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On our trains. Family travel. Bringing your bike. Food and drink. Wi-Fi on board. Travelling with children. London to Cornwall by sleeper. UK to any country in Europe by train A typical inter-city train You'll find seating plans for key British trains on the seat numbering plans page.
Standard class seats. Larger photo. First class seats. Buffet counter. However, I use it to see the range of fares available between two points without using a journey planner. Lines open 24 hours a day, calls are charged at local rates.
Is your train on time? Go to www. Pro tip: If you want a really detailed version, try www. Map of the national rail network : Click here for national rail map. This is the map which used to be included in the big printed Great Britain National Timetable, and in my opinion it's the still best map of the network, sufficiently schematic to see the lines, sufficiently geographic to see where they go.
The map is sadly no longer available on the National Rail website, where none of the replacement maps are as good. Other maps : There are other train network maps listed on www.
I also recommend rail fare expert Barry Doe's UK rail map which shows which train operator runs where, www. Buy train tickets for any train journey in Britain at www. You'll be offered a mobile ticket for many journeys, simply show the barcode on your smartphone, tablet or laptop. Or you can collect tickets from the self-service machines at any main station. You'll need the original credit or debit card with you as ID, if you have any problems you can also collect from the staffed ticket office.
Or they will post tickets to any UK address for a fee, with guaranteed next day delivery by 1pm. Tip: There's no need to find the 'right' train operator website , or to compare prices on different sites as all train operator websites including www. Anytime fares are good for any train. Off-Peak fares are good for any train outside Monday-Friday peak periods. Advance fares are only good for the specific train you book with limited or no changes or refunds allowed. For a more detailed explanation, see my quick guide to the 3 types of train ticket.
Tip: Avoid booking fees by using a train operator website such as www. Most independent third-party ticket retailers add a small booking fee on top of the ticket price, including www. For example www. There are a few exceptions, for example www. Tip: Ticket sales normally open weeks ahead , beware of looking too far ahead as explained here. But here's a good idea: Sign up for a free email 'ticket alert' when bookings open for the specific route you want, allowing you to snap up those cheap fares as soon as they are released It's worth trying later in the day if you don't immediately see any cheap deals available.
To sign up for an alert, go to www. Some other train companies also offer this service. Tip: Choose your exact seat from a plan A few operators allow you to choose a specific seat from a seat plan, but only if you use their own site to book their own trains. Although I personally prefer the booking engine used by www.
You'll find seating plans for some key British trains on the seat numbering plans page. See how it works and download the Seatfrog app. The National Rail website www. To buy train tickets by phone , call any train operator telesales line.
They all sell the same tickets at the same prices, for example, Avanti West Coast on Consider buying a railcard This is well worth it if you're under 26, over 60, travel as a family, travel as a couple, or have a registered disability.
Book longer-distance trips in advance. The price varies like budget air fares, the earlier you book, the cheaper they're likely to be.
Buy tickets for any route in Britain at www. You can also buy at www. Advance fares are only good for the specific train you book, no refunds, limited or no changes to travel plans. If you want flexibility, you need to buy an Off-Peak fare or Anytime fare. Even booking the night before can save money: Bookings for Advance fares theoretically close at the day before travel.
But in practice they remove any remaining Advance fares at on many routes, and one or two operators now even sell them on the day, so it's worth trying even if you've just missed the deadline! Wednesday lunchtime is usually cheaper than Friday or Sunday afternoon. Sign up for a ticket alert : Advance fares normally go on sale weeks ahead, the exact period varies. If reservations aren't yet open for your date of travel, sign up for an automatic ticket alert at www. But don't fall into the 'trap' explained above by buying an expensive Anytime or Off-Peak ticket before cheap Advance fares go on sale.
Don't fall into the trap! This 'trap' catches out many overseas visitors to the UK, desperate to book train trips months ahead. To see how far ahead booking for major operators is currently open, see www. There's no advantage in buying these in advance. Advance fares are much cheaper, but can only go on sale when reservations open, usually 8 to 10 weeks out it varies because availability at each price level is controlled by the reservation system.
To secure a cheap price, you need to buy these Advance fares in advance. Got that? Journey planners are built to find the fastest route, then find fares for that route.
Sometimes there's a slower route with cheaper fares which a regular journey planner enquiry won't find. To check if there's a cheaper but slower option, simply run the usual enquiry on www.
