swood

In May next year we will be taking the Eurostar from Paris to London, which we'll book in advance, and then travelling on to Felixstowe (to pick up our motorbike!). From what we can gather, we'll need to get a London (Liverpool St) to Ipswich train and then another train out to Felixstowe. Can anyone advise whether we should be booking the UK part of this journey or just wing it on the day? Thanks!

PalenqueBob

check fares at www.nationalrail.co.uk for advance fares vs walkup fares and see what the difference is. You can book on this site, or www.thetrainline.com as well

owain

Hah, just got home, on the 7.30pm from Liverpool Street - standing room only, all the way to Ipswich, for the poor sods who didn't fight their way on first (Mind you, half-term means lots of families travelling)

4-7pm in that direction, it's very busy indeed. Other times of the day, there should be no problem getting seats, and the only reason to book ahead is if there's a big difference in the fare (which probably will be the case).

Ipswich-Felixstowe is just a short local service, which I doubt it's even possible to get a reservation on.

swood

Thanks for the info and real life insights!

GeoffHamer

Trains from London to Ipswich are frequent. There are intercity trains which stop en route to Norwich (on which I think seats can be reserved) and slower trains which stop more often (on which seats cannot be reserved). There is no reason to book in advance, unless you want to travel in the evening peak when the trains from London will be full of commuters.

owain

"There is no reason to book in advance"

As we've already said in this thread, the difference in price can be substantial, even off-peak. Walk up fares to Felixstowe start at £28.50 for a Saver return (and £28 single), whereas prebooked tickets can be as cheap as £5 each way.

I just noticed the OP isn't travelling until May - you won't be able to book tickets this far in advance. And for reference, all the trains in question are run by www.onerailway.com

swood

Thanks again. At this stage we're planning what needs to be done when (isn't that half the fun!). Looks like the general guidelines are two months before travel we'll be able to book tickets. Cheers.

swood

I have another query on this. There appears to be only two ways to collect pre-purchased tickets - by post but only to an address in the UK or by using the fast-ticket machines at SOME rail stations. As we won't have an address in the UK to send tickets to and it appears we won't be passing through one of the stations with the required machine it seems that we can't in fact buy tickets in advance. Am I missing something?

johngerard

Train ticket pricing has been highlighted this week. Because there are diferent rail networks they have diferent prices. It was recommended to buy tickets on a route that crosses 2 networks as 2 tickets - first ticket to the first stop of the second network & second ticket to your destination from that stop. There is no need to change train & as both would be return tickets they are valid. There were also examples of return tickets being cheaper than singles, purchasing a ticket for a trip in rush hour at one rate to a stop after rush hour & having the cheaper ticket for the rest of the trip from the stop to the destination post rush hour. London to Glasgow can be cheaper than London to Manchester so get that ticket & get off at Manchester.

johngerard

you can see the report on the BBC website where it explains the crazy situation on the UK rail network. bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6442947.stm

janisj

swood: I've always been able to collect pre-purchased train tickets from staffed ticket window. In most big stations there are multiple machines and multiple ticket windows. What stations are you concerned about?

swood

janisj: We arrive by Eurostar into Waterloo, would then be looking to take the tube to Liverpool Street for departure to Ipswich. The One Railway website doesn't seem to allow an option to collect the ticket from a ticket office, only the 2 options mentioned. We've just received a reply to our email suggesting we should make the purchase by phone. We'll see how that goes!
Cheers

owain

Strange - because the National Rail website lists Liverpool Street as having Fasticket machine. (And I'd have been amazed if the station didn't have one, anyway.)

http://nationalrail.co.uk/stations/LST.html

swood

This is the response we got back from One Railway ... "At present there is no FastTicket Machine at London Liverpool Street station. The FastTicket machines we list on our site are those that are linked to a nationwide reservation system where prepaid tickets can be collected. Therefore, you can collect your tickets from any FastTicket machine listed on our website. Train Operators are working together to increase the availability of these machines across more UK stations and our website will be updated as this happens."
It sounds like their website needs an update to include LST as an option. We've resigned ourselves to buying tickets on the day having spent too long on hold trying the telesales option (calling from Australia is not helping us save money!)
Thanks for the advice on this.