Train Tickets

Some railway companies offer print-at-home tickets on some routes, but these are only a few routes.
In most cases you will pick up the tickets from the ticket machine. When you buy the tickets online, you will be asked which station you want to pick up the tickets from, usually pick up all tickets at the same time from your first station.

You will then be given a pickup code. Just go to any ticket machine in the station, insert the card you used too pay for the tickets for ID purposes only), and tpye in code number. All the tickets will be printed. Do not leave any behind. The tickets ar all credit card sized. Click here for example.

Our experience with buying advance ticket in England last Spring is that we printed them at home. No problem, made a back up copy for our travel folder in case we misplaced the tickets we were carrying.

Hi Judy, You can have the tickets delivered to you - it'll cost an extra 7.50 pounds for the postage. I purchased all my train tickets in advance as soon as they were available online and had them mailed to my home in Montana. I had tickets from 4 different train lines, for half a dozen different journeys, all purchased through one train company with no booking fees. The "man in seat 61" website has good info on UK train travel and how to purchase tickets. http://seat61.com/UK-train-travel.htm

Of the three options, print-at-home, pick up in the country, or sent by mail, my preference would be in that order.

Print-at-home is the surest because you have the tickets before you leave (in addition to the ticket, I had an electronic copy on a thumb drive).

I'm not sure how pick up at a ticket automat would work if you were starting your journey with that ticket outside the country (not a problem in your case, I guess).

My lest favorite preference would be receiving the ticket by mail because I guess there is no such thing as international registered mail. If your tickets get lost in the mail, you're out of luck.

Judy,

When collecting tickets at automated Kiosks, you'll normally have to use the same credit card that was used to book the tickets. If you try to use a different credit card, the process may not work.

You may have better luck buying your tickets at https://www.thetrainline.com/ (a UK firm). I haven't had occasion to use them yet, but if they're anything like their other branch, Captain Train, they should offer the print-at-home option. Use the print-at-home option if at all possible.

Judy, the "print-at-home" option only applies on certain routes by certain operators, where they have equipped their ticket inspectors with the necessary on-line machines with barcode scanners.
One of the companies which does to "print-at-home" is Eurostar. Whenever I take a train to England, I use print-at-home for the Eurostar from Paris to London, then pick up my tickets at my departure station from London. So far, it has always worked OK.

Yes, you do need the same credit card you used to pay, and need to have the ID number. For example, this is an old booking confirmation e-mail from thetrainline.com :

Journey Information
Getting your tickets: Self-Service Ticket Machine
Collection reference: LF62FR28
Tickets will be available to pick-up from a self-service ticket machine at any one of 1000 UK stations 15 minute(s) after booking.
When you go to collect your tickets you will need:
• Your collection reference: LF62FR28
• The payment card you used to purchase the ticket (number ending 7509).
You must have both of the above to be able to collect your tickets.

Thank you all once again for your invaluable advice

In my experience, you can go to whatever station is convenient to collect your tickets from an agent. Although the trains are operated by several companies, they seem to have coordinated their ticket retrieval even when they don't sell each others' tickets on-line.

No, in Britain you usually have to state which station you want to collect the ticket at and MUST get it at that station.