Introducing RailUK Tickets - support the forum when booking your rail tickets!

[1D54]

Imagine my disbelief when picking up a simple Nuneaton Atherton return this morning (booked on the forum) and TEN tickets came spewing out!! Trains timed that i have no intention of catching (my choice) and seat reservations on services where it is impossible to reserve seats. I'll just throw them away but the price was great as usual so looking forward to the day.

 

[MrJeeves]

Imagine my disbelief when picking up a simple Nuneaton Atherton return this morning (booked on the forum) and TEN tickets came spewing out!! Trains timed that i have no intention of catching (my choice) and seat reservations on services where it is impossible to reserve seats. I'll just throw them away but the price was great as usual so looking forward to the day.

It's worth pointing out that your booking contained Advances, and hence reservations must be made for some parts of the journey.

There are conversations about whether counted places on the flexible portions could be binned on your behalf, though.

 

[Adam Williams]

It was also E-Ticketable, so you could've had zero physical tickets

 

[1D54]

Absolutely but I'm old skool!! Not really any need to to issue so many different tickets when part of the itinerary is a simple Stockport - Atherton DR but i suppose many people like times in black and white to help them. Hey, I'm not complaining but it was a bit of a surprise.

I then bought an AP Leicester- New St return because it was cheaper than Leicester - Nuneaton!!.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Absolutely but I'm old skool!! Not really any need to to issue so many different tickets when part of the itinerary is a simple Stockport - Atherton DR but i suppose many people like times in black and white to help them. Hey, I'm not complaining but it was a bit of a surprise.

I assume it's largely thanks to Northern's counted place reservations? I've had 8 tickets print before, 2 for the actual tickets, 2 for Avanti reservations, 2 for Greater Anglia counted places and 2 for Northern counted places (And also 1 or 2 receipts).

If they let me get £2 advances from Manchester at 5 minutes notice I'm happy enough with them.

 

[Egg Centric]

Ha, I'd have been less formal about it if I'd clocked it was you at the time

I may ask you some follow-up questions about what you did with the Seat Selector at some point though, you shouldn't have been able to cause the failures you did in theory...

Go ahead, but I honestly don't remember the details* doing anything other than clicking on the seats - it was on the "old" site though if that makes a difference. Anyhow the info as to *why* they were blocked was extremely helpful - it meant I made a beeline to one and had a great journey!

*Although feel free to try me

 

[BRX]

Here are some slightly strange results:



Why does it think that, instead of taking the 1535 and changing at Brighton & Blackfriars, I might want to change at Brighton & West Hampstead instead, which would add 45 minutes to my journey and cost an extra £5.45?

This is the elaborate combination of tickets offered (instead of a straightforward off-peak return):



Even if this combination produced a saving, it still wouldn't make sense to travel all the way up to West Hampstead and then back down again, because (as far as I know) this set of tickets would also be valid for changing at Blackfriars as per the sensible itinerary.

 

[Mike395]

This is being included because it's slightly cheaper if you filter by walk-up tickets only:



(Trainsplit will make a decision based on both journeys including advance fares and and walkup tickets only when working out what to display in the results. It does produce a few anomalies at first glance, as per here, but generally it works pretty well, whilst appreciating there's always room for improvement)

(Edit: It's not quite as straightforward as I thought here! It additionally looks like our journey planner potentially has included it as it's got less changes than the 15:58 that overtakes it)

 

[signed]

Results | RailUK Tickets

TrainSplit is a free service that makes it easy to find the cheapest train tickets for your journey.

tickets-beta.railforums.co.uk

Off-Peak Travelcard is not available for this flow (while Anytime one is available) while it would be perfectly valid (Sunday at 7am)

 

[BRX]

This is being included because it's slightly cheaper if you filter by walk-up tickets only:

But both of the options in my screenshot use walk-up tickets. In one case, just an off-peak return, in the other, the combination of off-peak, super off-peak and anytime singles.

