Nuts and bolts of train traveling and transferring on Brit Rail pass

Whilst having web access and a mobile phone will give you more information you can perfectly easily travel without them - we all did until not that long ago.

It would make sense to know the outline of your journey in advance but you could also do it by turning up at the station and just asking the staff.

From Bath to St Ives I would imagine you would take a short trip to Bristol and pick up a train to Penzance for the bulk of the journey. You get off at St Erth for the short and beautiful branch line to St Ives. On that trip a seat reservation would be useful for the Bristol to St Erth bit. You can get free seat reservations at any manned station such as Bath. You don’t need a separate ticket - your pass covers that.

There are platform indicators and screens at almost every station to tell you which platform/track the next train will leave from.

On train you should always have announcements (audible and increasingly visual) announcements that the next station is 'x', change for 'y'.

Very often they will add trains for 'y' leave at [time] from platform [i] and for 'z'at [time] from platform [ii]. You can even still buy paper tickets for any journey (if you didn't have a pass).

You can very easily travel on UK rail without a cellphone and apps and constant web access. Many UK citizens do that every day.

OP, there's nothing wrong with good ol' pen and paper to plot out your train journeys. Go to the National Rail or the train operating companies' websites and put in your departure and arrival stations, and travel date, then note the details of the train that best fits your needs. Note the departure time, arrival time, number of changes & at which stations the changes are made. As you said most journeys from Bath to St Ives usually involve 3 changes and a 5 and a half hour travel time. But, there is a morning GWR service with a 7:24 departure that only involves 1 change and a 4 and a half hour travel time.

There are platform indicators and screens at almost every station to tell you which platform/track the next train will leave from.

That right there. They will also indicate each of the calling points for that next train.

I would also recommend getting comfortable with using 24 hour time.

Hi!

The replies here have been so helpful and spot on that I am only going to add one thing: when in doubt, do not hesitate to ask!

If a fellow traveler does not know, the station staff will. These days, they seem to mostly have hand-held devices with the latest route/time/track information available and they can really be helpful in pointing you in the right direction if you are struggling following the signage. Particularly in larger stations it can be confusing to locate platforms (most are SUPER easy to suss out, but some are not contiguous, or might be down some stairs you aren’t immediately seeing, etc.) so ASK and make your life easier!

Have a wonderful time!

How does anyone travel by train in England without web access or a cellphone? (asking for an impoverished elderly luddite friend.)

Go the station and ask the staff.

Also helpful to have a map of various routes so you know where you are heading, where you pass through, and where you change trains.

If Billy Joel and Margaret Robbie can do it so can you.

It really is nothing to worry about. All the stations have clear signage and staff are on hand should advice be needed. The trains have areas for you to put luggage.

Look at this video of a journey from London (Paddington) to Bath to get some idea of what to expect.

Thank you everyone for all these reassuring notes. I am getting so used to being alienated in the US on the West Coast where people have vanished and we are expected to do all the work as consumers with our device. Very relieved to know there are actual people. I am not a seasoned traveler by any stretch of the imagination. I am taking this trip, after all my other attempts to travel were canceled at enormous expense in 2020. The last time I traveled alone for a month I was in Japan and this day I cannot fathom how I navigated those subways without a device and just my terrified brain Pandemic left me quite flustered and hesitant of the unknown. My personal challenge this month is to get over it—do something by myself that scares me. Of course, it helps that English is spoken, although I am not that great at understanding accents so if you see YouTube videos of some woman shouting what what what? All over England that would be me.

Hi Isla! Just to add my two cents, my family and I got back from our vacation about a month ago and we used the BritRail pass as well. For us, it was very convenient and a great tool. Anyway, I went the screen-shot route. I'm not super phone savvy, and I didn't know what my reception would be like, so I just checked Google Maps the morning of travel, took screenshots of various routes, and kept those handy. Also, most train stations had good signage and agents who were very helpful. Even without my phone, we still could have managed it, but having and using the phone was very convenient (once I got used to it).

Have a great trip!