Combined Rail and Bus Fares

[ronjones]

Hello

This coming Saturday I intend to travel from Hitchin to Fakenham and return. Checking the BR Fares website I found a through fare via King's Lynn of £12.35 super off peak day return with a senior railcard. However the bus company involved - stagecoach - have no knowledge of this interavailability while National Rail Enquiries say that this ticket is not available! I would be extremely grateful if anyone could offer any advice as to where I could get a definitive answer. Thank You.

Ron Jones

 

[mikeg]

Nre.co.uk only shows journeys which can be timetabled. As bus services are not in the timetable system the solution is to purchase at a ticket office. Someone will be able to check whether stagecoach are indeed the bus company for which this ticket is valid but I'm guessing it's lack of staff knowledge playing a role again.

 

[higthomas]

According to this article, the tickets were valid on green bus services. Assuming they mean Norfolk green, they were acquired by Stagecoach a few years ago and so the tickets should presumably be valid on their services.

 

[[.n]]

You'll be able buy this ticket from a ticket office (and possibly a commercial guard depending on how their ticket machine is set up). I've found that you cannot generally get bus destinations online or from a ticket machine

The bus route was originally

Norfolk Green service X8.

so as far as I can see that is now Stagecoach X29

Hope that helps!

 

[ronjones]

Thanks for the advice. Today I bought a Super Off Peak Day return for Hitchin - Fakenham for Saturday from the King's Cross ticket office. (£12.35) with no problems. I did check the adjacent ticket machines and it was not available there. Thanks again.

 

[gazthomas]

Thanks for the advice. Today I bought a Super Off Peak Day return for Hitchin - Fakenham for Saturday from the King's Cross ticket office. (£12.35) with no problems. I did check the adjacent ticket machines and it was not available there. Thanks again.

Good luck with the bus!

 

[arb]

I'm curious to know how this went?

I ask because at the weekend, I made a trip from Ely to Wells-next-the-sea, and it was the first time I'd done this for several years. I asked at the ticket office for the combined train/bus ticket that I know used to exist (having researched the train and Coasthopper bus times separately and not checked for the combined ticket on any train-based online journey planner beforehand). The person serving me told me that they didn't think this ticket existed any more, but made an attempt to look for it anyway. I was then quoted something around £80, which I politely declined, and bought a train ticket to Kings Lynn and a separate bus ticket.

Having researched this on BRFares after getting home, I've discovered that I think what I was offered was a ticket to "WELLS BRI BUS" http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=ELY&dest=XDH instead of "WELLS NXT SEABUS" http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=ELY&dest=K568.

However, National Rail Enquiries won't show any journeys to Wells-next-the-sea, which sort of ties in with the observations in the rest of this thread regarding Fakenham. It will, however, show combined train/bus journeys, and offer a ticket, as far as Hunstanton http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=ELY&dest=HUS, part-way towards Wells-next-the-Sea and on the same (Coasthopper) bus route, which makes no sense to me - either the combined train/bus tickets should work, or they shouldn't work - it shouldn't randomly work or not depending on the specific destination!

An interesting observation is that the destinations in this thread that don't seem to work properly (Wells next the Sea and Fakenham) don't show a three-letter station code in BRFares, whereas the ones that do work ("WELLS BRI BUS", wherever that is, and Hunstanton) do have a three-letter code. No idea if that's relevant or not...

 

[lightbulb]

An interesting observation is that the destinations in this thread that don't seem to work properly (Wells next the Sea and Fakenham) don't show a three-letter station code in BRFares, whereas the ones that do work ("WELLS BRI BUS", wherever that is, and Hunstanton) do have a three-letter code. No idea if that's relevant or not...

It's Wells in Somerset, near Glastonbury. The bus runs between Bristol and Street.

 

[[.n]]

For me the train/bus connection times are in the local bus timetable booklet (possibly as I and a few others made a fuss that they weren't in it!), and no journeys are given for NRE planners.

I've found it handy to when looking up the fare on brfares to also memorise/write down the code for use when asking for the ticket (ie in your case the K568)

 

[arb]

All the bus links along the North Norfolk coast (i.e. to both Hunstanton, Wells and places in between) have disappeared from the printed Kings Lynn timetable since I last used it to get the bus times (I've no idea if/where the Fakenham times were ever printed).

Again, this backs up the weirdness that NRE offers bus times to Hunstanton but not to Wells. Consistently one way or the other I could understand, but not half-and-half!

 

[ronjones]

The day went very well. Having a 60+ Oyster I bought a Super Off Peak DR from Zone 6 boundary to Hitchin (£5.35) and continued to Cambridge to change for Kings Lynn. The bus drivers didn't query the tickets at all, I was more that happy to travel from effectively Hadley Wood to Fakenham including a 40 mile round bus trip for £17.70 in total.

 

[Be3G]

However, National Rail Enquiries won't show any journeys to Wells-next-the-sea, which sort of ties in with the observations in the rest of this thread regarding Fakenham. It will, however, show combined train/bus journeys, and offer a ticket, as far as Hunstanton http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=ELY&dest=HUS, part-way towards Wells-next-the-Sea and on the same (Coasthopper) bus route, which makes no sense to me - either the combined train/bus tickets should work, or they shouldn't work - it shouldn't randomly work or not depending on the specific destination!

This is part of a bigger issue I've never quite understood. The Hunstanton bus link is (was?) actually provided by a Stagecoach ‘numerical’ service, not Coasthopper, and enjoys a greater level of integration with the rail network: as well as the ability to plan journeys on NRE's website to Hunstanton, departures show on the screens inside Kings Lynn station, it appears as a bus link on official maps, and it used to have a timetable (17A) in the eNRT.

As you say, there are other bus links available too which don't provide any of those niceties. What I've never managed to get my head around is why some rail-bus links offer that level of integration when others doesn't. Is it that, perhaps, the integrated ones such as Hunstanton are covered by the NRCoC and the usual rules apply if a connection is missed through no fault of one's own (e.g. if a late-running bus causes a missed train connection), whereas the less integrated bus-rail links which offer nothing more than through-ticketing don't provide such protection?

 

[[.n]]

Is it something to do with the bus destination being a former rail destination at some point?

 

[DelW]

Is it something to do with the bus destination being a former rail destination at some point?

I think you may be right, but that it only applies to a few branch line closures - after all, Wells next the Sea used to have a station as well. IIRC, when certain branches closed around the Beeching era, specific new bus services were introduced that were integrated with the railway timetable, and offered through ticketing. Taunton - Minehead was another example (though that came later).

 

[PeterC]

I think you may be right, but that it only applies to a few branch line closures - after all, Wells next the Sea used to have a station as well. IIRC, when certain branches closed around the Beeching era, specific new bus services were introduced that were integrated with the railway timetable, and offered through ticketing. Taunton - Minehead was another example (though that came later).

IIRC the Hunstanton branch was closed and the timetabled bus link was introduced long after the Wells branch was closed.