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Awkward journey

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Llanigraham

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I have need the week after next to undertake the following:

Day 1 Caersws to Whiteleafe or Caterham
Day 2 Whiteleafe/Caterham to Eastbourne

One way only.
Any suggestions of the best way to do it? It looks like I cannot do a break of journey.
 
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MikeWh

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Whyteleafe and Caterham are on a branch from the mainline at Purley. You may be able to use a ticket to Eastbourne and use Oyster/Contactless to travel between Purley and Whyteleafe or Caterham.
 

Romilly

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A Caersws-Eastbourne super-offpeak single via Shrewsbury & High Wycombe is £59.90 (all prices are before any discounts).

If you were going to break your journey, you would do that at East Croydon and buy anytime day singles (£3 each way) between East Croydon and Caterham.

In theory, you could break your journey overnight at East Croydon if you could not complete it in one day. However, the last connecting train to East Croydon happens to be a train that continues to Eastbourne. I will leave others to argue about how this impacts on whether or not you can complete your journey to Eastbourne in a day.

Alternatively, a Caersws-Caterham super-offpeak single via Shrewsbury & High Wycombe is £47.90. For Day 2, either a £25.10 Caterham-Eastbourne offpeak day single, or Advances at £8.50 or £12.

Edit: for flexible tickets for Caterham-Eastbourne on Day 2, it is cheaper to buy a Caterham-Gatwick Airport anytime day single (£6.20) and a Gatwick-Eastbourne offpeak day single (£15.30).
 
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maniacmartin

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Alternatively, a Caersws-Caterham super-offpeak single via Shrewsbury & High Wycombe is £47.90. For Day 2, either a £25.10 Caterham-Eastbourne offpeak day single, or Advances at £8.50 or £12.

Edit: for flexible tickets for Caterham-Eastbourne on Day 2, it is cheaper to buy a Caterham-Gatwick Airport anytime day single (£6.20) and a Gatwick-Eastbourne offpeak day single (£15.30).

To save other people time, double-back is permitted between Purley and East Croydon due to this easement:
700322
Customers travelling from Caterham, Whyteleafe South, Whyteleafe and Kenley
travelling to Redhill and beyond may douoble back via East Croydon. This easement
applies in both directions.
Doubleback
 

Haywain

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In theory, you could break your journey overnight at East Croydon if you could not complete it in one day. However, the last connecting train to East Croydon happens to be a train that continues to Eastbourne. I will leave others to argue about how this impacts on whether or not you can complete your journey to Eastbourne in a day.
You can break your journey overnight and continue the following day - there's no theory about it. The connecting train is a red herring and has no bearing on this. The ticket conditions state:
If the journey cannot be completed in this time, the ticket may be used to continue the journey on the following day.
It does not give any specifics about why the journey cannot be completed and therefore being tucked up in bed sleeping is a perfectly acceptable reason.
 

MikeWh

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If you were going to break your journey, you would do that at East Croydon and buy anytime day singles (£3 each way) between East Croydon and Caterham.

Oyster or contactless single fares are:
East Croydon to Caterham: £2.40 peak, £2.00 off peak.
Purley to Caterham: £2.00 peak, £1.80 off-peak.
Peak is touch in M-F 0630-0930 or 1600-1900.
 

Llanigraham

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Thanks all.
Now got to sort out which of the in-laws will put me up around Caterham, before I go off to Eastbourne the next day to collect a retirement present car for myself, and drive back home.



I can reduce all the costs slightly as I have a Disabled Adult Card and an Oyster
 

kieron

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Just thought I'd add that a ticket from Caersws (or Croydon, for that matter) to Eastbourne would be valid via Upper Warlingham and Whyteleafe as there's only a short walk between them (and, more importantly, a short walk which is listed in the timetable information journey planners use).

So if you could get a train to Upper Warlingham on day 1, and get one back from Whyteleafe, changing at Purley instead of East Croydon, you wouldn't need a second ticket. Your journey on the second day would be a bit slower, as you'd have to use one of these combinations of train*.

For what it's worth, if you caught one of the last trains of the day to Upper Warlingham (on a weekday, this is no earlier than the 2254 from London Victoria), you'd have missed the last train from Whyteleafe, and so would be obliged to break your journey overnight.

* You may need to delete any nationalrail.co.uk cookies you have first in order for this to display properly.
 

