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They are cutting the cheapest fares constantly and the much trumpeted £20 return fares are more difficult to find than an honest merchant banker.
Completely agree.
I've heard constant tales of these cheap tickets, but have never managed to procure one for myself. I've never been able to acquire a discount, no matter where I travel to (in the South-East) or how far i try to book in advance.
It's worked out cheaper before for me and a friend to hire a car for a weekend than it was to take the train - which i find almost unbelievable.
A Saturday and Sunday in July isn't "off peak" you know, it's actually GNER's busiest two days for travel- busier than commuter days for long-distance journeys. But don't let facts get in the way of anything;)
You're just not looking hard enough.
Two return tickets from Newcastle to Stansted in September? £60. I couldn't even afford to park at the airport for that. The full price returns were about £100, which is double, but still about what it would cost in petrol (its about three tanks there and back in my economical Fiesta, and a tank is £35 round here).
But not all train companies do super-discounted tickets, especially the rural operators, but even full-fare tickets for one person are usually cheaper than driving. The problems start when you're taking a car-load with you.
Public transport in urban areas, and inter-urban travel, is very very good, and is nearly always cheaper than going by car. For travel into city centres it's usually quicker, too. The only problem with urban travel is that the bus networks focus on city-centre travelling too much, and there aren't enough transport links around the outskirts. To get from one suburb to another often involves a change, and sometimes involves getting into town and back out, too.
Rural transport is a joke, but then the Government won't subsidise the cost of travel in rural areas, so counties like Cumbria or Northumbria physically cannot afford to pay for buses to run, and commercial operators won't run buses out of the main cities and towns.
When exactly is off peak time according to the train operating companies? Between 4 and 5 pm on every February 29th, perchance?
I looked hard enough for the trip in question, and well advanced enough, and there was nothing that that came close to 'reasonable', let alone cheap.
By the sounds of it most people here are having difficulty finding these legendary cheap off peak fares we hear about. Perhaps the route you use is better than most. But city centre to city centre between major cities, cheap fares are very elusive indeed.
BTW, I did keep an eye on the petrol consumption after our last conversation regarding transport, and I spent around £69-£70 for the return trip from South London to Newcastle. I had my foot down for much of the journey as well. If I had stuck to the motorway speed limit I suspect I would have done it for around £60. As I said before I'd rather travel by train since the journey is shorter (though door to door, not by much at all) and I can relax and drink, but at £74 a ticket it's not going to happen.
It is, yep. For volume of traffic, Saturday and Sunday are the busiest days, and because everyone travelling is a leisure traveller, the leisure tickets disappear quickly. They don't usually have less tickets available, its just that the tickets are available 12 weeks in advance, so the best deals go quicker when there are more people travelling.
The cheapest tickets are available during the day on a weekday, because that's when the trains are emptiest.
Also you need to remember that the bargain tickets are sold as singles, for greater flexibility...hope you were reading the right bit of the website;)
The only issue I have with the railways is that the ticketing structure is not streamlined enough, and is sometimes a bit bonkers, but then nobody is prepared to pay for the overhaul of fares. I have an interest in the railways and know where to look for the cracking deals, and I rarely have trouble finding them, but they're perfectly easy to find if you spend five minutes at the station with a real person rather than relying on the piss-poor trainline.com. The fact that ATOC don't advertise these beauties, and actually go out of their way to hide them on their website, is nothing short of a scandal, mind.
My car does about 270 miles with a tank of fuel, so I'd be well into my third tank after a return journey to London. And I drive a 1.2 Fiesta, so driving a big luxury Repmobile would cost a lot lot more. And at least on the train you don't have to worry about those fucking speed cameras on the A1 in Lincolnshire :mad:
But then you need to divvy up your insurance costs, servicing / repair / MOT, and the depreciation on the car (which is a cost) - and it may end up more than that.
Regardless, I'd still opt for slightly more expensive for the reliability and freedom :thumb:
A bit of a diversion but you could go from Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction via Olympia and then head on the mainline down to Euston.
You could also cycle, of course.
Nope, i'm going to Southampton at the weekend and the prospect of driving down in my comfortable Ford Focus, next to my gorgeous wife, with Cd player, comfy seats, aircon as opposed to sitting for 4 1/2 hours with some chavs on an over crowded train who are on the way to a football match is quite appealing. BTW, train will cost £140 for the pair of us with 3 changes, car will cost me a tank of petrol so about £50.
Buses, however. What a mess. Last week, my scooter was in for some work so I bought a weekly bus pass for £10.90. But some of the buses have been transferred to another company, so whenever I got on them, I had to pay, despite having already paid out for a pass.
Two buses an hour in the evening into town, and the last one back is at 11.15pm. No night buses, and this is supposed to be a city? Rubbish!
What a coincidence. I'm going to Southampton the weekend after you, and I'm opting for the car instead.