Train Prices within England

You are using Cross Country and their space is rather limited on this route - usually only 4 carriages per service. So it doesn't take many booking before the price of the cheapest available Advance tickets escalates. The cheapest Advance possible is £7.75. The most expensive is £42.95 (although this is more than an off-peak single). The price is highly unlikely to go down and likely to continue to go up.

I just now went to.....nationalrail.co.uk......and put dates in for 2.5 weeks from now the prices I got was £15.7o and £18.90 depending on what time you took the train. Those prices doesn’t seem bad to me.

Robin Z, unfortunately, not for my date, 25 August. They were in the 35 pound range for 2 tickets then overnight, jumped to more than double that.

TravelingfromTx, that’s a bummer, I see what you mean. When I did the first search I used the 27th.

25 August is the day before the Late Summer Bank Holiday. Not maybe the peak travel day, but it will be busy. The surprise to me is more that the fares kept fairly cheap until recently. The price of an single valid on any train on that day is £36.50.

You can reduce the price by splitting the ticket. It can still be done for £16.88 as follows :> Advance single from SOU to Basingstoke with South Western Railway = £5 specific train only + Basingstoke to Reading = £6.70 + Reading to Oxford with GWR = £3. Problem is you have to change train at the split points.

You can still reduce the price on the direct Cross Country Trains by splitting the ticket at Basingstoke.

www.trainsplit.com will give you the options - click Proceed and it tells you the 'splits’.

You don't have to change at the split points, but the train you take has to stop at them.

Yes, you don’t have to change train at the split points but in the case of the £16.88 ticket still available - you do as it uses 3 separate trains for each leg. It is only by travelling on Cross Country Trains that you make the whole journey on one train - which is an express service travelling to the north. Even on these services, often you can get cheaper tickets by doing ‘splits’ at points where the train(s) stop.

Thank you for all your replies. Leary about taking the train that day now. But, the mega bus schedule is not convenient.

Among the many benefits of Seat61's website is his section on booking the cheapest train routes. It makes strategies for winning at the horse track seem simple, but that's not his fault.

www.seat61.com