How To Make The Most Of Trains From London
Many people come to London and I’ve met several who have thought about going to say Stratford upon Avon, Bristol or Cambridge, but have not known how to get the tickets in the most affordable manner.
So here’s a few rules.
1. Get Yourself An Oyster Card
Oyster Cards are preloaded with cash, which can then be used to pay for your journeys.
You can use Oyster over a wide area and on many modes of transport.
Most London attractions are within the scope of an Oyster.
Buying a card is easy.
- Use an automatic machine at any Underground station.
- If you come in to the UK on Eurostar you buy one on the train, which avoids the queues at St. Pancras
- You can also buy one on-line
You can also use a contactless bank card instead of Oyster. I watch the media for problems with this technology, which gives the same price as Oyster, and I’ve yet to read a negative story.
If you’re only in London for a few hours or a day or so, you can always buy a Travelcard, if you don’t want to use Oyster or a contactless bank card.
2. Learn To Use London’s Buses
Londoners and many of those who live in the city, use buses regularly, as they are often more convenient than the Underground. Often they are the quickest way to get from a budget hotel a few miles out to the centre.
Remember though that London’s buses do not take cash, so you’ll either have to use an Oyster card, a Travelcard or a contactless back card.
In London most bus shelters double as information kiosks, with bus spider maps and sometimes an electronic display detailing the next few buses. Each bus stop also has a five digit code, that can be texted to 87287 to get information on the next few buses.
3. Learn To Use National Rail Enquiries
I get it on my smart phone by typing National Rail into the browser.
National Rail Enquiries
The picture shows the journey planner, where I am requesting trains from London to Ipswich. It is also available on the Internet.
When planning a train journey always use this tool.
Although as UK rail data is now being made freely available to developers, I suspect that some very good free apps will appear.
Call me cynical if you like, but I would never use any tool or app, that was provided by a company that was a ticket agent.
4. If You’re Entitled To One Get Yourself A Railcard
I am over sixty and am thus entitled to a Senior Railcard. It costs thirty pounds for a year and gives me a third off all UK rail travel, including trains like the Caledonian Sleeper.
If you are not a UK national, all you need to get one, is the charge and a valid passport, with your brth date on it.
A recently-introduced product is the Two Together Railcard, which gives one third off for two people over sixteen travelling together. It can be ordered on-line, but it must be delivered to a UK address.
Railcards are in need of sorting out, as there are quite a few. If you think you might be entitled to one and will be doing a lot of travelling on trains, go and talk to someone in a Ticket Office at a slack time.
5. Never Use An On-Line Ticket Agency
Type something like “Train Tickets From London to Ipswich” and you’ll probably get a ticket agent company. I never deal with these companies and they are a waste of space.
I also believe strongly, that someone who works for one of these companies sold my address and e-mail address details to someone, who was less than honest.
I may be tarring them all with the same brush, but they are leeches, who don’t provide any service you can’t get from the train companies themselves. You’ll also often pay a booking fee for the privilege.
Whether you buy your ticket on-line, from a ticket machine or personally at a booking office, try to buy it from the company who is providing the trains.
There is one exception to this, which I suspect will broaden with time.
I live close to Dalston Junction station on the London Overground. This sister company to London Underground has recently installed ticket machines that allow you to buy National Rail Tickets between any two National Rail stations at the best price. I suspect over the next few years these new ticket machines or similar ones will be rolled out all over London.
For visitors, who don’t have English as a first language, these machines also work in several common alternative languages.
This will make getting tickets so easy for visitors. Although, you’ll still need to find out your route!
6. Buy Tickets On-Line In Advance If You Can
There are effectively two forms of Advance ticket.
The first is just an ordinary ticket that you buy a couple of days or so before you need. If say, I was going to see Ipswich at Bolton and then perhaps having supper with a friend in Manchester, who is notoriously unreliable on punctuality, I would buy an ordinary Off Peak Manchester to London ticket to get me home.
On the other hand if I knew that I would be catching the 20:15 Virgin, I would book an Advance Ticket, that tied me to a particular train. Which can be a nuisance if you get delayed.
Incidentally, I’ve just bought a First Class Advance ticket from London to Manchester and a Standard Class Off Peak to get back on Saturday week. The first is tied to the 08:40 train cost £25.10 and the second is allowed on any train and cost £26.30. These prices are with a Railcard.
I buy quite a few Advance tickets on line and pick them up at any convenient station. As an example of the price savings, a Standard Class Off Peak Single from Manchester to London costs £78.70, but an Advance Ticket for a week from now costs £35.30. With a Railcard these tickets are a third less.
