Traveling by Train in England

Go onto national rail.co.uk, you can purchase tickets eleven weeks in advance at a lower cost. Where you see railcard click on that and select Two Together. The two together will cost £30.00, but you don’t need to purchase it until you get to London. Having this railcard will get you lower prices., be sure to always make that you have one. Before taking your first train trip go up to the counter and ask to purchase a Two Together Railcard, you and your wife will each need a passport size photo for the railcard.
Make sure you always have it with you when you are on the train, sometimes they ask to see it and sometimes they don’t. If they ask to see it and you don’t have it they will charge you a higher rate for your ticket.

There is no UK rail pass which would be worthwhile for such an itinerary. Whether there is some kind of Britrail pass is another matter, but unlikely.

It is far more likely that point to point advance tickets with a 2 Together Railcard (previous post) would be your most cost effective solution, if this is your whole itinerary.

But it is way out of date advice (so last year) to say that you have to book advance fares anything like 11 weeks in advance. Things have totally changed. I get outstanding bargains usually 2 to 3 weeks out, on some routes as little as 2 to 3 days, or even overnight.

Have you looked at this link:
https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/britain-rail-passes

There is a freedom in using one pass and not having to get many tickets if you have many locations...or want the opportunity to add trips as the spirit moves. However, you should check out the rate range for the must see locations and price it out to do a proper comparison.

good advice from RobinZ, someone I have known for years.

The website explaining the Two Together Railcard is at https://www.twotogether-railcard.co.uk/ If you go to the bottom you will see that it is available at staffed rail ticket office as well as online. It is valid on most tickets, and is valid after 9:30 M-F, all day on weekends and bank holidays.

Be sure to check the Advance tickets which are usually the cheapest, a few weeks ahead of travel, and are valid with the Two Together Railcard.

If that 9:30 M-F restriction is too restrictive for you there are other age restrictive Railcards which also get that 30% discount but cost more. If you are seniors the Senior Railcard doesn't have the time restriction on most routes but with two cards required costs twice as much.

These cards are valid for 12 months and if the value of all your covered train trips are more than £100 you will be saving. With 2 Senior Railcards you'd spend £200 total before starting to save.

Since our travels in the UK involved hotel reservations and definite plans, we happily forgo the flexibility of a rail pass for the significantly cheaper Advance tickets with a 2 Together Railcard. Most others who have responded to the question seem to agree with this choice.

According to the sales point for Britrail passes, the cost of a 2-person Britrail pass for a whole month would be a prohibitive $1550. The cost of a 2-person flexible pass for 8 days of travel within that month would be $894, which is much better. However, they would have to make 8 journeys averaging $112 each to make the pass pay for itself.

Here are examples of Advance fares I see right now for travel in early February:

York to London. 31 GBP per person (regular fare is 68 GBP off-peak, or 160 GBP full fare). So for 2 people with a 2 Together card, that journey, which is the most expensive of their trip, would be 43.40 GBP or roughly $54—much less than that $112 for a day’s pass use.

Other trips are much less—-for example, Penrith (for Keswick) to Edinburgh has an advance fare of only 11 GBP per person, so 15.70 GBP for two Advance tix with the 2 Together card.

Pleased that Lola can access the prices, which we can't in the UK. The domestic UK equivalent is the 14 day all line rail rover which is an even more eye watering £571.55 each with a railcard or £2285 for two people for a month!!

An informed back of the envelope calculation is just over £200 each for this itinerary on advance tickets with railcard, which is a reasonably generous estimate, probably a bit over done.

I really do wonder if Rick is getting a click through commission for Britrail? Note that you can purchase some Rover tickets in the Britain and they may or may not work out cheaper than buying point to point tickets.

Here is a PDF map of the rail network. (Scroll down for the south).

Also note that on some routes, it pays to split the ticket at places where the train stops - even though you stay on the same train. The train company websites don’t tell you this and neither does www.nationalrail.co.uk
Here are some sites that do tell/sell you ‘splits’ and they charge a commission on the amount saved.
https://www.traintickets.com/?/
https://www.thetrainline.com
https://trainsplit.com

Also see:> https://www.seat61.com
https://www.scenicrailbritain.com

The link for purchasing Britrail passes is on Rick’s train pass webpage:

https://www.acprail.com/rail-passes/britrail/

But since the passes are for “international guests” the UK forum members apparently cannot access it.

why isn't everyone shouting Man in Seat 61? Mark lives in the UK for Pete's sake!

Probably, @phred, because this is a forum where plenty of members live in the UK, and are able to give just as much information, as bespoked as the OP wants, as Man in Seat 61.
Who are equally knowledgeable.

And will and have spent hours doing so, on individual enquiries. Not to mention the literally hours spent on giving people accurate details of next week's strikes- not all of which has been on public forum.
Who follow up on individuals journeys as live journeys giving up to date information as and when problems emerge.

Man in Seat 61 is an authority on train travel worldwide, with complete and easily understood explanations, and lots of photos. But probably overkill for a quick answer to a simple question on train passes in the UK, like the one posed here.

It's great to get the train info from those of you in the know.

