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For online ticket purchases, we recommend Virgin Trains East Coast. Until recently this was publicly-owned East Coast, but under Virgin control it’s still one of the better online ticket sales points, with clear information, the option to book a bicycle space, and no booking fees. See www.virgintrainseastcoast.com
If you find the whole thing unbearably complex, there are some very knowledgeable ticket agents around, where you can speak to a real human being with a detailed knowledge of the UK rail network. Probably the best is the privately-run Chester-le-Street station, Chester-le-Track. Another very knowledgeable agent is Ffestiniog Travel, the ticket arm of the Ffestiniog narrow gauge railway in North Wales. They are specialists in worldwide tickets and rail-tours, but can help with UK tickets too. Purchasing through an agent doesn’t cost any extra, because these companies earn a commission on the fare, just as your local franchised railway station does when it sells you a long-distance fare.

Rail Travel Hints & Tips

Buying railway tickets in the UK has become immensely complicated and confusing. There are many reasons for this, some historical and others bound up with the potty railway ‘privatisation’ of the 1990s. We won’t bother going into the details, which would take many web pages to explain, but here are a few useful tips for buying tickets:

RAILCARDS

Pretty well everyone can use a railcard of one kind or another. If you are young, old, a student, disabled, travelling with at least one child, a member of the armed forces (or spouse), or making all (or most) of your journey in the southeast of England, or many other mostly rural areas, you will find a long-established railcard for you. And the latest card – Two Together – covers the Dinkie couples (Double Income, No Kids) missed out by all the others.
The price of the cards has risen dramatically in recent years (it’s that ‘privatisation’ again) but in most cases you’ll get a 33% discount on the regular fare, so a card will pay for itself in a few journeys, and ultimately repay the purchase price many times over. It’s bad luck for everyone else, but in practise there aren’t many people who don’t squeeze into one category or another.
For all national cards & London & SouthEast railcards, see www.railcard.co.uk
There are numerous local cards and special offers too. You can find the full list at National Rail.

RETURNS & SINGLES

Tickets in the UK are in a terrible mess. Some long-distance returns are more expensive than a series of short trips on the same route, and there are some extraordinary anomalies in prices and conditions for stations that are often just a few miles apart. The price and availability of most ‘walk-on’ return fares is regulated by law, and generally speaking, these tickets cost just a few pence more than a normal single ticket. So our standard advice is to buy a ‘walk-on’ day or period return, even if you are unlikely to be coming back (you never know). However, there are now some exceptions, because the private rail franchisees are allowed to sell their own cheaper advance single fares, usually (but not always) for use exclusively on their own trains. These tickets can be very cheap, so two of them may well work out better value than a normal regulated return fare, but not necessarily, so always double check against the walk-on fare.
Some of these advance single tickets are poorly advertised locally, while others are available only on the company’s website. All require some sort of advance purchase, and you’ll generally have to book on a specific train. In many cases the really cheap fares are for odd trains in the graveyard slots, with more practical services as expensive, or more expensive, than a normal return. The only way to find out is to conduct a bit of research using the various online ticket outlets. There are actually far fewer ticket agents than you might think, because many of these apparently independent outlets are actually part of Raileasy, thetrainline.com or another well known agent. Our advice is to buy tickets through one of the railway companies, preferably one local to the route you intend to travel. They are more knowledgeable and will often be able to display cheaper deals. Before buying anything, check out an alternative agent for better deals, and consider the options below, which can save a fortune.

SPLIT TICKETS

As if the whole thing wasn’t complex enough already, the prices shown by rail companies and ticket agents are by no means the end of the story. You might expect a journey of 50 miles to cost, say, £25, and a journey of 100 miles to cost £50? That was true once, but in the Alice in Wonderland world of railway privatisation, different routes can mean very different prices, and two short journeys can be much, much cheaper than one longer one. In other words, if you are travelling from A to C, the through fare might be £200, but the fare from A to B might be £50, and the fare from B to C might be £75, a total of £125, saving you £75. These ticketing anomalies can be weird and wonderful, and there are far too many of them to list, but as a general rule, if you are travelling towards (not necessarily into) a big urban area during the morning peak period, you will almost certainly be able to travel more cheaply with two, or even three ‘split’ tickets. This is all perfectly legal, but only if your train stops at the ticket boundaries, so check the stopping patterns and conditions carefully before buying.
Double check routes too. Sometimes a more rural route is cheaper for long forgotten historical reasons from pre-British Rail days, and the strange modern ticketing system has made these historic anomalies even more marked. There’s no harm in looking, and most web pages allow you to enter ‘via’ or ‘not via’ to your ticket choice. Even then, some oddities will not show up, so keep your ear to the ground locally.
Finally, try to avoid buying a complex cocktail of tickets at your local station. Staff are obliged to sell you any tickets you want, but if you hog the ticket window for twenty minutes, you will be unpopular with staff and other passengers. Do the research on the web, and either buy on the web or have the tickets delivered to the station ticket machine of your choice. It’s a good idea to pick them up at least a day before travelling, because you’re relying on a lot of clever technology to do this, but in our experience it’s never gone wrong.

GROUPSAVE

This is a very simple idea, but little known, and not always fully understood by station and on-train staff. In certain areas (principally the southeast of England and between Glasgow and Edinburgh) a group of three or four adults can travel off-peak for the price of two, with accompanied children travelling for £1 each. For a larger group, this can work out cheaper than using a railcard, but you do need to check availability in advance, and make sure you really will be saving money, because with some routes and groups, this may not be the case.

RAIL + PLUSBUS

Plusbus began quietly a few years ago, but has developed into a major network, covering all cities and most larger towns throughout the UK. When you buy your ticket you pay a small supplement (typically £2.50 to £3) allowing unlimited bus travel at the start or end of your train journey. The rail-link Plusbus ticket is always cheaper than the normal bus company runaround ticket (if there is one) and as some cover a considerable area, they can represent excellent value for money. Better still, your discount railcard will reduce the cost even further. Plusbus tickets are usually valid for a single day (if you’re staying somewhere for longer you may want one for the outward journey and another for the return). Some areas offer season ticket versions sold as add-ons to railway season tickets.
Tickets can be bought like any other rail ticket at the ticket office, but if you want to do something complex, try calling independent ticket retailer Chester-le-Track on 0191 387 1387, and you will find some at online ticket outlets (full details at www.plusbus.info)