A few points to note.
1. Always use the same credit card for train tickets and make sure you make a note of the 8-character pick-up code.
2. I ask for the tickets to be collected at my local station, Dalston Junction. But in fact you can pick them up from any UK Rail and most London Overground stations, provided you have the right card and code. One day, I forgot the code and a friendly Ticket Office guy, located the ticket and gave it to me on production of the correct credit card.
I would like feedback, where someone from Switzerland say, bought a ticket on-line for say a trip from Gatwick to Nottingham, which they picked up at Gatwick.
7. Which Train Company And London Terminus Should You Use?
This is a list of UK postcodes with their major towns and cities and the train companies
AB – Aberdeen – East Coast
AL – St. Abans – Govia Thameslink Railway
B – Birmingham – Chiltern Railways, London Midland or Virgin Trains
BA – Bath – First Great Western
BB – Blackburn – Virgin Trains
BD – Bradford – East Coast or Grand Central
BH – Bournemouth – South West Trains
BL – Bolton – Virgin Trains
BN – Brighton – Govia Thameslink Railway or Southern
BR – Bromley – South Eastern or London Overground
BS – Bristol – First Great Western
CA – Carlisle – Virgin Trains
CB – Cambridge – Govia Thameslink Railway or Greater Anglia
CF – Cardiff – First Great Western
CH – Chester – Virgin Trains
CM – Chelmsford – Greater Anglia
CO – Colchester – Greater Anglia
CR – Croydon – Govia Thameslink Railway or London Overground
CT – Canterbury – South Eastern
CV – Coventry – Virgin Trains or London Midland
CW – Crewe – Virgin Trains or London Midland
DA – Dartford – South Eastern
DD – Dundee – East Coast
DE – Derby – East Midlands Trains
DG – Dumfries – Virgin Trains
DH – Durham – East Coast
DL – Darlington – East Coast
DN – Doncaster – East Coast or Grand Central
DT – Dorchester – South West Trains
DY – Dudley – Virgin Trains
EH – Edinburgh – East Coast or Virgin Trains
EN – Enfield – London Underground, London Overground, Greater Anglia or Govia Thameslink Railway
