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Post by FrontrowverPaul on Jan 14, 2020 12:55:24 GMT
Rather than take threads about individual shows off topic, I thought it might be useful to have a dedicated thread here.
If someone is thinking of booking a show at a particular theatre outside their local area (or has already booked) and would like suggestions how to get there and back at a reasonable cost using public transport, post some details here.
Using Leicester as an example I've travelled there from Kent, Cardiff and Manchester for less than half of what a quick check of National Rail Enquiries would suggest to be the cost. Most money-saving tips will only work for matinees though.
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Post by Someone in a tree on Jan 14, 2020 13:06:01 GMT
I'm a big fan of
-The app Rail Split. Cheap as chips
-GWR website as you earn Nector points
-Mega Train. Which you book through the Megabus website
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Post by Dawnstar on Jan 14, 2020 13:24:57 GMT
Transferring our discussion from the ALNM thread onto this one.
Hold fire, Dawn. This may be better. Leeds 20.15 to Peterborough arrive 21.49 costs £10.70, then Peterborough 22.14 to Cambridge arrives 23.03 costs £11.80, total £22.50 (Note to mods - I've just set up a new thread for this kind of discussion which I hope will meet with approval)
I'm still looking at possiblities. At the moment it looks like I'll have to choose between getting home an hour later to get a cheap fare or getting home an hour earlier & paying a lot more. In the meantime, I've just booked a straightforward return to Woking for this Saturday for only £23.50, although it's about the same time to get there as it is to get to Leeds. Though admittedly that is with a Network railcard, which I can't use for Leeds.
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Post by Dawnstar on Jan 14, 2020 19:00:01 GMT
FrontrowverPaul I've ended up going for the Leeds-Peterborough-Cambridge trains that you suggested. While the waiting around & getting home later isn't ideal, the amount saved compared to the train I'd prefer to get is too great to disregard. I've managed a total of £36.40 for getting to Leeds & back, which is certainly much better than £90. Thank you very much for your assistance. I really hope when it comes to travelling there in May for ALNM that LNER (who still don't have the advance tickets for 8th February on their website) won't make it so blinking difficult to get the advance tickets!
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Post by FrontrowverPaul on Jan 14, 2020 23:19:56 GMT
FrontrowverPaul I've ended up going for the Leeds-Peterborough-Cambridge trains that you suggested. While the waiting around & getting home later isn't ideal, the amount saved compared to the train I'd prefer to get is too great to disregard. I've managed a total of £36.40 for getting to Leeds & back, which is certainly much better than £90. Thank you very much for your assistance. I really hope when it comes to travelling there in May for ALNM that LNER (who still don't have the advance tickets for 8th February on their website) won't make it so blinking difficult to get the advance tickets! No problem and now we have a dedicated thread for such matters I'll be delighted to help anyone else looking for suggestions how to save money on public transport. I should mention that most of my knowledge has been gained from the excellent RailUK forums and that's where the real experts are. |
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 16, 2020 9:59:14 GMT
Slightly off the point, but in Germany if you buy tickets to the theatre or opera your public transport (in the city) is included. Encourages people not to use their cars. Brilliant idea in my view.
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Post by viserys on Jan 16, 2020 20:57:17 GMT
Slightly off the point, but in Germany if you buy tickets to the theatre or opera your public transport (in the city) is included. Encourages people not to use their cars. Brilliant idea in my view. Erm, sometimes, not always. Though I've certainly managed to lie to a ticket-checking guy that I was CERTAIN it was included *eyelash flutter* when it wasn't and he believed me and let me off the hook. Always read the small print. Also, don't mistake public transport in Germany for London. If I want to go home from the local musical theatre, it takes me about 15 mins by car in total and 20 minutes by bike. If I use public transport, it takes at least 40 minutes and nothing tanks my mood like arriving at the nearest stop after a ten minute walk late in the evening to see the next tram will be along in 14 minutes. So whenever weather allows, I'll go by bike and if my mum comes in from the sticks, we go by car. Public transport only last-resort when the weather is awful and I'm alone. So, in short, yes it's a good idea on the whole, but in order to get people to use public transport, said public transport must improve A LOT. |
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Post by Mark on Jan 16, 2020 21:47:21 GMT
Here's a "top tip" if going to the Theatre Royal, Newcastle or the Empire Theatre, Sunderland. Free Metro travel 2 hrs before and 2 hrs after if you have your physical tickets. Also applies to the Whitley Bay Playhouse, Customs House in South Shields and Sage Gateshead. www.nexus.org.uk/metro/offers |
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Post by fossil on Jan 17, 2020 20:00:29 GMT
Thought I would mention yet another route that can be considered when booking trains to Leeds. For my particular journey travelling up on a Friday this looks to be cheaper for me than LNER for the outward journey.