I see that if I filter it to be walk-up only, some of the options disappear, but isn't something going wrong there, because it's hiding options that don't involve any advances?
Actually here it is with filter to show walk-ups only, and it still shows me the two options including the one changing at West Hampstead.

 

[miklcct]

Hello Adam, it's good to see the live time feature in the latest Android app, and it's nice that the estimated / actual time is shown as the prominent time. However there is a small problem - the trains themselves are not sorted correctly according to the estimated times.

Also, could you please also add a stroke on the times for cancelled trains as well, and a filter not to show cancelled trains (showing cancelled trains is meaningless on local suburban lines or with an open ticket, e.g. when there is mass disruption on the Elizabeth line)

 

[Adam Williams]

I'll let @MrJeeves respond to this (though it's not quite on-topic here!)

 

[MrJeeves]

However there is a small problem - the trains themselves are not sorted correctly according to the estimated times.

They are currently returned in the same order as Darwin's live departure boards service returns them to us, but we can definitely order them by estimated time.

Also, could you please also add a stroke on the times for cancelled trains as well

Will add to the list, as well.

and a filter not to show cancelled trains (showing cancelled trains is meaningless on local suburban lines or with an open ticket, e.g. when there is mass disruption on the Elizabeth line)

This one is a bit more involved, but should still be possible.

 

[Egg Centric]

First time I've said anything negative about the site - come on lads, this falling snow is naff. And you know it

 

[Adam Williams]

Where's your sense of Christmas spirit @Egg Centric !

I wasn't in the country when it got added this year, so you can blame somebody else

 

[YorkC]

I know there's loads of non-standard railcards available on this but is there any way that the TOTUM discount (only available listed as a railcard as far as I can see through TPE at present) can be added? Unfortunately finding TPE Mixing Deck a total pain at present - it's been broken as far as I can see (using multiple browsers/devices) for a day now & this isn't a rare bug.

 

[Egg Centric]

Another suggestion: "(semi) interesting traction" tick box. In effect this would mean prioritising the frequently requested diagrams forum section. Or as far as I can think on todays railway basically anything with a mk3 or mk4 in it. Simple example - route Edinburgh services via Leeds to change to a 225 or favour the Chiltern line on a London-Birmingham request if there happens to be a loco hauled service at the relevant time. Could make it even more interesting by adding PSUL but I should imagine anyone aiming for those services is seeking them out deliberately.

 

[CyrusWuff]

I know there's loads of non-standard railcards available on this but is there any way that the TOTUM discount (only available listed as a railcard as far as I can see through TPE at present) can be added? Unfortunately finding TPE Mixing Deck a total pain at present - it's been broken as far as I can see (using multiple browsers/devices) for a day now & this isn't a rare bug.

Given that discount is only supposed to be available if accessing the TPE site (or CrossCountry, for their similar promotion) via the TOTUM website, it's highly unlikely that it would be made available via other retailers alas.

 

[Adam Williams]

Another suggestion: "(semi) interesting traction" tick box. In effect this would mean prioritising the frequently requested diagrams forum section. Or as far as I can think on todays railway basically anything with a mk3 or mk4 in it. Simple example - route Edinburgh services via Leeds to change to a 225 or favour the Chiltern line on a London-Birmingham request if there happens to be a loco hauled service at the relevant time. Could make it even more interesting by adding PSUL but I should imagine anyone aiming for those services is seeking them out deliberately.

We've done some slightly-related work in this area, actually - but it's not something that the journey planner currently has visibility of (though it'd be perhaps possible to bodge something there).

Trying to get updated train plans / diagrams is one of the challenges though, I am waiting on data from LNER because we only have the plan from June at the minute. I believe a new timetable started yesterday though?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Dec 2024 ==

I note that https://www.225group.org.uk/docs/Intercity-225-Services-LNER.pdf is up-to-date, even if the TOC's own dataset on RDM isn't.

 

[infobleep]

This requirement might be niche but I'd love the ability to search for journeys for which only one ticket is required.