My above comment was after looking at Rick's map of estimated city to city costs and comparing with a pass.
If one is doing a long distant route--e.g. $175 one way London to Edinburgh on Rick's map vs Britrail senior 4 day flex, 265 (so allows another itinerary) I thought the pass would be worth it. However, I'm guessing there is a senior rate for city to city---or maybe the discount for 2 is better yet...and particularly if a person has all details of itinerary nailed down. Obviously, there is more to the comparison than what I attempted.

You know the nitty gritty details of options, so I know I'll be coming back to the forum for help when I'm ready to make transport decisions.
Thank you.

I can't imagine any authority being better than Stuart (having benefited from his quick replies and suggestions while I was on the road in October).

The problem with Rick’s map of train fares is that they show the full “walk-up” fare, which few of us ever pay. The discounts available with purchase in advance (so-called Advance fares) are significant; in some cases 50% or more (as the prices I quotes demonstrate). And then one can add the 30% off with a Two Together card (better than a Senior card as only one card is needed for 2 people).

For this reason (showing only full walk-up fares) I have found Rick’s train price maps to be of little use in most of Europe. The exception is in Switzerland, where there are few discounts for advance purchase available. In that country, a Swiss rail pass of some type (not a Durail pass) is often the best solution.

The problem of quoting full walk up fares is even deeper. It is because the concept of having to book advance fares way ahead of time is frankly nonsense. It is pre covid, not todays reality.
But all people can do is quote out of date information on Rick's website, or vague wordage (because he can't cover every situation) on Man in Seat 61.
Those charts now have very little meaning.
Sure you want to nail down the totally cheapest fare book weeks ahead. On many operators bookings only open 8 weeks ahead, not the oft quoted 11 to 12.
But advance fares are now also available as almost walk up fares on all long distance routes even in the peak. At 0700 this morning I am looking for Edinburgh to London. I am hampered by the fact that all trains are currently cancelled due to multiple flooding events between Edinburgh and Newcastle. But from 0924 onwards (2 hours time) there are advance fares as low as £79 then £84 on several later trains.
But for York to London for instance there are advance fares available for me to walk up and buy for trains as soon as 0815.
This is not at all unusual or a fluke, but the new reality.
As it happens this morning you can't divert from Edinburgh onto the Euston trains either to Euston due to staff shortages, a points failure south of Warrington and a major signal failure in the Trent Valley!!
But the canny traveller, not in a hurry, would book the 0924 now for £79 pretty happy that he would get all that fare back through delay repay, as the bus which will hopefully replace the train will add over an hour to the journey time.
In Scotland as another for instance you cannot physically pay full fare on Ricks charts currently as all peak fares have been suspended in a trial- so all fares are now off peak. And that is before short notice advance fares.
Another example- Carlisle to London- off peak fares start as early as 0647 to arrive in Euston at 1012. As soon as tomorrow all trains after 0703 have £76 advance fares on them, and the 0647 is full off peak £101 fare, not almost £200 peak fare on the one earlier train. If you want to arrive in Euston really early tomorrow book advance fare on the 0145 sleeper (seated car) for £70- arrives 0715.
This morning the sleeper got through before the issues above and arrived at Euston 54 minutes early- at 0621.
Even on short distance regional routes advance fares are available 24 hours ahead- some routes minutes ahead of travel.

Paid £35 ($44.18 USD) London to Motherwell on the 10th January Advanced fare on Avanti West Coast. 4h 16 minutes there, 4h 22 minutes back, strangely. I'd have thought it was uphill to Scotland ;-)

That's the cheapest fare I remember paying on that route for a long time. If anyone's interested.

Have you noticed, the OP has not been back. After reading this thread, I'm not surprised. I'm confused and I'm used to riding the trains in the UK.

So, hikemike.....here's the deal. Passes can be complicated and confusing. Discounts here, discounts there, rules here, rules there.

Let's make it simple. A general rail pass can cost more than easy point to point tickets. (Regardless of what Rick says. He hasn't changed his suggestions since the days he was the number one seller of rail passes in the US. And that was last century. Any costs mentioned in a guidebook are also outdated.)

Peruse over the the Man in Seat 61 and get a general idea of rail passes and discounts.

Then, go to the National Rail website and plug in your trips to get an idea of cost on point to point tickets. They also have a section about all the discount railcards available.

Don't forget to also check the bus sites like National Express, Flixbus and Megabus. Trainline.info will also give you a general idea of bus services available in the areas you are visiting although it is far from perfect. Also keep in mind that the 2 GBP fare cap on bus tickets on some routes has been extended through the end of 2024.

Then you can compare which combination of passes, discount railcards, or simple point to point tickets--rail or bus-- would work best. (Keeping in miind that some options are only available outside the UK. So our friends in the UK may not know about them.)

As for delays, cancellations, strikes, weather, war, pestilence, or locusts.....well.....you can't plan for any of these way in advance. Nor worry about them. Plan as if everything is going to go as you want and deal with any issues that may come up. (But sometimes you might want to have a Plan B.)

To answer your question, my only suggestion is it's time to do a little homework. Happy planning.

Post above by abhk reported as AI generated spam.