Advice on Route Coverage Ticketing for Late Feb 2013

[Requeststop]

Hello everyone,

I am seriously planning to cover a large area of rail I have not travelled on during the last week of February 2013. This will be my personal 60th Birthday gift to myself which is due in September.

The proposed areas are:-
The Welsh Valleys and Pembrokeshire (complete) and Shrewsbury Westwards
Glasgow - Edinburgh (all 4 routes)
The West Highland lines, Glasgow - Mallaig & Oban
Glasgow (South of the Clyde) and including down to Stranraer and the Dunfries (sorry if the spelling is poor I am a Cornishman) line i.e. Carlisle-Glasgow via said town.

I can make this an 8 or 9 day trip but 7 days/nights is preferable, and I have been thinking about doing this 1st class as much as possible and the Caledonian Sleeper too Euston-Fort William and onto Mallaig.

I live and work out of the UK and was wondering if an Interrail pass would be better than individual rail passes in Wales and Scotland.

Any advice would be more than welcome, especially regarding routing, websites for tickets overseas.

My intention is to start in London and get to The North of Scotland first then make my way south and then back to London but I am not averse to flying north to Glasgow and taking the sleeper back down to Euston and then Great Western-ing it to Cardiff/Swansea etc from London.

All ideas will be gratefully received and I am hoping to post a blog here in the appropiate forum.

 

[SickyNicky]

If you live outside the UK, the Britrail pass (http://www.britrail.com) is excellent value, especially with their 20% sale at the moment.

This is available even to UK citizens, provided they have an address outside the United Kingdom.

 

[Requeststop]

Hi SickyNicky, thanks for the reply.

I have tried the recommended site and I find it very frustrating.

I trying for a continuous 8-day pass in February British lines only.

I get to the delivery part of the purchase and I'm asked for an address.

The previous page tells me that the address is used for credit card purposes if I require an e-ticket, but there is nowhere on the site to ask for the e-ticket which I prefer as there is no way I'd trust the post service here in Azerbaijan (actually there is no house to house post service here) and the other address I can give (in Thailand - where the post is 75% efficient) is one where I am not visiting until after my visit to the UK.:roll:

Is there a decent site, maybe via an agency where I can get a Britrail pass and download the ticket, as I can do with an airline ticket, or is it possible to buy one via one of the rail companies and pick up the ticket at a nominated station by usung the ticket machines?

As I said earlier, all advice is gratefully received.

 

[bb21]

The previous page tells me that the address is used for credit card purposes if I require an e-ticket, but there is nowhere on the site to ask for the e-ticket which I prefer as there is no way I'd trust the post service here in Azerbaijan (actually there is no house to house post service here) and the other address I can give (in Thailand - where the post is 75% efficient) is one where I am not visiting until after my visit to the UK.:roll:

BritRail agents also sell point-to-point tickets for travel in the UK and these are the only tickets available in the E-ticket format AFAIK.

Continuous Rover and Flexi Rover products are only issued as paper tickets, which have to be validated at a railway station (including Heathrow Airport) prior to use.

Is there a decent site, maybe via an agency where I can get a Britrail pass and download the ticket, as I can do with an airline ticket, or is it possible to buy one via one of the rail companies and pick up the ticket at a nominated station by usung the ticket machines?

The answer is "no". They must be sent to an overseas address.