There are many reasons why the Journey you requested cannot be found. The two most common reasons are:

• There are no trains on the route you have requested within 2 hours of the time you have requested. To reduce load on the system, the timetable search engine only searches within 2 hours of the requested time. So entering a late night or early morning time may not find any trains. In this case try a later or earlier time as appropriate.
• The route you requested (particularly if you specified a "via" station) may not be a valid 'ticketable' route. To overcome this break the route into sections. See "How does the site work out the routes I can take?" below.

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The journey planner will offer the cheapest tickets available on the route and for the train times you asked for. Certain ticket types, such as cheap day and advanced purchase tickets are only valid on these routes at certain times of the day, or on trains that would arrive or depart London or other main stations outside of peak times. Advanced purchase tickets are also sold in limited numbers and so subject to availability and there may be no more available on the route and at the times you asked for. Changing the time or date of your journey may show tickets that better meet your needs.

National Rail Enquiries Online will, currently, only show tickets that can be purchased online from any of the retailers we link to, at any booking office or at any call centre. There may be other tickets types that (for example) are:

• specific to a individual train operating company and can only be purchased at their stations or callcentres;
• available only to a particular type of passenger (such as a senior citizen); or
• a promotion (such as a 2 for 1 offer) or linked to some other purchase or voucher

which we cannot show. For these tickets we suggest you contact the train operating company or their telesales centre, details of which can be found here

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If "Fastest" is selected (the default), the search returns all the valid tickets for the route regardless of cost. On busy routes, there might be times when services offering low-cost fares take longer to complete the route than the five fastest trains, in which case the cheapest options may not be shown. You can look for these by selecting "Cheapest" from the drop down list. This requests the journey planner to return the two cheapest tickets regardless of speed that are valid between the two ends of the journey you have specified. However there are some limitations to the answers that are returned:

• If you have specified a routing (e.g. London to Birmingham via Northampton) then the cheapest tickets (in this example between London and Birmingham) may not be valid on that route, so the journey planner will return 'No trains found';
• The cheapest ticket(s) may specify a routing restriction that is not valid on the trains at the times you have specified. In this instance the journey planner will offer times for trains on which these tickets are valid, which may differ significantly from the times you asked for;
• The cheapest tickets offered may be advanced purchase tickets which have limited availability and require booking in advance. These may not be available on the day of travel you asked for.

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The 'VIA' option on the journey requirements page is not intended for selecting intermediate stations where the train stops, but for forcing a specific routing to your journey. In general leaving the 'VIA' options blank will give the best route for your journey. Advanced users, who know that a particular service runs along a certain route, can use the 'VIA' option to force that route. For example, if you select London to Birmingham you will almost always get the main route which is operated primarily by Virgin Trains. However, entering a VIA of Northampton will select London Midland trains as the main user of the route with a limited Virgin Trains service. Another use of 'VIA' is to force a routing that will avoid a specific location.

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The journey planner will offer all available tickets for the train times you asked for. Certain ticket types, such as Saver tickets, are only valid on certain routes at certain times of the day, or on trains that would arrive or depart London or other main stations outside of peak times. If the trains you asked for have multiple tickets of the same type applicable to those trains we will show all such tickets. The price difference reflects different ticket routings or restrictions. Typically the more expensive ticket will have fewer restrictions and will probably allow 'ANY PERMITTED' routing. If you are likely to want to change your return journey to allow for alternative times or routes then the more expensive ticket may be applicable. In general however the cheaper ticket will meet your needs on the trains offered. If you purchase the cheaper ticket and travel at a time or on a route for which it is not applicable you may be asked to pay the difference onboard.

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The journey planner takes information provided from the central Rail Journey Information Service (RJIS) which is run on behalf of the Association of Train Operating Companies by Fujitsu plc. RJIS integrates timetable information from the Network Rail timetable systems, fares information from the different train operating companies and routing information from the Strategic Rail Authority.

The timetable and fares information undergoes a major update twice yearly for summer and winter timetables. The information is, however, collated on a daily basis and fed overnight to the journey planning database to ensure that you have the most up to date information available. Where possible known changes, such as engineering work and other operating issues, are included in the daily updates. However short term changes, such as a train being cancelled for mechanical problems or lack of a driver, cannot be included. It is always worth re-checking your journey details on National Rail Enquiries Online before you travel as timetable changes do occur overnight from time to time. This is particularly important if you have booked ahead on an advanced purchase ticket.

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The journey planner applies the official National Rail Routing Guide provided by the Strategic Rail Authority. This guide sets out which routes are valid for travel on one ticket. This means that it is possible that the site may not be able to find a route that meets your requested journey. If this occurs then the site will show no trains being found. Asking for a journey "via" a particular station may be one reason why this occurs. An example might be London to Manchester via Glasgow. This is because there are no permitted routes for this journey. To rectify this you should remove the "via" option and submit the search again.

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Many of the cheaper tickets require you to make and use a reservation for all or part of the journey.

We are unable to show availability for these tickets more than 12 weeks in advance of travel because the Central Reservation System (CRS) generally only holds the details of trains departing up to 12 weeks ahead.

We can only show availability on trains whose details have been entered into the Central Reservation System by the owning train operating company - each train operator sets up the ticket availability individually; this is usually 12 weeks ahead but in some cases may be less.

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At times the train operating companies will make available certain promotional tickets, which are often restricted to certain trains and routes. These tickets will also carry other conditions and requirements in terms of refunds, changes and advance bookings.

Some of these promotions require you to obtain tickets from a specific agency, or to hold a voucher which must be exchanged at the booking office (for example a newspaper promotion). Since such tickets are not available for general purchase information about them may not be available through the central Rail Journey Information Service, in which case we will not be able to show details of the promotion. In general, if the train operator allows a particular promotion to be sold through any channel and it fits your journey requirements, details of that promotion will usually be displayed.

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The journey planner will show ticket pricing and availability for up to eight persons travelling together. For more than eight persons most train operating companies offer group travel tickets which may work out cheaper than standard tickets, especially if booked sufficiently far ahead. Since the fare rules and travel restrictions for these tickets can be train operating company specific we cannot show these details. Please contact the telesales centre of the appropriate train operating company for further information, which can be found by browsing our train operating company index page.

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This is a common issue for websites that carry advertisements, and we are investigating a specific fix for our site. However in the meantime you can workaround this problem by doing one of the following before printing:

• If you use a mouse to browse, click on an area in the main body of the page that isn't a link (e.g. the journey planner results).
• If you use a keyboard only, tab to an area in the main body of the page.

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