Using a Train App?Or use a Rail travel company to do all the trips?

I've been using apps and my laptop. On the ones I've booked (not in UK) online I can pick up the ticket when I sign into the app. Last Fall I used the app on the go to book some tickets in Italy and it was very easy.

I'd go to the National Rail site to check on the train providers for your trips. LNER goes from Edinburgh to York and London if that is your route.

I also add the tickets to my Apple wallet if that is an option. I also do a screen shot and add it to a separate trip photo album and to a notes file for each trip.

Finally I put a note in my googledocs itinerary with confirmation numbers.

OP -- The best thing you can probably do is take a dive into in the website for the Man in Seat 61 -- https://www.seat61.com/ you will be able to learn so much about trains in the UK.

Personally when it comes to buying tickets, I tend to do all of my purchasing through either the website or the app for LNER -- https://www.lner.co.uk/

Any train operating company can sell tickets for any route, I I just start with LNER and I'm probably getting ahead of myself. But Seat 61 is a good place to start to familiarize yourself with UK trains

Also, let me add, several train operating companies offer mobile tickets. When I travel the East Coast Mainline on an LNER service the ticket is delivered in the app. Otherwise, I select delivery from a fast ticket machine at a train station. After you've purchased tickets on a particular TOC website, you can go to the machines at a train station, punch in your reference number and use the card for purchase to confirm your ID and the machine will print out your ticket.

For years, I went to the specific country’s rail company Website. For 3 or 4 years now, I’ve used the Trainline App for everywhere I’ve been going throughout Europe, including England. It shows you the schedule options, including times for trains throughout the day to get you from your departure to your destination, and highlighting the fastest, the cheapest, etc. It also shows you the return details, if you’re doing a round trip. Then it gives you the prices, and you can purchase your ticket(s) right on the app. It’s been accurate and reliable.

Well, your question spurred me to go to the LNER site to see if either of my 2 journeys were for sale yet and yep, the outbound train for the direct journey was for sale for my date in May. I booked on the LNER site, added it to my Apple Wallet and will also do a screenshot of the PDF and add it to my albums later.

The only thing is I didn't get to choose a seat assignment, it was chosen for me. I opted for 1st because I like the seating arrangement where there is one line of single seats down one side. As I'm a solo traveler I prefer to sit alone especially since Covid.

BTW, I always try to use my American Express card for train transactions. I had problems previously trying to use a VISA card on the France train site and have just defaulted to American Express which goes thru right away with an immediate text saying an international purchase has been made.

I also have a paper cheatsheet with my passwords for various sites and I will add the LNER password to it, lol. Should be OK as I've got it saved in the app.

Great ideas Pam to save to Apple wallet, Screen shot, etc. I need to remember to that too! You're Welcome that i saved you some money..Sale is Great news. :) Glad I asked today. Are there Sales usually? hmmmm
I'll be honest I did contact the Man in Seat 61 and he was rude & his reply so blase. It was like 'duh' "Easy Peasy" was his exact wording. Maybe he gets so many questions he just can't be bothered with tourist who doesn't deal with trains. Here in Canada we just don't have the trains they have in Europe. This is why I use Rick Steves, most people offer helpful comments and don't try to make you feel stupid for asking. We are asking, because we have looked it up and still don't understand.

So, I really appreciate all you who wrote But I have to ask is LNER a company or should I just stick with National Rail? I was just doing a mock look on it today for prices using the National Rail site and pretended I had a Two together Rail Card to get an idea of our train travel costs... Just so I know what we will be spending... approx.

Thank All.

Oh ya and today I kept getting a Bad Request popping up on the sites too. Weird?

Shelley,

Yes LNER is a Train Operating Company (TOC). It stands for London North Eastern Railway.
They run the franchised trains on the London to Edinburgh route. A few trains run on to Aberdeen and Inverness. They also run branches to Leeds and several towns beyond, Hull and Lincoln, and a few other places.

They have several competitor companies which are called Open Access Operators. That means they are fully commercial.
These include Lumo to Edinburgh, Hull Trains to, well, Hull and Grand Central to Yorkshire towns and Sunderland (direct, not via Newcastle).
To shared destinations like Edinburgh LNER fares have been reduced a lot.
Lumo don't stop at York because Network Rail refused permission to do so. Lump started with great fares, now the difference is minor as LNER can afford to match them.
It's rather like Flix Train vs DB in Germany

All the Open Access Operators run far fewer trains than LNER.
So to Edinburgh LNER are half hourly, Lumo are 4 or 5 a day.
Hull Trains and Grand Central on their routes run, IMO, far nicer and more comfortable trains. If I am going to London via Leeds I book them from Doncaster, where they are allowed to stop.

Oh yes, I personally never use National Rail to research train journeys, I use TOC websites and Real.Time Trains.
Just personal preference.
I find it interesting that on this forum majority opinion is the other way about.

LNER is a train operating company and holds the franchise to operate on the East Coast Mainline. If you wanted to say travel from Edinburgh south to York or London, LNER would provide the service, and would be the TOC from which to buy your tickets. If you went to the National Rail website and searched tickets for Edinburgh to London, National Rail would forward you to LNER's site to complete the purchase.

Let's just say that you wanted to travel from London to Great Malvern. That route in served by GWR. You can go to GWR's website to purchase tickets; you can go to National Rail, which would forward you on to GWR to complete the purchase; or you can look up your route on the LNER site and complete you ticket purchase there.