This would stop any journeys, where more than one ticket is required, from being returned in the search results, allowing for other journeys, that otherwise wouldn't show up to do so.

I accept it may be to niche.

 

[YorkC]

Is that different to just disabling the "Use split tickets" option?

 

[Adam Williams]

Is that different to just disabling the "Use split tickets" option?

That was my first thought as well

Not sure if @infobleep is asking about the journey opportunities we'd normally trim out, or something

 

[Egg Centric]

That was my first thought as well

Not sure if @infobleep is asking about the journey opportunities we'd normally trim out, or something

Maybe it's about not letting you select the destination if the origin has no singular tickets available there (e.g. select Aberaeron (Bus) then you cannot see... well, almost everything)? I admit I am not sure what this would be for, but it's a different request to no split tickets.

 

[Adam Williams]

If you've got an account and have booked with TrainSplit or the forum ticketing site this year, some of us (I can't claim any credit) have spent some time putting together a few fun account-specific statistics together for the holiday season



If eligible, you can access it on the homepage of the forum ticketing site after logging in.

 

[jawr256]

If you've got an account and have booked with TrainSplit or the forum ticketing site this year, some of us (I can't claim any credit) have spent some time putting together a few fun account-specific statistics together for the holiday season

View attachment 171408

If eligible, you can access it on the homepage of the forum ticketing site after logging in.

Thanks, that was fun. I especially enjoyed "you were also our only customer to visit..."

 

[pokemonsuper9]

If you've got an account and have booked with TrainSplit or the forum ticketing site this year, some of us (I can't claim any credit) have spent some time putting together a few fun account-specific statistics together for the holiday season

View attachment 171408

If eligible, you can access it on the homepage of the forum ticketing site after logging in.

I don't seem to be getting it, but since my mobile purchases don't seem to connect to desktop or email (it's definitely the same email address on both), there's only 3 journeys that end be there (with 5 tickets).
Is there a minimum amount of journeys to get it to show up?

 

[Adam Williams]

I don't seem to be getting it, but since my mobile purchases don't seem to connect to desktop or email (it's definitely the same email address on both), there's only 3 journeys that end be there (with 5 tickets).
Is there a minimum amount of journeys to get it to show up?

I think you need 5 journeys to be eligible.

It's not enough for the emails to match though, they need to be booked with the same account (see https://trainsplit.com/associate-bookings-mobile-apps for more info on this). If you're confused as to why your purchases aren't syncing over across devices, get in touch with support and we it can be looked into for you. The initial batch of stats have been pre-generated, so I'm not sure if we'd be able to make this work for you after fixing or not - note that every customer's would need to be re-generated, basically, because the data includes relative information like "you were the only customer to visit this station" or "you were in the top 4%".

 

[MrJeeves]

I think you need 5 journeys to be eligible.

This was reduced to 3 in the end to try and include more people. Just raises more confusion!

@pokemonsuper9 If you get in touch through our support email, I'll pick it up on Monday and take a look at why you're not seeing it.

 

[Egg Centric]

Do your emails need to match forum emails to be clear? I haven't really used the site that much this year but I have used it more than 3 times!

My email on it is usually my work one, totally different to forum though.

(There wouldn't be anything exciting for me anyway. I basically do the same thing - variations on methods of travelling Durham-Watford. There would be a couple of other random sales e.g around Cumbria or North East but that about it...)

 

[MrJeeves]

Do your emails need to match forum emails to be clear? I haven't really used the site that much this year but I have used it more than 3 times!

My email on it is usually my work one, totally different to forum though.

(There wouldn't be anything exciting for me anyway. I basically do the same thing - variations on methods of travelling Durham-Watford)

No, there's no requirement like that. The year in review was created for every user with a TrainSplit account with more than 3 journeys booked between 1 Jan 2024 and about 1600 on 20 Dec 2024.

If you book journeys on the website without being signed in (i.e., you don't use the account page on the site which lists your journeys), you won't have a year in review.

If you think you should have one but it's not appearing when you're signed in, do email customer support and I'll look into it!