Grand Central London Kings Cross to Wakefield Kirkgate Advance £13.50
Northern Trains Wakefield Kirkgate to Leeds Std single £4.30 (or £5.60 Return)
As the second leg is an anytime ticket there are no worries about missing a connection.
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Post by FrontrowverPaul on Jan 18, 2020 1:34:37 GMT
Thought I would mention yet another route that can be considered when booking trains to Leeds. For my particular journey travelling up on a Friday this looks to be cheaper for me than LNER for the outward journey. Grand Central London Kings Cross to Wakefield Kirkgate Advance £13.50 Northern Trains Wakefield Kirkgate to Leeds Std single £4.30 (or £5.60 Return) As the second leg is an anytime ticket there are no worries about missing a connection. That's a good'un. I'm travelling to Leeds myself on (Saturday) 4 April to see My Fair Lady and will book with Grand Central as the times are just right. £13.50, or £8.90 with my senior railcard, is exceptionally cheap. Adding on a £2.85 railcard single to Leeds from Wakefield still undercuts the £15.50 LNER lowest railcard fare and I don't have to wait weeks for LNER advance tickets to become available I've already booked the return leg with National Express. Just £6 from Leeds to Victoria Coach Station so under £18 day return London to Leeds all in ! |
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Post by basi1faw1ty on Jan 21, 2020 12:34:36 GMT
Wonder if anybody can assist:
I'm in a bit of a pickle and not sure where to go for help. So I'm off to London near beginning of April with my mother and staying for 3 nights, Weds-Sat. As you've noticed, I have made the mistake of deciding to travel back to Yorkshire ON A WEEKEND, meaning train prices shoot WAY up (b/c only super off-peak singles are available, no advance tickets). Finding a cheap (by UK standards) ticket going to London was fairly straight forward, around £20 each.
So my current options are:
- Give in to National Fail and pay £108 for us both to get back home.
- Get a morning flight back from Heathrow, costing £84 for two, and get us back MUCH faster (I still, even now, do not understand WHY flying is cheaper than the train).
- Hop on the coach, pay roughly £12 each, and suffer on the M1 for 5 hours (mother is heavily opposed to coaches, so I want to avoid this as much as possible).
- Wait. I've noticed sometimes advance weekend single tickets can crop up as we get nearer the date of departure but I'm not sure whether to take that risk?
I've tried splitting tickets, I've done all that carry on, didn't work, so £108 is the best I can get it down to.
My friends, if you can, help a Northern lass out! Maybe there's something I've missed? I usually miss the glaringly obvious, I'm quite good at that.
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Post by Someone in a tree on Jan 21, 2020 12:39:31 GMT
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Post by londonpostie on Jan 21, 2020 12:40:58 GMT
Can give your destination and date?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2020 12:55:45 GMT
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Post by FrontrowverPaul on Jan 21, 2020 13:18:16 GMT
Wonder if anybody can assist:
I'm in a bit of a pickle and not sure where to go for help. So I'm off to London near beginning of April with my mother and staying for 3 nights, Weds-Sat. As you've noticed, I have made the mistake of deciding to travel back to Yorkshire ON A WEEKEND, meaning train prices shoot WAY up (b/c only super off-peak singles are available, no advance tickets). Finding a cheap (by UK standards) ticket going to London was fairly straight forward, around £20 each.
So my current options are:
- Give in to National Fail and pay £108 for us both to get back home.
- Get a morning flight back from Heathrow, costing £84 for two, and get us back MUCH faster (I still, even now, do not understand WHY flying is cheaper than the train).
- Hop on the coach, pay roughly £12 each, and suffer on the M1 for 5 hours (mother is heavily opposed to coaches, so I want to avoid this as much as possible).
- Wait. I've noticed sometimes advance weekend single tickets can crop up as we get nearer the date of departure but I'm not sure whether to take that risk?
I've tried splitting tickets, I've done all that carry on, didn't work, so £108 is the best I can get it down to.
My friends, if you can, help a Northern lass out! Maybe there's something I've missed? I usually miss the glaringly obvious, I'm quite good at that.
