I dont use the trains that much as they are just way to expensive.. however if i were to do a long ride and had to use the trains to get back hiw would the best way be to get the cheapest tickets available for such a journey.. i know folk have got to scotland in the past for as little at £30 but how do they do that??

Ta

Mike, my daughters do a fair few journeys to and fro uni. They use ticketsplitter. Its often cheaper to buy several tickets rather than one from home to final destination. Ticketsplitter does the hard work for you (apparently)..

As above. Look for split tickets, and book as far ahead as possible. I got Sheffield to Inverness for £20-odd.

Mike... I reckon I'm the train ticket master (maybe thats too strong a word... maybe train ticket keeper or something of lesser impact... ahem... anyway) as I've been using a fair few to reduce the cycling commute since 2012.

I use an app called TrainLine and if you look carefully* then theres plenty deals to be had. Especially since we can easily stop at a station before or after and get reductions of sometimes £80 (london to mirfield for example as opposed to london (choose ANY option) to Wakefield. They're only 6 miles apart with the Mirfield being a lesser village station.

Usually to get the deals you are better off grabbing the ticket at least 24H or more before the journey. I've managed to get tickets from Scarborough to Leeds (or Huddersfield) this way for around £11 as opposed to £45ish. Also, my ststion that I actually need is Dewsbury and this is in between both Hudds and Leeds but rarely has the deals going. Another point on this is that, when using that 'experimental style' in the TrainLine app, you sometimes grab the deal by, for example in my case, getting the cheaper ticket from Scarborough to Leeds and whilst in the train before arriving at Leeds, just buy the extension for a few quid (same train, from Leeds to Hudds). This way you dont even need to leave a train.

Another point is, that app mentioned by Rufus. It did seem to work briefly when it first got released but the prices judt hiked. Not sure if that was their way of pulling in the customers and bu8lding trust. My expereince of recent is that its a ripoff and doing manually using the trainline app actually gets the better deal.

*So for example once you know where you want to be and from where. If the price is skyhigh and you're felixble about timing. Then start looking a couple of weeks earlier. Long distances, I've found to be at optimal rock bottom around 2 to 3 weeks ahead... closer/shorter journeys (more commute type journeys) are usually cheapest - as example, York to Dewsbury - about 48H prior. In finding a cheaper adjacent station, google maps and their train station/traintrack icon is your friend (well thats how I find and explore which ststion to input)...

Sorry I've gone past my own asterisl but... just a quick search right now for me (xmas normally gets very expensive and you're lucky gwttin any deals using my method) from london to within 10 miles of me: a 200ish miles journey... and... I shall shut up that gob of mine and send some pics

if one was willing yo wait til after xmas although I didnt check for the prices in the next couple weeks but am confident they'll be blow a hole in the old bank card...



(this lasy one is of the Scarborough/huddersfield line

Landslide wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2019 11:54 pm As above. Look for split tickets, and book as far ahead as possible. I got Sheffield to Inverness for £20-odd.

Or it could be I'm not using the train splitter properly...

As above, split tickets
Buy in advance
Buy from the train operators website

I got from Hull to Wick for about £50
Slightly less for Penzance to Hull

This all very well and good, but what do you do about the reservation for the bike... ?

NorwayCalling wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 8:36 am This all very well and good, but what do you do about the reservation for the bike... ?

Book the bike reservations with the tickets

redefined_cycles wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 12:04 am I use an app called TrainLine and if you look carefully* then theres plenty deals to be had.

Do not use this app to buy tickets as they add a booking fee which you will not pay on the National Rail or other apps

In the past, I've simply phoned the lovely folk at Newtown station (other stations are available) and said "I'd like to go from X to X on these dates with a bike". I leave them to it and they seem to take great delight in finding the cheapest way possible.

Dave Barter wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 9:22 am

redefined_cycles wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 12:04 am I use an app called TrainLine and if you look carefully* then theres plenty deals to be had.

Do not use this app to buy tickets as they add a booking fee which you will not pay on the National Rail or other apps

Dave... suggest an app please (I'll try it out for the next few journeys) thats got all the train operator journeys on there. Fees are sometimes mostly 30p and 50p in my exp

NorwayCalling wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 8:36 am This all very well and good, but what do you do about the reservation for the bike... ?

In (the ap I'm talking of) you simoly go into 'operator' bit and find out who's train it is. Then do a bit of googlemania and find out if you nwed to reserve... sometimws its using twitter and sometimes just a quick ohone call.. or sometimes therea no booming and you just walk on (pending space)

Regular user. Agree with all above... split tickets... book days ahead for Advance fares... etc. But Stu's is the best idea - make friends with your local station people. Mine all run away and hide when they see me now! Oh, and try and age yourself prematurely and get a Senior Railcard for 30% off. Or Under 26 .

redefined_cycles wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 9:40 am

Dave Barter wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 9:22 am

redefined_cycles wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 12:04 am I use an app called TrainLine and if you look carefully* then theres plenty deals to be had.