Haywain

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For what it's worth, if you caught one of the last trains of the day to Upper Warlingham (on a weekday, this is no earlier than the 2254 from London Victoria), you'd have missed the last train from Whyteleafe, and so would be obliged to break your journey overnight.
It is not necessary to miss a connection to take advantage of the overnight break of journey.
 

maniacmartin

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Just thought I'd add that a ticket from Caersws (or Croydon, for that matter) to Eastbourne would be valid via Upper Warlingham and Whyteleafe as there's only a short walk between them (and, more importantly, a short walk which is listed in the timetable information journey planners use).

So if you could get a train to Upper Warlingham on day 1, and get one back from Whyteleafe, changing at Purley instead of East Croydon, you wouldn't need a second ticket. Your journey on the second day would be a bit slower, as you'd have to use one of these combinations of train*.

Very impressive! The lack of a Routeing Point at Purley never made sense to me.

Another local oddity that stations south of Edenbridge Town have no mapped routes via the official walk between Edenbridge and Edenbridge Town due to the choice of Routeing Points you have.
 

kieron

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It is not necessary to miss a connection to take advantage of the overnight break of journey.
I'm sure you're right, and I'm sure I wouldn't want to arrive at a relative's place at midnight if I could help it. It's just something I noticed.
Very impressive! The lack of a Routeing Point at Purley never made sense to me.
I'm not sure it's very useful here, though. There seem to be plenty of advance tickets available for some or all of Llanigraham's day 1 journey. I haven't tried to work out an itinerary, but for a week on Monday there are £8 advance tickets for Caersws-Birmingham, £6 ones for Birmingham-London with London Midland, and some £10.50 ones with Virgin. There are also a few £8.50 and £12 advance tickets between the Caterham branch and Eastbourne.

The only other thing I'd add to what Romilly put about flexible tickets is that a Caterham/Whyteleafe-Gatwick journey costs £3 off-peak on Oyster.
Another local oddity that stations south of Edenbridge Town have no mapped routes via the official walk between Edenbridge and Edenbridge Town due to the choice of Routeing Points you have.
For a lot of journeys, you can instead find a route from East Croydon to the destination routeing point via Edenbridge, and simply miss out the Edenbridge Town-South Croydon-Edenbridge section.

It's not that unusual for a station not to be associated with all of the routeing points you can reach from it, especially when some of them can be most easily reached with a walk between stations along the way.
 

Llanigraham

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I'm not sure it's very useful here, though. There seem to be plenty of advance tickets available for some or all of Llanigraham's day 1 journey. I haven't tried to work out an itinerary, but for a week on Monday there are £8 advance tickets for Caersws-Birmingham, £6 ones for Birmingham-London with London Midland, and some £10.50 ones with Virgin. There are also a few £8.50 and £12 advance tickets between the Caterham branch and Eastbourne.
It looks like the journey will now be on 19/4, so where do I find these advance tickets. Normally I just go onto either the ATW or Virgin web sites when I go up to London. Don't bother splitting as I get the money back, just book a month in advance.

EDIT - SOLVED, WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF ASKING GARETH TO FIND MY TICKETS??? DOH!!!

The only other thing I'd add to what Romilly put about flexible tickets is that a Caterham/Whyteleafe-Gatwick journey costs £3 off-peak on Oyster.
Being as I only ever use my Oyster on the Tube in Central London, wouldn't I have to tap-in somewhere before I got the Caterham train?

Possibility now I will be getting a lift from Surrey to Eastbourne, or at least part of the way.
 
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Llanigraham

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All stations that Oyster is valid for have Oyster readers, including Caterham

I know that, but what I do not know is how I would do this at the intermediate station, where I change trains, as it something I have never done, and there does not appear to be anything about it on the website.
 

maniacmartin

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If you end up passing a pink "interchange" reader, you should touch it, otherwise you do not need to touch your Oyster on anything when changing trains, except when passing through a gateline.
 

Busaholic

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I think what Llanigraham is getting at is, does he have to go through a gateline at Purley in order to tap in for Caterham and, if he does so, will he miss the connection? Otherwise, if he goes to tap out at Caterham it won't show him ever having entered the system. Something similar happened to me, only an occasional London visitor, a couple of years ago and I got charged a full off-peak day capped fare for a journey of about three stations.
 