Advance tickets for weekend journeys on some rail companies are currently only made available for booking 4 -6 weeks before the dates of travel. You may have to wait until March to book your return journeys. You can, however, already book some April weekend tickets and if you post more detail either here or on the other thread I'll give you some specifics if I can. As an example I recently booked London to Leeds via Wakefield on Saturday 4 April for £11.75 with a railcard (about £18 no railcard) |
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Post by TallPaul on Jan 21, 2020 14:48:20 GMT
^This!
Without knowing your exact date of travel, I suspect the problem you have had in finding affordable train tickets is because of all the engineering work taking place on the East Coast Mainline this year, and into next.
Far from ideal, I know, but once timetables have been finalised, cheaper advance tickets *should* be released, though that could be as late as March, if you are prepared to risk it. If you do decide to book now, only for cheaper tickets to become available later, LNER will allow you to cancel the original booking without charging its usual fee.
In my somewhat limited experience, travelling north from London on a Saturday afternoon is often reasonably quiet. The day trippers and football supporters return on later trains, and the weekenders and students travel back on Sunday.
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Post by lichtie on Jan 21, 2020 15:54:42 GMT
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Jan 21, 2020 16:27:21 GMT
Merged
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Post by basi1faw1ty on Jan 21, 2020 17:30:39 GMT
Can give your destination and date? Ah sorry that would've been a good idea! So it's April 11th, and the destination is Bradford (it has two stations, either is fine - going via Leeds is fine too) |
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Post by basi1faw1ty on Jan 21, 2020 17:54:12 GMT
Thanks terribly for the help guys! Knew I could count on ya. So I knew of these King's Cross closures following the LNER Twitter and that but wasn't terribly concerned thinking "oh it's just a bit of routine engineering work, no big deal" ... until I looked properly and found out this is, as TallPaul said, a MASSIVE mainline upgrade that's happening throughout the majority of 2020. Yay! Like the sound of the Two Together Railcard, which reminds me of that very tempting 26-30 card... which I still haven't gotten round to purchasing... But yeah I think I might wait it out. I wasn't sure when the advance singles got released so that is a HUGE help, thanks. I found it peculiar that Grand Central have already got that weekend date available whilst LNER apparently haven't. Nice to know that Saturday afternoon travel is quiet, make sense of course. Great news for the mother. (Once I had to get an Sat evening train home and while I didn't get football hooligans etc, I did get this strange guy in his early twenties pottering about up and down the aisles shouting Love Island quotes and accidentally breaking an armrest off one of the seats, whilst his mum and dad (sat in front of me) just laughed at him.) And I wasn't aware there was already a thread for this, thanks for merging! |
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Post by FrontrowverPaul on Jan 22, 2020 1:10:06 GMT
The 10.48 and 15.48 direct Grand Central trains from Kings Cross to Bradford should have their £15 advance fares for Saturday 11 April available by the end of the month.
For later departures to Bradford with LNER costing from £18.50 lichtie's advice is spot on but they are sometimes on sale before emails are sent out. They aren't yet available beyond 7 March.
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Post by lou105 on Jan 22, 2020 8:32:37 GMT
They've now added warnings of no trains on 20 and 21 June into/out of Kings Cross, which is West End Live weekend for those interested. Also 5 and 6 September as part of ten days of work. And a very tricky looking period of "planned disruption" from 19 December to late March 21.
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Post by Dawnstar on Jan 22, 2020 14:18:47 GMT
Oh great. Looks like I'll be spending more time than usual on the slower Liverpool Street line in the next year. As if I don't spend enough time on trains already! Given, as far as I can see, the work is to improve the East Coast mainline & not the branch to Cambridge, it doesn't look like I'll even be getting any long-term benefit from it.
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Post by lichtie on Jan 22, 2020 17:33:56 GMT
Given, as far as I can see, the work is to improve the East Coast mainline & not the branch to Cambridge, it doesn't look like I'll even be getting any long-term benefit from it.
It's also to add an extra 2 tracks into Kings Cross, so there will be more scheduled slots. Those can be for anywhere (I presume Network Rail has some ideas but they don't really say yet).
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2020 19:17:58 GMT
it doesn't look like I'll even be getting any long-term benefit from it. I remember having about three years of rail-replacement bus services on the west coast main line, all for a decrease in journey times of about 5% and one fewer train each hour. Passengers on the Virgin trains from the north west saw far more benefit in decreased journey times and more services, but of course they weren't the ones who'd suffered all the disruption. |
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