LNER, GWR, Southeastern, Avanti West Coast & etc., are all among the Train Operating Companies which hold franchises for particular routes, but are able to sell tickets on all routes. Personally I just tend to use LNER because quite a few years ago many TOC websites had issues with non-UK cards, but no matter what purchasing through LNER would always go through. Just using the one site to buy all tickets was easy.

The advantage to purchasing tickets from the TOC for the route they operate is they may offer discounts not available across the system, or offer tickets for sale earlier than the usual 10-12 weeks. The use of the National Rail website in this case is like an aggregator, it will always forward you to the TOC that operates the routing you're searching.

are they a company?

LNER isn't exactly a franchise, and in the traditional sense not a TOC (Train Operating Company).

It is actually an arm of the government who had to step in - again - after the last failed operator had to turn the keys back in.

from their FAQs, a quote:

We are publicly-owned, headquartered in York, and our parent company is DfT OLR Holdings Ltd which is owned by the Secretary of State for Transport

DfT is the Department for Transport.

We've been down this road before. Twice. The company fails, the government renationalizes in all but name, then reprivatises and relets the franchise, the company fails, wash, rinse, repeat.

This time around they are trying quite hard to run a decent railway, but government owned and government run does not exempt them from strikes. In fact they have been involved in all the nationwide strikes by both the RMT and ASLEF unions.

They will be on strike again tomorrow.

Good app tho....

Oh yes, I personally never use National Rail to research train
journeys, I use TOC websites and Real.Time Trains. Just personal
preference. I find it interesting that on this forum majority opinion
is the other way about.

I prefer to start my searches with National Rail because I don't live in the UK and I don't visit often enough to know the names of the TOCs for the journeys I'm researching. Once I find their names, I can go to the TOC websites for ticketing etc. As you said, personal preference.

Wasn't sure next what a TOC was either. I just want to make it easy to book all our train tickets. We will travel Edinburgh- Berwick upon Tweed, Newcastle, Carlisle, Settle, Moreton in Marsh...etc. So lots of here and there and everywhere. Ha

If someone reads this... Can we jump off at any point and then resume or is our ticket invalid after we are off? Not sure... At one location. We booked a accommodation at the train station stop just before our destination. We would then take our luggage to Hotel, then be back onto train to do a little visit down at the next station. Then later, we know we'd need to buy a ticket back to Hotel, but the one would be just a quick stop. Can this be done? Thanks

Can we jump off at any point and then resume or is our ticket invalid
after we are off?

What you describe is, AFAIK, referred to as "break of journey" in the UK rail business. Some types of tickets allow it, others do not.

In researching the types of tickets and their terms and conditions, you could start at this page: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/Train_Tickets.aspx and select the section called "Which Ticket is Right for Me?" That opens a section with links to the different ticket types.

For advance tickets, I ended up at this page of Terms and Conditions for Advance Tickets -https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/46546.aspx - which says in section 6 that Break of Journey isn't allowed with advance tickets.

However, I found that some other types of tickets allow a break of journey. i'm sure the experts here can chime in with good explanations and recommendations.

A word of warning:> using the train Company websites is OK especially when using just that one company. However, if switching companies mid journey, split ticketing can often work MUCH CHEAPER. One of the journeys that Shelley is making is from Settle to Moreton-in-Marsh and for that one in particular, split ticketing will save mega £’s. I also note that for May, at present, it is only the first couple of days that have the cheaper Advance fares for specific trains loaded. With these Advance one way tickets, you can’t just hop off mid journey to see some place & then hop back onto a later train -so you would need to book separate tickets for each leg. Of course, you can always just show up at the station and buy a ticket on the day but these can be more expensive - much more in some cases. For short hop return journeys, the price remains the same so no advantage in advance booking and you are not tied to specific trains but note that peak fares usually operate before 9.30am on weekdays.

These sites tell you if splitting the tickets reduce the fares from a to b. Test it out for Settle to MIM for say 8 weeks from now and you will see what I mean.
https://www.traintickets.com/?/
https://v3.trainsplit.com
https://www.splitmyfare.co.uk

Nationalrail.co.uk and all the train companies will usually show the same fares.

In order to break a journey it usually requires either a season ticket - but very few tourists will want one because it is between two named places and a route in between and for at least a week up to a year - or a day or period return.

Some day returns and virtually all period returns allow one break of journey on the OUT leg and unlimited breaks of journey on the RETURN leg, but no backtracking, must be continually approaching the destination (no zig zagging either).

In practice it is more difficult than it seems because the ticket barrier - where you feed your ticket in, it is read and approved automatically, and then it will likely eat the ticket because it assumes your journey is complete. So you need to seek out a human who you can show the ticket to and they will - if you have shown the correct half - open the barrier for you. And on you go.

A Day Return (either Anytime or Off-Peak) is very little more money (often as little as 10p more) than a Day Single.

Same with a period return. The OUT leg must be completed the same calendar day (up to and including 3 am the following morning) and the REURN leg of a period return must be completed with 30 days.

Yes, it is complicated. And there are exceptions to every rule. There used to be a 2 inch thick Routing Guide which every ticket handing employee had to have access to. Back when I started working on the railway I had to carry on in my bag every day.

After a few years it becomes second nature. Staff these days have hand held computers and no Routing Guides.

Short version - a sequence of Advance tickets may be a better deal and way way easier. Or a well managed period return. But truly better to not count on trains from hop off and hop on transport without a pass of some form.

That's a good idea James to try it out a few times splitting it up. See what it looks like.

I wish all train stations had a place to store bags while you head out to explore but it doesn't seem too common. Appreciate the advice.

it is extremely uncommon for a station to have a left luggage facility and because of terrorism there are no lockers anywhere on railway property anymore.