London Travel Answers

There can be a huge saving by purchasing train tickets in advance. Last year i purchased tickets from Edinburgh to Pitlochry in Scotland for around £80 return. If i had bought them on the day it could have been £200 if i remember correctly. I think that you can purchase only 90 days in advance and you may have left it too late to take advantage of real cheap deals but try this www.thetrainline.com.train. or www.raileasy.co.uk. I checked with the latter and cheapest price today for the trip is £78 but Aug 9th the cheapest is £12. 9th June £25 is cheapest!! So act now and save money!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you very much! I will definitely check out those websites.

I agree with Davidjo you can get good deals on trains, buses, planes in the UK by booking in advance. Last minute travel is pretty expensive.

The official railway website for the UK is www.nationalrail.co.uk As well as the usual cheaper advance fares (which are available for many departures on many routes, but not for all) it no wcarries info on the special offers from individual railway companies. Scroll down the page to see if any are useful. You can take advantage of the cheap fares (if available) by buying online and collecting your tickets from a fast-ticket machine or ticket office. Otherwise, fares do not rise as departure nears or demand increases. The standard fare you see on nationalrail is the fare you will pay at the station on the day. UK trains cannot get full up. Even if there are no seats you will be able to stand until a seat becomes available; not great fun, but certainly no need to be concerned about getting onto a train.

Leics, i beg to differ from you, if you check my previous post fares do rise nearer the time of departure . Just key in the trip details as i explained on my previous post. When i fly from Manila to Uk i always book many months in advance and normally pick up a fantastic deal, even with Megabus i have gone lONDON TO EDINBURGH FOR A POUND!"

Davidjo, you misunderstand my meaning. It is difficult to get your head around UK rail fares even for those of us who do live in the UK! In the US, for example, train fares rise as departure date nears and/or demand increases. In the UK this is not so. There is a standard fare on the day of travel (and quite possibly in the days leading up to the day of travel as well, it depends on the route) and then there are, sometimes, cheaper advance fares. The latter are only available for some departures/routes/dates. I hope this clarifies. UK train fares do not rise as departure date nears. Often (by no means always) there are advance discount fares available but the standard fare for a particular departure/route remains the same.

Yes Leics, it is also very confusing as i never rode a UK train for 30 years but last year decided to take the train to Scotland rather than the bus. It's not like the old days when there is one British rail. Now there seems to be many different train companies and sometimes very confusing when trying to figure out trips

Yes, the privatisation of British Rail did not, imo, help things one jot. But it is useful to know that fares for not actually rise as departure nears, as they can do elsewhere. There is a basic standard fare for a journey (itself often variable according to day and departure time) and then there are special advance purchase offers; not the same things at all. It's also worth knowing that you can buy ordinary 'advance' fares (which are cheaper), when available for a particular date/departure, up to 6pm the night before travel at the station. They cannot run out because, as noted, UK trains cannot get 'full' in the sense that no more tickets are sold for a particular departure. That's particularly helpful for people who cannot, or do not wish to, buy tickets in advance online.