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First Great Western -rail in england

Help..I am confused about how many rail lines there are in England... It seems the tickets to where I want to go are quite a bit cheaper on this site vs. National Rail site. Is there a reason for this??
Thanks!

Posted by
359 posts

There's many rail companies in England, Sherry, but you do have a few choices when booking; and the list keeps changing. Last year I did London to York with GNER (Great Northern) who've since been taken over by National Rail. It's kind of like booking through RailEurope (basically a booking service) or through the actual rail company (Great Western); with the former you'll pay more. Where are you trying to go to/from?

Posted by
359 posts

Checked both FGW and NatRail and RailEurope for Ldn to M-in-M. The first two, with various dates from now, including tomorrow, both seem to run about 25GBP for one-way. RailEuope, with a Britrail pass (which may not apply to you), show it as cheap as $11 and as much as $100 without the pass. Don't know what your itinerary/plans might be but what you don't want to do is just walk up to the wicket at Paddington and buy the ticket for 'right now'; gets very expensive doing that. FGW is the 'carrier' while NatRail is kind of 'brokering' the tickets which obviously can push the prices up a bit. You'll want to play around with the various options on the sites; for example 'day-returns' can sometimes be cheaper than 'one-ways', different times of day/week can also affect the prices. A good way to do it is to buy the ticket online in advance and pick it up out of the automated machines in Paddington when you get there.

Posted by
38 posts

Thanks for all the info, I just wasn't clear about that..now I am. I'm actaully goiong end of may but am going to purchase my train tickets today.