The rail journey from Rugby to Coventry takes nine minutes on Virgin Trains. But rail passengers buying a ticket for the 12-mile journey are being warned that they cannot travel via Southsea Hoverport in Hampshire.
Olly Benson was buying an off-peak return from Rugby to Coventry, priced at £6.60. He was surprised to read on the screen: “Route excludes Southsea Hoverpt,” and tweeted a picture.
Southsea Hoverport in Hampshire is the mainland end of the UK’s only scheduled hovercraft link, serving Ryde on the Isle of Wight.
Even though the nearest station to the hoverport with actual trains is a mile away, the terminus is recognised as a station and appears in the national rail journey planner system under the code SHV.
A journey between Rugby and Coventry that included Southsea Hoverport would involve a diversion adding at least seven hours to the journey, and involve a minimum of four trains and two buses.
The link between Southsea and Ryde is the world’s longest operating hovercraft service. It is run by Hovertravel. When The Independent informed the managing director, Neil Chapman, of the bizarre route exclusion, he said: “We would never would wish to exclude anyone, and welcome all those passengers from Rugby to Coventry.”
Travellers on the Midlands link are offered the opportunity to break their journey along the way – even though there are no intervening stations.
Other ticket machines elsewhere in Britain give different warnings for anyone hoping to buy a ticket from Rugby to Coventry.
At the UK’s busiest station, London Waterloo, passengers buying the ticket are told that they will need to buy a separate Underground ticket. The nearest Underground station is about 75 miles from Rugby.
The Rail Delivery Group is working on proposals for what it calls “root and branch reform” of train fares in Britain, which are governed by the extraordinarily complicated Ticketing & Settlement Agreement of 1995.
Mr Benson also reports strange terminology by the train manager on one of the services on the line. “According to the PA this @VirginTrains train is apparently ‘heavily commuterized’,” he tweeted.
It is believed to be a reference to large numbers of passengers using the service between work and home in the Midlands, rather than travelling longer distances between London and Birmingham.
