Any tips for cheap train tickets?

[snorri]

In the good old days when local authorities paid out student grants and sixth forms were part of the LEA and not independent bodies with delegated budgets, travel expenses used to be refunded

In the good old days students thumbed a lift wherever they wanted to go and seldom had travel expenses

 

[vickster]

Young Person's Railcard might help? Or hitch hiking's cheap as Snorri says

 

[swee'pea99]

It always cheaper to drive if you have say 5 in a car and nearly always cheaper to use the train when there is only one in the car.
Trains are subsidised.

That ought to be true, but just isn't, not unless you book in advance and get one of these discounts. If you just turn up and want a London-Manchester standard day return, it'll cost you about £220. I don't know exactly how much the petrol would cost for that journey, but I reckon I'd probably get change out of a third of that.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

That ought to be true, but just isn't, not unless you book in advance and get one of these discounts. If you just turn up and want a London-Manchester standard day return, it'll cost you about £220. I don't know exactly how much the petrol would cost for that journey, but I reckon I'd probably get change out of a third of that.

A tank full, on a very bad day with most of the motorways closed...

Actually it is 200 miles each way city centre to centre. That in our car is 2/3rd of a tank and a tank is £80 roughly.

OK there is wear and tear to factor in on the car, but I don't count tax and insurance because they are needs must no matter what mileage the car does.

Still cheaper to drive even taking car parking, congestion charge....into account

 

[brand]

That ought to be true, but just isn't, not unless you book in advance and get one of these discounts. If you just turn up and want a London-Manchester standard day return, it'll cost you about £220. I don't know exactly how much the petrol would cost for that journey, but I reckon I'd probably get change out of a third of that.

for Christ sake not everyone lives in London. Grimsby to Manchester turn up on the day, 1 month return without a card, 39 pound. No peak time on this route. You cannot beat that in a car. 2 people using the train instead of the car would save money. London fares are about insufficient capacity on the route, that is the point of the extra line.

 

[brand]

A tank full, on a very bad day with most of the motorways closed...

Actually it is 200 miles each way city centre to centre. That in our car is 2/3rd of a tank and a tank is £80 roughly.

OK there is wear and tear to factor in on the car, but I don't count tax and insurance because they are needs must no matter what mileage the car does.

Still cheaper to drive even taking car parking, congestion charge....into account

As above not everyone lives in London. The universe does not revolve round London, Honest I have checked!!

 

[spen666]

The Train Line is probably your best bet. A quick call to your local ticket office might be good too. They do deals at the ticket office but you have to ask, they tend not to offer.

The trainline is definitely not the best. They charge fees on top of the ticket prices. The same prices can be obtained at most booking sites and if you use www.eastcoast.co.uk or East Midlands Trains you are likely to get even cheaper as they are the operators

 

[KneesUp]

for Christ sake not everyone lives in London. Grimsby to Manchester turn up on the day, 1 month return without a card, 39 pound. No peak time on this route. You cannot beat that in a car ...

Er, well you can. Easily.

It would cost £39 in diesel (at current average price of 125.48p / litre) to do the 228.4 mile round trip from Manchester to Grimsby if you car averaged 33.4mpg. I would wager that most modern diesel cars would average somewhere north of 40mpg for such a journey, making the car cheaper than the train even if only one person travels.

You would only need to average 32.1mpg to make it cheaper to travel in a petrol car as petrol is cheaper.

 

[brand]

Er, well you can. Easily.

It would cost £39 in diesel (at current average price of 125.48p / litre) to do the 228.4 mile round trip from Manchester to Grimsby if you car averaged 33.4mpg. I would wager that most modern diesel cars would average somewhere north of 40mpg for such a journey, making the car cheaper than the train even if only one person travels.

You would only need to average 32.1mpg to make it cheaper to travel in a petrol car as petrol is cheaper.

So wear and tear doesn't count? Falling value? Insurance and tax. Yes you do have to include them as they are an investment cost which you divide by the miles you do.
Good job I have a disabled train card that reduces the cost by a third. The occasional over 55 specials can reduce it to £12 return. The hour and a half minimum bus journey to the train station is covered by disability bus pass.

 

[KneesUp]

So wear and tear doesn't count? Falling value? Insurance and tax. Yes you do have to include them as they are an investment cost which you divide by the miles you do.
Good job I have a disabled train card that reduces the cost by a third. The occasional over 55 specials can reduce it to £12 return. The hour and a half minimum bus journey to the train station is covered by disability bus pass.

I wasn't counting tax and insurance as they cost the same whether or not I drive the car, and as I have no off-street parking I have to pay them regardless.

My car cost me £1300. It is worth £300 as scrap (although as it has new tyres, was serviced last month and has 5 months MOT it will be worth more) - the most it can depreciate is £1000. I will have had it two years when the next MOT is due, so if it fails (which I don't expect it will) it will have depreciated £500 per year. I expect to have covered about 30,000 miles in that time, giving a depreciation of 3p per mile.

If you factor in that depreciation it would break even at 41.4mpg - still lower than the 45mpg I'd expect.

However, if we're counting depreciation on the car, I think it only fair we cover the £3.40 in bus fares it would cost me to get to and from the train station here, making the public transport journey more expensive, thus meaning that even with depreciation I'd only have to average 37.4mpg to make the car cost the same. If I had to spend the same on buses in Grimsby I'd only have to do 34 mpg to make the car cost the same.

Even if I include tax and insurance, and continue to assume that my perfectly functioning car will only have scrap value in 5 months time, the break even point is at 45.8mpg, which is perfectly achievable - and of course the car leaves when I want from outside my house, and goes straight to where I want to go before coming back exactly when I want it to. And as I've said, tax and insurance is basically the cost of owning the car to me, because I have to have them to park it anywhere.

It's a shame public transport isn't more viable in this country, but the simple truth is that since it stopped being treated a 'public good' and instead was treated as a chance to make money (not sure how profit making companies and subsidies quite fit...) it just isn't - hence we spend billions on making more and more roads for cars to queue up on instead of making it more realistically affordable to travel by rail. I want to take my bike up to Scotland for a few days of wild camping and exploring next summer and what with the cost of rail fares and the problems with bikes on trains, plus the time of day I want to leave, it makes much more sense for me to buy another old car (we have one car currently) and drive it there and back and sell it when I get back. That is utterly nuts.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

As above not everyone lives in London. The universe does not revolve round London, Honest I have checked!!

Yes but thank god London exists, otherwise some of the people who live there might live near me

 

[robjh]

The trainline is definitely not the best. They charge fees on top of the ticket prices. The same prices can be obtained at most booking sites and if you use www.eastcoast.co.uk or East Midlands Trains you are likely to get even cheaper as they are the operators

Second that, don't pay extra by using the trainline.com
Another good one : http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/