britrail pass; 1st vs 2nd class

All but the tiniest local trains in Britain offer some form of first class seating, but exactly what "first class" entails varies a lot from train to train. It could be a separate walled-off part of a car with slightly nicer seats, or it could be a very plush first-class car with complimentary at-seat food and beverage service.

To learn more, you can go to nationalrail.co.uk, enter the origin, destination, date, and time. Of the train routes that come up, pick one that you might want to take, and click "details." Then find where it says "additional info" - if the train has a first-class section, there will be a little reclining-seat icon there that when you mouse over it says "this train has first class seating." If it does, you can go to the web page of the train company that operates the journey to see if they have any information about what their first class sections are like.

From Bath to Colwyn Bay, you will be travelling on Great Western Sprinter trains as far as Newport (they continuer to Cardiff). From Newport (where you change for Colwyn Bay / north Wales), you will be travelling on an Arriva Trains Wales 'Coradia' train. None of these trains have First Class - so you would be wasting your money. The only train that ATW run that has First Class is the 17.31 from Newport (17.15 from Cardiff) to Holyhead on Mondays to Fridays.

Britrail passes are not exactly cheap. You can probably do it for much less by pre-booking specific trains for the longer journeys at around 11 weeks in advance. Of course, Britrail does give you great flexibility. (The price tends to increase nearer the date of travel but even booking the day before will usually save money). Fridays are the busiest & hence tend to be more expensive. Sundays can be prone to engineering work. Much engineering work is going on to electrify the Great Western Railway so check the GWR website:> https://www.gwr.com/travel-updates/planned-engineering

Why Colwyn Bay? Llandudno & nearby Conway (Conwy) are nicer.

It is very slow going getting from north Wales to York. (If buying tickets, you may well find it cheaper to split the ticket at Manchester (Piccadilly) - where you must change trains). Cheater is well worth a stop over - even if it just for a couple of hours. You might be better off going from north Wales/Chester to Edinburgh via the west coast route. (Change at Warrington or Crewe). Then you could return to York via the East Coast Mainline - unless you are flying home from Scotland.

Virgin Trains operate on the West Coast & East Coast Mainlines to Glasgow & Edinburgh. They do have first class.
https://www.virgintrains.co.uk/experience/first-class
Great Western trains on the mainlines out of London (Paddington) also have First Class.
All rail fares & schedules at www.nationalrail.co.uk

Don't forget to also look at past posts in the Wales & Scotland forums.

London to Bath from about £14
Colwyn Bay to York £24
York to Edinburgh £20

it's your money but I know what I'd prefer to spend it on

Look at first class advance tickets for your days of travel first. You aren't really travelling intensely enough on prime intercity routes for the pass to pay off.

We went from Gatwick to Portsmouth and I bought the tix in advance - I thought - oh look, 1st class is only 5 GBP more - let's do that! Get on to find - on that train at least - first class was a small walled off compartment up front with maybe - I want to say - 12-14 seats. And it was a 'quiet' zone...good if you want to try and get work done, not so great if you want to chat with your companion as it felt like we were in a very quiet library when any noise was frowned upon. I just plugged in my iPod and listened to some music.

On that trip at least, first class was a waste. We should have moved to 2nd so we could at least have felt like we could converse without disturbing the other people.

Chris

Ramblin on and Marco have great answers nested in there. I want to expand on that a bit. (all numbers are per person)

A four-day Brit-rail flex pass is approximately 240 pounds for standard class, 350 for first class.

Right now, looking at June travel (nationalrail.co.uk)

London to Bath is 14 pounds standard class, 33 pounds first class.

Colwn to York is 24-28 pounds standard class, 46-51 pounds first class.

York to Edinburgh is 20-35 pounds standard class, 38-58 pounds first class.

Based on that, your train travel should cost approximately 150 pounds traveling first class. I'm sure the train companies love that extra 200 pounds you're donating to their well being and all, but there are better places to spend your money, mate.

Thank you all for the info! I may have to rethink the pass.

