Does anyone know of a source for how routing has evolved over the last... well, I'm not sure. Perhaps since the railway moved from a pattern of infrequent services over a rather more extensive infrastructure and started to aspire to, say, hourly clockface patterns of services on the network we use today.

Is guidance for passengers to the effect: 'If the National Rail site won't sell a ticket for it, then it's not a permitted route'?

An issue is that the National Rail site can give the impression that for some journeys that had an alternative that was rather longer than the arbitrary 'Up to 3 miles longer is a permitted route and anything else needs an explicit easement' rule, routing easements have somewhat contracted, which is not to the benefit of the intending traveller.

Mark

 
KI'm not sure routing easements are removed are they? Do we have any examples?