Over one million half price rail tickets in first ever Great British Rail Sale Tickets go on sale from 19 April with discounted tickets available on journeys from 25 April to 27 May. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...tickets-in-first-ever-great-british-rail-sale
The way they’ve made this out to be a bargain is criminal. The UK has the most expensive rail ticket prices in Europe. Tickets should be half the price they are now ALL the time.
My problem is how awkward it is to get reasonably priced tickets. You hear about people getting them cheap by buying them at a certain time, split ticketing, having a railcard if you're deemed eligible and all the rest of it. But in my experience if you just plan a particular trip and check train prices there and then it's rarely ever viable. I'd much rather travel by train than drive round the country, but 9 times out of 10 the price just isn't realistic. Supposedly if you book 12 weeks ahead and go as a couple on a two together railcard then it's cheap, but why should you have to do so much homework?
until c19, northern trains had been running a twice-a-year offer when there'd be vouchers to collect from the hdm, and if you took two along to the station, you could get reduced travel on northern trains only as follows 1. get all day for you and anyone else for £10 each (and you don't have to stay together, and you can get a train at any time) 2. get all weekend travel for you and anyone else for £17.50 each (as above i did four trips (2 on a weekend, 2 on other days), to bradford, leeds, leeds & castleford, and nottingham. would have cost far more by car, and there's the options to explore places wherever you feel like getting off, so i spent some time looking round selby, which i'd not looked at before (though was advised by a native that there was nothing to see!). i expect these offers to be revived.
Booked to Manchester and back for £35. You just have to put the time in to get the best price Like you do with flights.
Yeah a real bargain, Manchester to Hull on Saturday, just over £43, if I’d booked it last week, it was around £30!
My daughters last two 'train' journeys back from Manchester have involved replacement bus services...
I had an email from LNER Re this today, only available Mon-Thurs and not may 2nd. Would have been helpful to do it on weekends for families.
It's better than nothing but I don't think they'll win too many friends with this. There'll be a lot of people disappointed because they can't get what they want when they want it. It isn't available across half term when a lot of families might have wanted to take a previously unaffordable train journey. The announcement also suggests the discounts only apply to off-peak travel although that might be a misinterpretation on my part. Bit of govt spin/PR imo.
İf Grant Shapps (or whatever name he is going by ATM) can't get you on a cut price train after watching him in his new video then no one can. He'll have you up to Edinburgh quicker than you can say pseudonyms and dodgy internet pyramid scheme.
Agree And this is why a fair amount of City fans flew to Milwall from Leeds instead. Which is frankly ridiculous, but understandable (I've done it to SW a few times as flying is miles cheaper than a train)
I agree but we have a privatised rail system and it will cost what it costs to run it. The only way to get prices down to an affordable level is if there is some sort of govt control and subsidy, which is a no-no with current govts. Should never have gone private in the first place, like energy, water, etc etc... But that's another debate which won't happen on this board.
I trained back from Manchester last week and had to be diverted elsewhere first on other trains. Ended up nearly 2 hours late.