EX – Exeter – First Great Western or South West Trains
FK – Falkirk – East Coast or Virgin Trains
FY – Blackpool – Virgin Trains
G – Glasgow – Virgin Trains or East Coast
GL – Gloucester – First Great Western
GU – Guildford – South West Trains
HA – Harrow – London Underground, London Overground or London Midland
HD – Huddersfield – Virgin Trains or East Coast
HG – Harrogate – East Coast
HP – Hemel Hempstead – London Midland
HR – Hereford – First Great Western
HS – Outer Hebrides – Virgin Trains plus ferry
HU – Hull – Hull Trains or East Coast
HX – Halifax – East Coast
IG – Ilford – Greater Anglia
IP – Ipswich – Greater Anglia
IV – Inverness – East Coast
KA – Kilmarnock – Virgin Trains
KT – Kingston upon Thames – South West Trains
KW – Kirkwall – East Coast or Virgin Trains plus ferry
KY – Kirkcaldy – East Coast or Virgin Trains
L – Liverpool – Virgin Trains or London Midland
LA – Lancaster – Virgin Trains
LD – Landrindod Wells – First Great Western
LE – Leicester – East Midlands Trains
LL – Llandudno – Virgin Trains
LN – Lincoln – East Coast
LS – Leeds – East Coast
LU – Luton – Govia Thameslink Railway or East Midlands Trains
M – Manchester – Virgin Trains
ME – Rochester – South Eastern
MK – Milton Keynes – Virgin Trains or London Midland
ML – Motherwell – Virgin Trains
NE – Newcastle upon Tyne – East Coast
NG – Nottingham – East Midlands Trains
NN – Northampton – Virgin Trains or London Midland
NP – Newport – First Great Western
NR – Norwich – Greater Anglia
OL – Oldham – Virgin Trains
OX – Oxford – First Great Western
PA – Paisley – Virgin Trains
PE – Peterborough – Govia Thameslink Railway or East Coast
PH – Perth – East Coast
PL – Plymouth – First Great Western
PO – Portsmouth – South West Trains
PR – Preston – Virgin Trains
RG – Reading – First Great Western
RH – Redhill – Govia Thameslink Railway
RM – Romford – Greater Anglia
S – Sheffield – East Midlands Trains
SA – Swansea – First Great Western
SG – Stevenage – Govia Thameslink Railway or East Coast
SK – Stockport – Virgin Trains
SL – Slough – First Great Western
SM – Sutton – Govia Thameslink Railway
SN – Swindon – First Great Western
SO – Southampton – South West Trains
SP – Salisbury – South West Trains
SR – Sunderland – East Coast or Grand Central
SS – Southend-on-Sea – Greater Anglia or C2C
ST – Stoke-on-Trent – Virgin Trains
SY – Shrewsbury – Virgin Trains
TA – Taunton – First Great Western
TD – Galashiels – East Coast
TF -Telford – Virgin Trains or London Midland
TN- Tonbridge – South Eastern
TQ – Torquay – First Great Western
TR – Truro – First Great Western
TS – Cleveland – East Coast or Grand Central
TW – Twickenham – South West Trains
UB – Southall – First Great Western
WA – Warrington – Virgin Trains
WD – Watford – London Underground, London Overground or London Midland
WF – Wakefield – East Coast or Grand Central
WN – Wigan – Virgin Trains
WR – Worcester – First Great Western
WS – Walsall – Virgin Trains
WV – Wolverhampton – Virgin Trains
YO – York – East Coast
ZE – Lerwick – East Coast or Virgin Trains plus ferry
Notes
1. Where two or more train companies are listed, they are in my order of preference.
2. With some of the Scottish islands, you’ll need to take a ferry to complete the journey.
This is a list of the train companies with some of their strengths and pitfalls.
Terminus – Marylebone
Strengths – Some very comfortable trains, reliable, affordable and free wi-fi everywhere
Weakness – Marylebone isn’t the easiest terminus to get to.
Notes
1. Slower, but more comfortable and pleasant to Birmingham
Terminus -Fenchurch Street
Strengths – Reliable and affordable
Weakness – Fenchurch Street isn’t the easiest terminus to get to.
Terminus – Kings Cross
Strengths – Some comfortable trains and fast
Weakness – The overhead line is always failing.
Notes
1. Some places like Huddersfield, Burnley and Halifax can be served by East Coast from Leeds or Virgin from Manchester or Preston
2. There is a certain amount of overlap between East Coast and Grand Central
Terminus – St. Pancras
Strengths – Some comfortable trains
Weaknesses – The Meridian trains and lack of late services back to London.
Terminus – Paddington
Strengths – Comfortable trains, fast and the Pullman Dining.
Weakness – Nothing obvious
Through Stations – St.Pancras, Fsrringdon and London Bridge
Strengths – Competent
Weakness – The line is a building site because of Thameslink.
Terminus – Kings Cross
Strengths – Some comfortable trains and affordable
Weakness – The overhead line is always failing.
Notes
1. There is a certain amount of overlap between East Coast and Grand Central.
Terminus – Kings Cross
Strengths – Good service, affordable and not affected by overhead line problems
Weakness – Not the best trains!
Terminus – Liverpool Street
Strengths – Lots of services and some good trains.
Weakness – Inferior service
Terminus – London Bridge, Victoria and St. Pancras
South West Trains
Terminus – Euston
Going to – Birmingham, Blackpool, Chester, Crewe, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, Woverhampton, Carlisle, North Wales, Glasgow and Western Scotland
Notes.
1. Some places like Birmingham, Crewe and Liverpool are also served by London Midland.
2. Birmingham and the West Midlands are also served by Chiltern Railways.
3. Some places like Huddersfield, Burnley and Halifax can be served by East Coast from Leeds or Virgin from Manchester or Preston
First Class On Greater Anglia
I needed to go to my dentist in Felixstowe and then on to the evening’s match at Portman Road, so I took one of Greater Anglia’s Mark 3 services in mid-morning.
The coaches don’t have the style of the new First Great Western First Class, but I did get a large table to lay out my paper, unlike on Saturday’s Virgin to Manchester.
The trolley also came round twice and I had a welcoming cup of tea.
Incidentally, I had bought the First Class Off Peak Return at Dalston Junction from the ticket machine, the previous evening for £35.40.
That is the same as the best Internet price from Greater Anglia’s website. The return half has a validity of a month too, so you get the best value, if perhaps you’re going away for a few days.
We need ticket machines, like the ones on the London Overground all over London and the rest of the UK.
Buying Cheap Tickets If You Have A Freedom Pass
I talked about the Overground’s clever ticket machines in August and now for a lot of trips outside of London, I buy my ticket at an Overground station, as I get a better price than on-line and one that is only matched in a Ticket Office. There is no hassle, little wait and I don’t have to write down that impossible-to-remember eight character code.
Yesterday I went to Twyford from London and back for just £5.55.
Tickets And Passes For Twyford
Or should I say the Zone 6 Boundary, which is the limit of my Freedom Pass.