I wouldn't waste my money on First Class. You'll only be on the train a couple of hours at most, and that is if there is even a First Class carraige
If you know the days that you will be travelling, you can save a fortune in money by purchasing 'Advanced' rail tickets. e.g. (London/Paddington-Bath dept 21 Mar @08:00 £92.50 (Anytime fare) / dept 08:30 £43.40 (Off-Peak fare) / dept 09:30 £43.40 (Off-Peak fare), or with Advance ticket (London /Paddington-Bath departing 17 May @09:30 £14.50 (Advance fare). UK Advanced rail tickets usually go on sale a couple of months prior to the departure date. They are not available on all services, but they are available of the journeys you have listed, and sometimes they apply to First Class. The easiest way find/purchase the tickets is, google: loco2.com or download their app, and create an account. Once you have done that, enter your destination (to/from) details, date you want to travel, and departure time (put 0600 and it will list every train departing from 0600 and onwards). The web site / app lists the train departure times and the price of the ticket. From experience, trains leaving after 0930 are the cheapest - sometimes saving as much as 80%. One thing to be aware of is, it is like airplane tickets, you have to catch the train you booked - there is no flexibility. You also pay for your tickets through loco2 website or app, and can then pick the tickets up at any of the railway stations you have listed. If Advanced tickets for where you want to go haven't gone on sale as yet the website/app will inform you of the date they go on sale, and ask you if you'd like the site to send you an email when tickets go on sale.

First class is no quiet zone unless it is marked as one, and oddly these are more common if anything in standard class.

On commuter routes around London it may be nothing more than a designated set of seats and possibly a paper antimacassar. It is there primarily for people who want a better guarantee of a seat at peak time.

Intercity routes will offer some free items up to a snacky meal, newspapers, more space for people and luggage etc. The carriages tend to arrive in a more convenient part of the platform but not always (or any earlier!).

Full rate first class fares are astronomic. Off-peak or advance they can be good value, sometimes even cheaper than standard depending on how the quotas are being used up.

OK, can someone please confirm that I am understanding this correctly? From what I understand, an "anytime" ticket means that I can travel from Point A to Point B at any time on the date it is booked for (for ex. 5/28/16); so if I book Point A to Point B on 5/28/16 at 4 pm but end up taking the same itinerary at 5 pm instead, that would be ok??
For an "off peak" ticket, same as above as long as they are off peak itineraries?
But an "Advance" ticket has to be for the exact time/date/train ticket is purchased for.

For most of the time the Advance ticket will be fine but my biggest concern is our trip from Windsor to Bath. We are going to Windsor just to see the castle and then heading to Bath. I was hoping to get something flexible since we won't know exactly how long we'll spend there. All of the tickets I am finding for the day we go are listed as "off peak" tickets so I'm just wondering if a purchase a 4 o'clock ticket but end up needing to leave earlier or later, if that is possible.
Sorry for all the wordiness....if that's a word!
Thank you!

your understanding is correct - just buy off peak or anytime tickets at the station there's no savings to made by buying these tickets beforehand - these tickets do not sell out

the real savings are to be made with Advance tickets, which as the name suggests must be bought in advance, either online or at the station (at least the day before travel if still available as they do sell out). And these tickets are train specific. They're available roughly 12 weeks before the date of travel.

So if you want flexibility over your Windsor to Bath journey buy an off-peak or anytime ticket on the day (maybe Advance tickets are not yet on sale).

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types.aspx#Which

Chris, I could answer your last questions in detail because I deal with these tickets almost every day, but it may be better for you to read the official information.

Have a look at
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/timesfares/tickettypes.aspx

If there are still questions pop 'em in....

Thank you both! That helped a lot!

Another question. I'm looking to book our train ticket from Bath to London and our final destination is off the Northern line to Clapham North. Through Britrail there are multiple stations in London that we can get our tickets to but all trains go in to Paddington station and then we would take the Underground to the other listed stations. The closest listed station when buying our rail ticket is Waterloo. My question is; if we buy the ticket to Waterloo, does the ticket cover our cost to Waterloo and then we would have to buy an underground ticket to get us to Clapham North or would we have to purchase an underground ticket at Paddington station anyway, to get us to our final destination?
Thanks in advance!

Chris - not such a simple answer (saw both your PMs) to what looks like a simple question.

First - the Great Western Railway trains which arrive at the metropolis from Bath only arrive at one terminus station - Paddington. Each terminus is associated with specific companies and routes.

If you want to get to Waterloo you must take a Southwestern Train. They are now the only company into Waterloo, and they don't go to Bath, nor if you want to change off Southern at Clapham Junction, do Southern.

So arrive at Paddington and board a Bakerloo Line train towards Elephant and Castle. Change at either Charing Cross, Embankment or Waterloo to a southbound Northern Line tube train. My choice would be Embankment.

If you are traveling outside the peak (good idea unless your idea of fun is crush loading) change again at Kennington to the train to Clapham North as the Charing Cross branch of the Northern Line doesn't go south of Kennington except in the peak.

Make any sense?

