ScotRail Tickets - using only partial ticket
 

Hi All - I'm hoping someone might have some insight into my situation.
I had booked a ticket from Invergordon to Edinburgh, which requires a change in Inverness. However, my plans have changed and I'm now only going to be in the Inverness area. Would my ticket still be valid if I just boarded at Inverness?
In fact, the ticket specified that I need to pick it up somewhere other than Invergordon, which doesn't have a ticket collection facility.
I'd like to avoid buying a new ticket if at all possible.
Thanks!

What ticket do you hold and what was the price?

Anytime and off-peak return tickets on this route allow you to start short.

If it is an advance ticket you must use complete the entire journey and use the exact trains that were reserved.

In Scotland you can buy full-price tickets on the train. Which means that you can get on a train with an invalid ticket and ask the conductor for permission to travel. If refused, you can just pay again. However, there are ticket barriers at Inverness so you may not be able to get on board the train to ask for permission.

Thanks for the replies!
I looked more carefully and it's an "Advanced Single, non-flexible" ticket.
The journey consists of ScotRail #SR0906 from Invergordon to Inverness and a 22-minute interchange to ScotRail #SR0417 (Inverness to Edinburgh)

I'm arriving a few days prior on the Caledonian Sleeper so presumably I can pick up the ticket at that time via some mechanism (machine/kiosk) at the Inverness station at that time?

Also, are you suggesting that I can just buy the cheapest one-way ticket to get through the barrier, but then when on the train from Inverness to Edinburgh, just show them my original ticket? Sounds brilliant!
Will their scanner know I didn't take the first leg of the journey?

Trains in the UK are very low tech. I would be amazed if the inspector even had a scanner, let alone that it did anything other than simply read what's on the face of the ticket.

Some booking sites use the 'retail service IDs' to refer to individual services.

(For the OP's info, you are extremely to see the DR codes anywhere but on your email...)

So, SR0417 is this fella:

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/G81314/2019/05/27/advanced

I booked my ticket through Loco2 and the email with the confirmation provided the train numbers. Didn't realize that was unusual.
The booking interface on Loco2 was simpler than on the ScotRail site

As you'll be arriving into Inverness on the Caledonian Sleeper, you can simply go straight to the main manned station office just after WHS Smith on the left for train tickets at the station on arrival.

Speak to the staff there and pick up your ticket. They've local staff and friendly, they should be able to help and sort you out.

So there's no point going to Beauly or Dingwall, also it's single track North of Inverness, as is the line up from Perth, so services are sparse as the same train goes up to Thurso/ Wick, and then back down again.

Does your paperwork say to pick it up from a particular station?

Train Stations South Bound from Invergordon:

Invergordon - Alness - Dingwall - Conon Bridge - Beauly - Inverness.

The instructions on the email state: Please note that there are no ticket collection facilities at Invergordon so you must collect your tickets from a different station before you travel. The closest station with collection facilities is Dingwall.

My plan is to pick up the tickets in Inverness the day I arrive - I assume I can do this a few days in advance of my actual trip?

So, with ticket in hand for Invergordon-Inverness-Edinburgh, would I be able to get through the gates at Inverness Station on the day I depart?

You can collect your ticket at any station with the facility to do so - i.e. a machine. Ticket offices can also issue the ticket, so generally can conductors on the train now, but usually you will be expected to go through the normal procedure before they will help you because that’s how the resources are allocated. Anything else is an emergency back-up.

It is possible that the barriers at Inverness will refuse your ticket because the conditions may include that you can’t break your journey, and it will have expected you to simply transfer at Inverness . However, the reality is that the barriers often also reject perfectly valid tickets as well so every set of gates has an agent on them to deal with issues. In practice, that agent will have no idea why the ticket was rejected - you might have had to exit to go to the toilet, or buy something from the shops in the station for example - so they will simply manually let you through. It happens hundreds of times every day at every station.

So, don’t sweat this - if the barrier rejects you, show the ticket to the agent and I would be absolutely astonished if you’re not allowed through. As others have said, beyond that point the train conductor simply will neither know nor care whether or not you’ve started at the right place.

The OP is not stopping short, though - this is a journey that's starting at an intermediate point. In practice, I don't know of any rail company that would twig that's what happened because of the myriad of reasons any passenger might have for needing to pass through the exit barriers onto the station concourse.

I would also be giving very different advice to someone who starts at the right place but stops early - at best this is likely to lead to difficult questions, particularly at stations such at Stratford where there should be no need to pass through the exit gates.