Today it was Shenfield for £3.95.
These new ticket machines that give you best value, should be rolled out everywhere.
Sheffield’s Information-Free Buses And Trams
I chose the Leopold Hotel, as it was in the centre by a tram stop, which made it easy to get to and from the match at Hillsborough. It also meant that to get to the hotel from the train, I just went to the tram stop and used my Freedom Pass to go a few stops up the hill.
But when I arrived at the stop, all it had was details on the tram route. But there was no sign of any local map. As I’d spotted the hotel from the tram before it stopped, I just walked a few metres down the hill and round the corner.
I had planned to have an early supper with an old friend, at the new Carluccio’s on Ecclesall Road. He’d said I’d needed to get an eighty-something. So I walked and found this bus stop.
The World’s Most Useless Bus Stop
Note that is says “Buses Do Not Stop Here on the sign. It didn’t have any information that a visitor might like to use to get to the Ecclesall Road. There was no information and nobody around to answer my question.
I eventually walked a couple of hundred metres the other way and found a guy, who told me that any bus from a particular stop went down the Ecclesall Road. The queues incidentally at the stop was manic, mainly because the ticketing system required many to give money to the driver. As usual I had to put my Freedom Pass down and pick up a printed ticket.
And when I did get on a bus, there was no way, I could tell where I was, as it was a silent bus. Luckily, I knew roughly, where I was going and I knew there was a Waitrose on the corner of Ecclesall Road. But I still ended up walking further than I wanted.
At least I could read the name on the bus stops, but how do the visually-impaired manage?
The bus wasn’t that full for the rush hour and that helped me look out. But I still had to fight my way to the front to get out.
If ever a city needed London’s bus spider maps and cash free buses it is Sheffield. How many more passengers would they get, if the buses and trams were organised with the same objectives as London in mind?
But the worst thing about the buses, was coming back from Ecclesall Road was that the buses seemed to have stopped running.
In the end I had to pay £6 for a taxi.
How visitor-friendly is that?
At least when I need to go to Sheffield in the future, I now know that unless I’m going to somewhere near a tram stop, the best course of action will be to stay at home.
Match Eight – Wigan 1 – Ipswich 2
This match was expected to be played on Saturday the twentieth, as my ticket showed.
A Ticket With The Wrong Date
But Sky decided to show the match and a few weeks ago, it was moved to Monday the twenty-second. It was actually better for me as it meant I could go to Millwall to see them play league leader; Forest, with a friend.
So as it was Monday night and there were no trains back to London from Wigan after the match, I decided to go to see a friend in Liverpool University and stay the night in the Second City. Partly, this was because there was no acceptable hotel in the centre of Wigan. I would have thought, that given the Orwellian connection, that a decent hotel at Wigan Pier might be a goer. Even a Premier Inn at Wigan Pier would have a certain ring to it.
One point to note for all those living in London, is that I purchased my Liverpool Wigan return ticket on Sunday from the machine at Dalston Junction station.
My Liverpool Wigan Tickets
It cost me £5.20 with my Senior Railcard, which is the same price as that on-line from the Northern Rail website. But it is so much less hassle, as you get the tickets at the time you purchase. It’s fascinating to see how old-fashioned ticketing machines are fighting back against the Internet. Although of course, these new ticket machines on the London Overground, are effectively on-line terminals using the Internet to make a purchase.
I’d incidentally bought my First Class ticket to Liverpool from Euston on Virgin for £25.10 a couple of weeks ago. The guy opposite me paid £41 buying the night before. I know I have a Railcard, which cuts my price from £37.65. But my companion only paid a few pounds more booking the night before.
As we got tea, soft drinks and a snack, it just shows what good value some of these First Class tickets are.
I arrived at the match at Wigan about seven after taking a taxi from Wigan North Western. The welcome was its usual friendly one at the stadium and the bag check was an intelligent one. Inside, supporters of both sides weren’t that numerous.
A Sparse Crowd At The Match
But then the match was on Sky. This was Ipswich’s third time this season, so let’s hope it boosts the crowd at Portman Road.
I left the match a few minutes early, so I could be sure of getting a taxi back to the station. In the end a call to a taxi on 01942-242424 brought one immediately, so I had quite a few minutes to wait for my train to Liverpool. But as it was the last one at 22:03, I just had to catch it. Hopefully, when the electrification is complete, one of the benefits will be later trains connecting Liverpool, Manchester, Blackpool, Preston and the stations in between.
Perhaps too, Wigan Athletic could think of improving the transport to and from the ground. The taxis weren’t expensive, but finding one can be a problem, as the first driver told me. He incidentally gave me the number of a rival company to get back to the station.
