BritRail vs Railcard

At 62 you are eligible for a Senior Railcard, which costs £30 for a year and will give you 1/3rd off all rail fares. I would imagine based on your outline plan and the fact that you can book your longer distance trains ahead of time and take advantage of cheap fares, that it would be much better to buy a railcard than opt for BritRail.

There will be some useful local advice for your stays in Berkshire and Manchester but it would probably be useful if you told us exactly where you will be based for those

I'm sure isn31c will be along very shortly. He lives in West Cumbria and is a mine of information on transport planning across the UK.

Without seeing a specific itinerary it is hard to be certain. But almost certainly Railcard will work out cheapest.

On an advance fare you should get up to Manchester from Berkshire on a railcard for under £30. I have trips upcoming from Andover to West Cumbria for under £35 and Dorchester to West Cumbria for a bit less than that.

In Greater Manchester there is a Day Rover for all buses for £5, and many rail routes have very cheap Advance Fares that can be booked until midnight the day before travel.
I'm not sure what you mean by the Western Lake District, but the same advance fares exist here. Whitehaven to Carlisle or Barrow (about 45 miles each way) is now as low as £2 each way with a railcard, if you choose the right trains. Likewise the Avanti trains on all local journeys through the Lake District have new last minute advance fares- twice recently I've had 50 miles Carlisle to Oxenholme for £2,20.
All local buses have a £2 single fare, but depending on exactly where you want there are a range of superb value weekly bus tickets.
Two other little known tickets are the Explorer 55, all off peak Northern only trains between Crewe and Carlisle via Manchester, Liverpool and Burnley including the Peak District £17.50 (no railcard needed, anyone over 55), and the Lakes Day Ranger £18.80 with railcard (all day)- all trains Workington to Barrow to Lancaster to Penrith and Windermere, all buses in Cumbria and a half lake cruise on Windermere. Buy both on the day.
BritRail doesn't include buses and boats.

The £2 bus fares are a nationwide scheme- so include Berkshire. Stagecoach will also have a local weekly fare down there. Or Reading Buses (another major operator down there) have a range of daily and weekly tickets.

welcome to the Forums

as you're over 60 you're eligible for a Senior Railcard. £30 for a year for a 30 percent discount on most, even very cheap, tickets. You break even after £100 of eligible ticket spend. If you will be in the greater Manchester area on local trains you may be some time until you reach that figure. https://www.senior-railcard.co.uk/ In London and the Southeast there is a weekday restriction on travel completely in the region. I would have to look to see if your journeys within Berkshire (where?) is within the old Network Southeast area.

It sounds like you'll be solo? If you are two people you can get a Two-Together railcard which gives the same discount on the same tickets, but the two must travel together and after 9:30 M-F (no time restriction on weekends or bank holidays), with no age restriction.

I am not current on BritRail so somebody else will have to pipe up on those.

Railcards are officially for UK residents only, no matter what you might read. They ask for UK ID when you get it.

Railcards are officially for UK residents only, no matter what you might read. They ask for UK ID when you get it.

That is simply not true. Lots and lots of people on this forum have obtained and used railcards successfully. There is absolutely nothing in the rules to support that statement.

Quote from the official Railcard site:

Can visitors to Britain buy a Railcard online?

A: Yes, you can.

Simply click ‘Buy Now on the website homepage to get started. When you get to the question 'Choose the type of Railcard you would like' select 'Digital' and follow the instructions on the screen to complete your purchase.

You can also buy a Railcard at Gatwick Airport, Stansted Airport rail stations, Luton Airport Parkway and Manchester Airport – but NOT at London Heathrow Airport.

Railcards are officially for UK residents only, no matter what you might read. They ask for UK ID when you get it.

I would like to know the reference for that. I have never known of any restriction such as that on Railcards. I spent decades working on trains all over England and I have never heard that or observe any of my colleagues enforcing any rule like that, and my colleagues were pretty much up on the rules, and enforced them.

https://www.senior-railcard.co.uk/about-the-railcard/are-you-eligible/

Specifically:
Senior Railcard Eligibility Checklist
Aged 60 years old or over
Have a valid UK Driving Licence, Passport or EEA national Identity card
Can be bought online or at a station

Will people stop misquoting and trying to look clever. First it was said that no railcard was available to non UK nationals (which was mis-proven) now the senior railcard rules are mis-quoted. What it actually says is (my emphasis)-
Before you apply, you will need a valid form of ID *such as** a Passport, UK Driving License or EEA National Identity card with you to prove your age. Don’t take it personally, there are lots of you out there that look younger than your years (please tell us your secrets)!*

I don't know what agenda is at play here. The facts of the matter are that loads and loads of people on this forum have obtained senior railcards with no difficulty at all.

Refer also to the FAQ quoted above from the Senior Railcard website,

Buried even further in the site relating to online applications is:

We accept machine readable passport codes from all countries except for those issued in the Philippines and Bangladesh prior to 2010.

Thank you all for your information---- interesting.... (my main question was the difference between the 2 cards, as I found it a bit confusing on each site).
I will try and 'guestimate' my longer train journeys around the country and then my smaller local/bus usage and see what I can figure.
Thank you Nigel and n31 c (?) --- as your information is what I was looking for.
Cheers!

You'll need to check on the individual ticket prices, but I could not make a BritRail pass "work" for my husband and I when we went to England last summer. We had 4 rail travel days (with up to 3 trains on those days), but they weren't consecutive travel days, so buying "4 days in one month" would have cost over $500 for the two of us.

We purchased a 2-together card (electronic version--had it on our phones), and discounted tickets. The total for all 4 travel days came to about $200 for the two of us. So the railcard was a clear winner in this case. We had used the BritRail pass on our two previous trips, partly for convenience, but it was just so much more expensive this time that it didn't make sense. Plus it's much easier to buy train tickets online now than it was in say, 2004, so there was no standing in line at the station waiting to buy a ticket as we would have done in the past.