Then look for the little easy-to-miss link at the bottom of the search results saying Click here to see if slower routes with cheaper fares are available.
Click this and you will usually see a list of fares, starting with the cheapest. Click the button against each price, working your way down the list. Only www. Split the journey, where two tickets are cheaper than one You'll sometimes find a situation where the cost of a ticket from A to B plus a ticket from B to C is less than the cost of a ticket from A to C. As long as the train stops at 'B', you're legally entitled to use a combination of tickets, there is no need to get off the train.
Check your journey at www. Such situations arise in two ways: First, where different pricing managers from different train companies price the various sections of route, and have not noticed the anomaly, and second, where part of the journey can be made with an Off-Peak fare even if the other part has to be done on a peak Anytime fare, which saves money over making the whole trip with a peak Anytime ticket.
Anomalies are less likely to happen on obvious direct routes to and from London, as these will usually be priced by one pricing manager working for one train company who will naturally avoid creating them if he can.
For example, rather than buy a Penzance to Birmingham Off-Peak ticket you can save money by buying a Penzance to Cheltenham Off-peak ticket plus a Cheltenham to Birmingham Off-peak ticket, as all the Penzance-Birmingham trains call at Cheltenham. Under Condition 19 of the National Rail Conditions of Carriage there is no need to get off the train, as long as the train itself stops there. How to check if split-ticketing will save you money:. You then click to buy all the tickets online as one transaction, as easily as buying one ticket.
There's no booking fee unless they make you a saving, then they take a small fee out of the saving. The benefit if any of split ticketing varies enormously from route to route and time period to time period. I checked these claims using nationalrail. I'm not sure I'd now buy any long-distance flexible ticket without at least checking it.
Split the journey, to avoid paying peak fares for the whole trip You can sometimes save money by splitting the journey into two tickets if your chosen train starts as a peak train but becomes an off-peak train en route.
This often happens where Off-peak fares carry an 'any departure after ' restriction, as they do in much of the Greater London area. For example, if you need a train leaving at and arriving , why pay the peak 'Anytime' rate for your whole journey, it might be cheaper to pay the peak 'Anytime' rate to the first station at which the train stops after , then pay the cheaper Off-Peak rate from that station onwards. The split-ticketing system at www. A word of warning about 'travelling short' There are many cases where it's cheaper to buy a ticket from A to C and get off at B.
For example, a cheap limited-availability Advance ticket might be available from London to Edinburgh, but no cheap fares available to Newcastle, only Off-Peak or Anytime fares costing more than the cheap deal to Edinburgh.
In practice you might get away with this, especially if there are no ticket barriers at your destination so you can just walk out of the station. But technically, you are not allowed break your journey with an Advance fare.
Under the National Rail Conditions of Carriage, ticket inspectors are entitled to charge you the difference in fare between what you've paid and the cheapest walk-up ticket for the journey you've actually made. Back to top. And no, you don't need to be British or live in the UK to buy a railcard, see the overseas visitors paragraph below! A railcard can pay for itself in just one or two long-distance train journeys. For a summary of all railcards see www. National Railcards the clue is in the name!
They also don't apply to Heathrow Express. Buy online at www. That's to stop people using it for commuter trips to work. There is now a railcard for those aged 26 but under 31, initially a local trial, now a semi-permanent nationwide arrangement until further notice, see www. Senior Railcard Train operators tend to reduce their cheap train ticket quota in these busy periods. These days tend to attract higher prices with weekend travellers pushing up the prices. You could make great savings on your rail travel with a railcard, but railcards are only available to people who meet certain criteria.
There can be a big difference. Good luck finding cheap tickets for your rail journey. If you have any tips of your own for finding the best deals on tickets, please let us know.
Get 8 days of travel in 28 days - any time between two stations, so there is no need to buy a ticket every time you travel. You can purchase a Flexi Season ticket on the website or our mobile app. Flexi Season tickets will be available as a Barcode ticket in your redspottedhanky mobile app.
With a Flexi Season ticket you can make unlimited journeys between your named start and end stations. You can also break, start or end your journey at any station on your permitted route. Your day pass will be valid from the time you activate it until the next morning. You need to activate your day pass before you board your train. Tips on Finding Cheap Train Tickets. There are plenty of great deals to be had on train fares.
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