I suspect that there is a walking route from a bus stop near the ground. It should be indicated at the station. And where is the Wigan version of London’s bus spider map at the station?
As it was the match was a fair result, as I agreed with a fellow Ipswich fan on the train back to Liverpool. He only has limited vision and was escorted to the match by his guide dog; Trigger., who I’d met in 2010 at Crewe. Apparently, Trigger gets a very good welcome at the DW Stadium.
Could London’s Passenger Counting Technology Look For Non-Payers?
I took another trip on a crowded 141 bus today and it had the passenger counting technology on board.
Passengers were fascinated and obviously some were using it to determine whether to go upstairs.
It struck me that as those entering the bus have to touch-in, by correlating this with spaces, it might be possible to determine how many passengers hadn’t touched-in.
It wouldn’t actually identify them individually, but by simple arithmetic it could probably identify routes with the highest levels of non-payers.
So if a particular area on route XX showed a high-level of non-payers, that is obviously where you send your inspectors.
European Train Booking Is Going Backwards
I am only a simple man, but I do know what computer software can do. And often it’s very complicated and works well!
In this post, I describe how I meandered all the way from East London to Yeovil using several trains. What complicated things was that I wanted to go via Littlehampton to see a Thomas Heatherwick-designed cafe. But I ended up with a complicated route from National Rail’s web site and I bought the tickets without difficulty.
So you’d think that if we navigate round our maze of lines in the South of England, then buying a ticket to most major cities in Europe should be a single transaction.
With Paris and Brussels it’s easy, if you go to the Eurostar web site and you just pick your train, pay your fee and then print the ticket.
I have a friend, who I see regularly, who lives near Lausanne. It’s a seven hour journey with a seventy minute change in Paris, so it’s not a short journey, but buying a ticket on Eurostar is as easy as buying one for Paris. Eurostar’s web site, also tells you how to get across Paris.
It’s pretty easy too, to buy a walk-up ticket for Paris in say Geneva and I’ve done it a couple of times.
As it’s a long journey back to Blighty, I usually give myself a couple of hours in Paris to have a good lunch or dinner before taking the Eurostar home. No-one in London, makes crepes like Cafe Breizh
But basically, getting to and from Switzerland by train, is as easy as going say from London to Inverness.
Let’s suppose that you want to go somewhere closer than Switzerland, like The Hague. Obviously, as Switzerland isn’t in the EU and The Hague is, you’d think that the Dutch capital would be the easier journey to book.
But whereas you can book to most large Swiss cities,you can’t book to The Hague.
A few years back, I booked a Eurostar ticket to Any Dutch Station. But this was discontinued!
Now you have to buy a ticket to Rotterdam and then fight your way through the Dutch ticketing system to get to The Hague. Five years ago it was much better.
Buying tickets to places like Berlin and Munich, is not much better either.
If the French, Belgians and the Swiss can get it right and probably up to the same standard as our system, why can’t Dutch and the Germans? The Dutch were even more integrated five years ago!
I’m sure if the best of the British, French and the Swiss had been put in charge of developing a full system for Europe, you’d be able to login to Eurostar, type in any station in Europe and get given a choice of routes, for you to select one.
No wonder the management of the EU is in such a mess!
The Orange Tickets Fight On
It’s the first time, that I’ve noticed it, but this orange rail ticket, I bought at Kings Cross on Saturday has one of those square bar codes.
The Orange Tickets Fight On
As you can see it wasn’t used by any ticket inspector to get to Rutland, as one used a Mark 1 pen and the other some stamp.
It just shows how the original ticket was such a good design from 1986.
I suspect that the basic design of the ticket will outlive me, by a good few years.
There Are Some Honest People In This World
A couple of months ago, I lost my little ticket folder, which contains a credit card, my Freedom Pass and Senior Railcard on a 38 bus.
Imagine my surprise today when I got an e-mail from someone claiming to be at the Transport for London, that they had found it and would I go to Baker Street to collect something.
Could this be my little folder?
It was and it cost me just four pounds to get it back.
I only actually need the folder, as I’ve replaced all the cards.
A Good Score Draw For The Overground’s Ticket Machines
I wrote here about how I bought my ticket to Reading using the machine at Dalston Junction, rather than on the Internet.
Yesterday at about 17:00, I bought my ticket for Ipswich, that I used today.
And I paid the same price, as I would have done on the Internet.
But I didn’t have to go through the rigmarole of entering an 8-character code to get my tickets.
So I think the machine got a good score draw today.
