With effect from Wednesday 6th November, easement 000005 of the National Routeing Guide was changed from a manual easement to a local easement. The easement reads:
Journeys from stations on the Barton-on-Humber line to Habrough and stations west ofHabrough may double back between Habrough and Grimsby. This easement applies inboth directions.
NRG Section E
A local easement is defined as:
"Local easements, which allow a longer journey to the origin routeing point or from the destination routeing point, or which allow doubling back on this part of the journey. They may also forbid doubling back on this part of the journey."
Whereas a manual easement is defined as:
"Manual easements, which exist only as text in the computerised version of the Routeing Guide"
NRG Section F page F10
It seems as yet the change has had little effect, as it seems from some trial enquiries easement 000005 is still not being applied by electronic booking engines, which is a shame because, particularly on Saturdays, passengers travelling to stations on the Barton Line are effectively denied advance purchase tickets on the last journey opportunity of the day.
With almost all services calling at Habrough from a week on Sunday, how much use will this easement be? (I'm not an expert on ticketing so sorry if I have missed something obvious)
The easement has been in a long time, just has changed form. The main benefit is for people from the west wanting to connect into the last Barton train, as the natural TPE connection is the one which continues to not stop at Habrough, hence on weekdays such passengers would otherwise have to change at both Barnetby and Habrough and on Saturdays would have to set out an hour earlier, with a long interchange time at Habrough.
Additionally, were the connection at Habrough would be longer than 25 minutes, doubling back to Grimsby would be preferable to many rather than waiting at Habrough with its lack of facilities, especially on poor weather days.