Llanigraham

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If you end up passing a pink "interchange" reader, you should touch it, otherwise you do not need to touch your Oyster on anything when changing trains, except when passing through a gateline.

That presumes I have touched in first, but in this situation I will (probably) have a ticket from here to Eastbourne, and will be making a "break of journey" overnight at either East Croydon or Purley.
I shall look for a pink reader!

Thank you.

Funny how we "out of towners" have to ask questions like this, as I can find nothing in the publicity I got when I first got my Oyster.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I think what Llanigraham is getting at is, does he have to go through a gateline at Purley in order to tap in for Caterham and, if he does so, will he miss the connection? Otherwise, if he goes to tap out at Caterham it won't show him ever having entered the system. Something similar happened to me, only an occasional London visitor, a couple of years ago and I got charged a full off-peak day capped fare for a journey of about three stations.

Exactly.
 
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maniacmartin

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Ah I understand now!
You would be safest taking an earlier train to Purley or East Croydon and then changing trains there to allow time to touch the gateline reader. As the trains are quite frequent, the time penalty is not that great.

If you're in the third coach, you might just have time to run to the back gateline at Purley as its on the same platform, but I wouldn't bet on it!

As for the pink readers, only a handful of stations have them, and there are none at East Croydon or Purley.
 

kieron

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I don't know the layout of Purley station, so I can't say how easy it would be to get off a train there, touch a reader, and get on a different train 5 minutes behind the first.

I do know that the fare you would get by doing that on Oyster (or even getting off a train in Upper warlingham and touching in at Whyteleafe) would be £1.80 off peak. A paper Purley-Caterham single costs £2.30, and you could then catch the first train you see to Caterham.

If you get a lift to somewhere like Merstham on day 2, you won't need any sort of extra ticket, of course.
 

James Wake

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Have you perhaps looked at seeing if the 407 or 466 buses would be of use from Purley? Oyster or Contactless fare is £1.50, 407 goes to Caterham Valley (by the station) via Whyteleafe, or the 466 goes to Caterham-on-the-Hill.
 

Deepgreen

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Thanks all.
Now got to sort out which of the in-laws will put me up around Caterham, before I go off to Eastbourne the next day to collect a retirement present car for myself, and drive back home.



I can reduce all the costs slightly as I have a Disabled Adult Card and an Oyster

Fares advice aside, that's some retirement present!
 

Llanigraham

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I don't know the layout of Purley station, so I can't say how easy it would be to get off a train there, touch a reader, and get on a different train 5 minutes behind the first.

I do know that the fare you would get by doing that on Oyster (or even getting off a train in Upper warlingham and touching in at Whyteleafe) would be £1.80 off peak. A paper Purley-Caterham single costs £2.30, and you could then catch the first train you see to Caterham.

If you get a lift to somewhere like Merstham on day 2, you won't need any sort of extra ticket, of course.

Thanks.
Staying at the sister-in-laws and she has suggested using Merstham instead.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Have you perhaps looked at seeing if the 407 or 466 buses would be of use from Purley? Oyster or Contactless fare is £1.50, 407 goes to Caterham Valley (by the station) via Whyteleafe, or the 466 goes to Caterham-on-the-Hill.

I'm having enough problems sorting trains out!!
And it is a long time since I caught a bus in Purley; last time was before we got married and the (now) wife lived in Warlingham.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Fares advice aside, that's some retirement present!

Decided that you only live once and there are no pockets in shrouds, and I'm not likely to kill myself with 602cc's pulling me along.
Never driven a 2CV, so the journey home is going to be "interesting". Think I will be keeping off the M25 and M4; A roads only across country is the idea at the moment.
 
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Deepgreen

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Decided that you only live once and there are no pockets in shrouds, and I'm not likely to kill myself with 602cc's pulling me along.
Never driven a 2CV, so the journey home is going to be "interesting". Think I will be keeping off the M25 and M4; A roads only across country is the idea at the moment.

Watch out for cross-winds - they blow over easily; also the crumple zones... aren't!
 

Llanigraham

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Watch out for cross-winds - they blow over easily; also the crumple zones... aren't!

HeeHee.
Well being half the height without the hood might help in a cross wind, and being as they've chopped the body off and replaced it with a fibreglass shell ..............

Tickets acquired today from Gareth at Newtown Station. Thank you.
 
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