Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

Post by blibble » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

matt-p wrote: post #155

pjc50 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cambridge is infamously time consuming to get to by train Why is this? I know the story about the University insisting that the station be far from the center of town to make it inconvenient for students, and that Peterborough is on the ECML, but I don't see good reasons for Cambridge being hard to get to. There are direct express trains! It's not the North where everyone's trundling around in Pacers.

I suppose it depends on what your definition of express is, what you're used to and so on. I think most people in that part of the country equate express to 125mph trains, that are either direct or 'more or less' direct.. which places like Milton Keynes and Peterborough do have. I think the reasons are mix of the two above you mention. No ecml which for what can only be described as a decent economic hub is a missed…

Post by blibble » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

kn100 wrote: post #148

BritishTrainer wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody I know uses that app. They charge way higher admin and booking fees than the alternatives. Trainline adds a fee to every ticket sold, apps like TrainPal do the same things as Trainline (book tickets, check delays, see platform, walking times, etc), but only charge a fee if they get you the ticket cheaper than buying it from the station. So, including the fee, the price you pay is still less. And it find way be…

the fee is usually less than £1. Every single person I know in the UK that travels via train uses it. I wish it didn't fall to a private institution to provide what is a fairly basic service, but I think the fee shouldn't deter people from using it, especially considering they don't even charge it in a lot of cases. Booking tickets directly with a ToC is a terrible experience.

Post by M2Ys4U » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

oakesm9 wrote: post #20

_dain_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far ahead do you have to book? I've never noticed prices to vary depending on time ..

Advance tickets go on sale 12 weeks ahead of time. They start off cheap and once a certain amount is sold the price goes up. That keeps going until all advanced tickets are sold and you can only buy “anytime” tickets. I’m sure there’s a system for how many advance tickets there are for each route, but I can’t find any reference to it.

Post by rasz » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

Post by Mordisquitos » Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 1:59 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #127

Mordisquitos wrote: post #33

As someone with significant experience of using the rail networks in both the UK and Spain, I strongly agree with the last point regarding the hybrid reservation model. In addition, there's one further point which I don't think he mentions: the fact that in the UK you can buy a ticket at any station to go to any arbitrary station A from any arbitrary station B (notwithstanding the complexity of determining the best p…

Hmm. Have you tried buying Spanish tickets on thetrainline? (For a while in the early 2000s the best way to buy UK train tickets was through the Deutsche Bahn website; exogenous ticketing is weird, but presumably they've already done the API work to simplify it for you)

    EDIT: I finally got TheTrainLine working, and it suggested me an odd bus journey from Cervera rather than the train. So, I decided to check, and in fact TheTrainLine is fully unaware of commuter and regional services around Barcelona or Madrid, and erroneously states "No tickets available" even when searching for routes which I take often. This is almost as bad as Renfe's own website, but at least TheTrainLine includes (some) 3rd party bus services.