Train Ticket Prices

[Haly]

So much of it depends on when you go and when you book the tickets. Sometimes I've had good deals, sometimes I've had bad deals.
Cost me £70 return for Swansea to Manchester, yet I've just got tickets Swansea to Braintree for £30.50 return.

I've noticed that quite often booking a couple of days in advance seems to get me better prices than booking 3 weeks in advance, although obviously it can be slightly riskier to do it that way.

 

[daz]

I got a saver return from London to Ferryside (South Wales... past Swansea) for £60 which I thought was a decent price as it would probably cost nearly that for petrol.

Also - the inspector didn't say anything despite my travelling at 5.15pm on a Friday with a "saver" ticket to Ferryside, yet people with savers to Bristol weren't being allowed on the train... weird.

 

[rgzcampbell]

It is £6.90 for a day return Arbroath - Dundee which is a complete ripoff. It's only 16 miles, depending on parking its much cheaper by car.

 

[PikeyPriest]

I hate the train prices aswell. I only live about 45 minutes out of liverpool street with regular trains every 30 mins or so. Yet the price without a young persons discount is £18. There is no way to book in advance to get any kind of discount on this route and they will NOT sell me a return ticket before 6 pm in the evening, though the reason for this they will not tell me. [Really annoying when i finished lectures early on a friday and was refused a return at midday]

Really annoys me that my friends can go back to nottingham/liverpool on better trains for less than i pay....

Thats why i have lied multiple times to give myself about 3/4 free trips over the last 2 years...

 

[daz]

I hate the train prices aswell. I only live about 45 minutes out of liverpool street with regular trains every 30 mins or so. Yet the price without a young persons discount is £18. There is no way to book in advance to get any kind of discount on this route and they will NOT sell me a return ticket before 6 pm in the evening, though the reason for this they will not tell me. [Really annoying when i finished lectures early on a friday and was refused a return at midday]

Can you not use 'Fast ticket' machines? Where do you live?

 

[PikeyPriest]

Nope. We have no ticket office apart from 8-10 weekdays. There are usually no ticket guys on the train so i just grab a tube before i get to the end of the line to avoid the barriers. job done for the price of a zone 1-2 single

 

[Ekim]

Oh yeah, and also if i bought 2 seperate returns...one from Northampton to MKC and one from MKC to Stoke, it would cost me around £20. Unfortunately i don't have the time in between train changes to get to the ticket office etc so this is impossible, unless i fancied a 4-5 hour journey

Could you not buy the two tickets online, you could probably even do it at your starting station. You don't have to buy certain tickets from certain stations as far as I am aware.

 

[i know nothing]

I'm starting a new job at London City Airport on the 24th. My start times for my training have not yet been confirmed but they did mention 9-5 for 2 weeks.

Driving from Luton for a 9am arrival in London is a big no no, so today I rang National Rail to enquire about a weekly train ticket. £81.50 said the voice on the other end

No thank you I thought, and so I went onto the Travelodge website to find that I can stay in the Travelodge next to the airport for 5 nights, all for £76.

No wonder nobody wants to use public transport !

Now I know that what I'm about to say might come as a bit of a shock, but it would appear that rail workers will be going on strike.

There are unconfirmed reports that almost a year has passed since they last went on strike...

 

[Glaucus]

Now I know that what I'm about to say might come as a bit of a shock, but it would appear that rail workers will be going on strike.

There are unconfirmed reports that almost a year has passed since they last went on strike...

Signallers are likley to go on a pay strike, the rest of us where going to go on strike over pensions, however a council has been set up to resolve the pension crysis. So the strike is much less likley.

The trouble is network rail does not decide or have any influence on ticket prices. We simply allow trains to run on are infastructure which the train operating companies pay us for.

 

[d0one]

I frequently get the train from Chesterfield to St Pancras and vica-versa for uni.
I find its cheapest to book more than 2 weeks in advance, book online, get two single tickets instead of a return, and go for a midday-ish train.

Doing this it comes to £12 for a return trek.

However this is not so good if you cant travel off-peak or if you miss your train since the ticket is only valid for the specific journey you book for.

 

[MarkyMark]

Well to support the public transport bashing......it was cheaper for 3 of us to get a taxi back from London than it was to come back on the train (long story don't ask ). That included a half hour drive round london too

 

[Charlie Bravo]

With the possibility of a strike and me looking at buying a weekly ticket, I may just drive but leave home at the same time as the train would be. That gives me 2 hours to do the trip. If I'm late, I'll have to look at my options, all be it limited ones.

 

[Borris]

I'm not sure there is cause to complain if you aren't using the train for commuting.

Pre-booked tickets are as cheap as chips (in the same vein as early booking on EasyJet of RyanAir).

Commuters, on the other hand, pay thousands, and receive a crap deal.

 

[SimonTW]

Im doing work experience this week, and so had to buy a weeks railcard to london and unlimited underground use.

I live in Surrey, and what really confused and annoyed me was the fact that the earliest I could buy one, was four days in advance of the week I was travelling. I mean how stupid is that? It makes no sense what so ever. The ticket came to £52.50 overall, which isn't too bad considering it covers all the tube zones, but the fact I couldn't get it far in advance was crazzy.

 

[Scottland]

I'm not sure there is cause to complain if you aren't using the train for commuting.

Pre-booked tickets are as cheap as chips (in the same vein as early booking on EasyJet of RyanAir).

Commuters, on the other hand, pay thousands, and receive a crap deal.

Yeah, last time we wanted to take a weekend trip to London a normal return would have been £60+. If we booked weeks in advance though, we could have gone for ~£20 return.

I say could have, because despite trying to book more than 6 weeks advance the "system" wouldn't let us book. So we had to call them for more info. The very nice & helpful gent on the other end of the line advised is to "check every day" because the website doesn't always let people book, and we couldn't book over the phone as his system wouldn't let us book either.
3 weeks later, the system was still not working (we tried daily), and 7 days until we wanted to travel...no still not working and the unpleasent lady on the phone told us to go away as we weren't travelling more than 14 days in advance.

They also never replied to the letter I sent.


I'm going to London again at the end of the month, who wants to guess if the online booking system will let me book their cheap advance tickets?