Rotterdam Centraal and Amsterdam
Centraal. Take Stratford International and Rotterdam Zuid, both of which
the Eurostar passes through. Disallowing doubling back, the best I can
figure is Stratford International - Ebbsfleet - Brussels Midi - Breda -
Dordrecht - Rotterdam Zuid. From what I can tell this is possible to do
without deviating from the route followed by the through train, and doesn’t
involve spurious extra changes other than those needed to avoid doubling
back.

Looking at a map, it looks like the HS line that Eurostar uses skirts the
edges of Breda and Dordrecht bypassing the stations themselves, but without
deviating into those two places, there is no method of avoiding doubling
back.

Robin

In message , at 21:58:43 on Tue, 2 Apr 2019,
bob remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 19:01:22 on Tue, 2 Apr 2019,
bob remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 20:57:41 on Mon, 1 Apr 2019,
bob remarked:
Ian Clifton wrote:
Let’s suppose you’re going from Reading to Hanwell. You might have to
make as many as 2 changes (at Slough, and Hayes & Harlington), to reach
a station you’d simply pass through if you didn’t change.
What’s the
most such changes a (sensible & perfectly informed) passenger ever has
to make?

How about something like Thirsk - York - Peterborough - Stevenage - Welwyn
North?

Apart from there being a regular service from York to Stevenage, meaning
two changes eminently possible.

I obviously didn’t do my timetable checking properly, but I think the
concept is clear enough: Stevenage has a limited set of stations north of
Peterborough that are directly served, and Welwyn North has no direct
service to Peterborough, so pick a station up the ECML not served from
Stevenage with a station beyond not served directly by either Stevenage or
Peterborough, but where direct Anglo-Scottish services pass directly
through.

That only produces a fairly long list of 2-change scenarios. I think we
ought to be aiming for 3+

It appears I overlooked the one per day each way King’s Cross - Aberdeen
services that call at Stevenage,

There's several Edinburgh services which call at both Newcastle and
Stevenage.

I’d been working on the assumption all
Stevenage trains were Yorkshire only, that would make Stevenage - Newcastle
or Edinburgh impossible without a change. That would have made stations
north of Newcastle only served by Northern into 3 changers.

If most pairs of LNER stations have at least one direct service between
them per day, then we'll struggle to find any 3-change journeys on the
ECML.

Thinking a little further afield, start with the Eurostar Amsterdam
service. This calls at StP, Brussels, Rotterdam Centraal and Amsterdam
Centraal. Take Stratford International and Rotterdam Zuid, both of which
the Eurostar passes through. Disallowing doubling back, the best I can
figure is Stratford International - Ebbsfleet - Brussels Midi - Breda -
Dordrecht - Rotterdam Zuid. From what I can tell this is possible to do
without deviating from the route followed by the through train, and doesn’t
involve spurious extra changes other than those needed to avoid doubling
back.

South of France E* must be another to look at.
--
Roland Perry