I think I understand the routes. But when I go to purchase the ticket from Bath to London on the nationalrail.co.uk site, it lists multiple stations. Waterloo, Victoria, Paddington, etc. When I click on route details for anything but Paddington, it shows us coming in to Paddington and then gives us the underground lines we would take to get to the Waterloo or Victoria stations. What I'm wondering is if we buy the ticket to Waterloo, does our rail ticket price cover the underground trip to waterloo as well or would we have to purchase an underground ticket once we get to Paddington station no matter which station we end at?

As I understand it, it does cover the Underground trip. When you collect your tickets, you'll get a little credit-card-sized ticket for each leg of your journey - one of them will be for the Underground. You insert it into the fare gates just like a regular (paper) Underground ticket. This isn't uncommon for journeys routed through London (e.g., train 1 arrives at Paddington, connecting to train 2 leaving from Waterloo, and you get a tube ticket to take you from one to the other). I'm not sure why you'd want to do it for a journey to London, especially when Waterloo isn't your final destination and you'd have to pay for another tube journey anyway, but that's how it works.

Check the prices on nationalrail and see if you are paying extra for the included tube trip from Paddington to Waterloo, ie compare this with just paying for the journey to Paddington and then using your Oyster.

OK, I'll tell you a litte more.

You asked for it.

Except for Thameslink, all the train stations in zone 1 of the Underground, basically around the Circle Line, are a terminus for their respective companies. Collectively these are known as and sold as London Terminals. A Somewhere to London Terminals is only valid to the terminal of the respective route in, assigned back in the mists of time when all there was to be seen was dirt.

Those Terminals are, clockwise:=

Paddington - GWR and Heathrow Express/Connect - the huge Great Western area including south Wales and Bath, all the way to the tip of Cornwall

Marylebone - Chiltern - Oxford and the Chiltern Line towards Birmingham

Euston - London Midland and Virgin West Coast - up the West Coast line to Milton Keynes, Rugby, Birmingham, Crewe, The Lake District, all the way up to Edinburgh, and the Caledonian Sleeper to all over remote Scotland, Glasgow and Edinburgh

St Pancras - East Midland Trains to the East Midlands including Luton Airport and all the way up to Nottingham, Leeds and Sheffield, Thameslink (passes through), Eurostar to France and Belgium, and the Southeastern Javelin high speed (300kph) services to Kent

Kings Cross - Great Northern to East Anglia, Virgin East Coast on the East Coast Main Line via York to Edinburgh, Hull Trains to Hull

Liverpool Street - Abellio East Anglia - to East Anglia and Essex

Fenchurch Street - C2C - along the southern Essex coast

Cannon Street - Southeastern commuter services and inner suburban and urban from Greenwich and Kent

Blackfriars - Thameslink (passing through) and Southeastern outer suburban services to Surrey and Kent

London Bridge - both a terminus and through station for Southern, Southeastern and Thameslink services to the south and southeast - currently a basket case with huge disruption due to a major rebuild while the station tries to remain open

Charing Cross - Southeastern services through Kent and Sussex, some Surrey

Waterloo - Southwestern Trains - the south coast beyond Surrey and the Southwest but on different routes to Southern and GWR

Victoria - Primarily Southern Railway to the south, southeast and inner southwest, a few Southeastern services to the Kent coast, and Gatwick Express to Gatwick (and a few continue to 3 Bridges or Brighton)

and back around again to Paddington.

A London Terminals ticket only takes you to the terminal logically associated with your ticket and includes no Underground.

It is not envisioned by the system that you would need to go to a different terminal station, because if you were doing that you would be boarding a train there to continue your journey.

Got it so far?

Now, it is possible to cross London from one terminal to another IF there is a destination and origination beyond these. So for example, Bath to London Terminals would get you to Paddington where you would need a tube ticket as I explained yesterday for the Paddington to Clapham North bit.

But if your journey were for example Bath to Clapham Junction (not particularly far from Clapham North) or even Clapham High Street (across the street from Clapham North and just one stop on the Overground (orange line) from Clapham Junction every 15 minutes) you could then have a single ticket that would get you all the way. It would have a small Christian cross on the routing line of your ticket which allows one tube journey to cross London between terminals and continue on rail. The routing (your choice) would be Bath to Paddington, then your choice of direct tube route to either Waterloo, Charing Cross or Victoria for the short trip to Clapham Junction, then change to the Overground to Clapham High Street.

I expect that that would be more expensive than a cheap ticket from Bath to Paddington and then either a single tube ticket to Zones 1+2 (your hotel in zone 2) or a simple tap with an Oyster Card.

Told you it was complicated. That's as simple as I can make it.

I'm just going to jump in here and say WOW, Nigel. That was a large amount of data, clearly and concisely. Thank you.

lol! Ok! Thank you all!