Do not use this app to buy tickets as they add a booking fee which you will not pay on the National Rail or other apps

Dave... suggest an app please (I'll try it out for the next few journeys) thats got all the train operator journeys on there. Fees are sometimes mostly 30p and 50p in my exp

National Rail Enquiries
GWR (Nector points if you like that sort of thing)

Are two I use. I am 99% certain they all use the same data and timetable. Trainlines usp is that it is the easiest to use. But the split ticket sites can save an absolute fortune. I’ve taken £100 off a journey to London but I then book the tickets with a site like FWR that does not charge.

Hmmm thanks for all the above, i need to do some proper delving then. A quick search last night threw out prices of 184 inverness to brum. Im guessing i need to spend more than 5 mins on internet i need a personal shopper

Mike wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 1:58 pm A quick search last night threw out prices of 184 inverness to brum.

For a short journey like that surely it's easier to just ride back

A quick play on TheTrainline.com and splitting the journey as Inverness-Glasgow-Birmingham and I've got the price down to around £30. It does take around 16hrs though This was for a Friday in January so well in advance. Inverness to Glasgow Queen Street was £12.30 gets you there at midnight. Glasgow Central to Birmingham New Street (0550 departure) is £18.50 and you get in at 1005.

I'm sure with a bit more digging you'd get a more suitable timescale, unless you fancy a night out in Glasgow

If going up north, I found it a lot cheaper to get one ticket to Glasgow Central and then another one out from Glasgow Queen Street.

Its only a 10 min walk

Lots of the sites now do split ticketing - trainline and red spotted hanky

Red spotted hanky also allow you to book some bike spaces but other services such and cross country now use social media for this (so you can book the bike space via Twitter as you make the booking online) so its easily to check before you buy the ticket

Red spotted hanky also let you transfer clubcard voucher into credit - I think they still do but have checked for a while

This is the website that will find the cheapest split tickets - Ive not used it personally

https://www.ticketysplit.co.uk/

Ive just put in a random Thursday in Jan and its quoting £45 Inverness to Birmingham New St with 1 change
You can go cheaper (£40) but it would involve 3 changes and could well be more hassle than its worth for the extra fiver

adjustablewench wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 5:03 pm Lots of the sites now do split ticketing - trainline and red spotted hanky

Red spotted hanky also allow you to book some bike spaces but other services such and cross country now use social media for this (so you can book the bike space via Twitter as you make the booking online) so its easily to check before you buy the ticket

Red spotted hanky also let you transfer clubcard voucher into credit - I think they still do but have checked for a while

I just tried Red Spotted Hanky (no the website not the happy ending) and it gave a rubbish fare of over £200 on Paignton to Tyndrum. Ticketysplit came up trumps with £79 and £8 booking fee, so I could get it for £71 with a bit of DIY.

cheers people. I think im just sub standard at using the internet by the looks of it!! Its not till may so that pretty far ahead id say :0)

Ta re ticketysplit Dave, didn't know about that one.

I always find price comparisons between travel modes interesting, because they often don't take account of 'hidden' (dis)advantages. For example I could get a train return to Aberystwyth for a shade over forty five quid, thirty with my Old Farts railcard. In a motor it's a 400 mile round trip. Probably about similar £45 fuel cost. But of course that excludes wear/tear, insurance, blah. And never mind the traffic stress, or the wider issues on society that are widely aired. I reckon I can do twelve medium-distance BaM train journeys for the price of car insurance alone. Even cheaper on a bike of course .

If we take the generally accepted 45p/mile tax break for private vehicle use, that Aber trip would set me back £180! Oh, the motor is still cheaper because it doesn't 'really' cost 45p/mile? But surely they can't mean then that part of that rate is just a gigantic fraudulent bung from my taxes to private vehicle users? Surely not.

Of course I realise that shared vehicles etc change the equation in some ways.

My name's Ben Elton, goodnight.

Since I'm being Ben Elton (appropriate, as he wrote the prescient 'Gridlock' novel) I may as well make the most of my rant...

The claim is that 56% of car journeys are less than 5 miles (even 40% are less than 2 miles! Barmy). They're more of an issue than the other 44%.

Another factoid is that the gym carpark down our road is frequently full. Why don't they all just bike energetically there, not go in, and just bike straight home again? Two lots of cash saved in one go there .

Given that we're a 'leave no trace' cycling forum I wonder if I'm not the only one with an ironic wry smile.

Ben

Hopefully you don’t grab a double seat on the train in the same way as he suggested