Manchester - London on TfW and LMR

[yorkie]

Does anyone have anything to add on the topic of the Manchester to London fare in question?

Sure, my question was after eliminating the most obvious raids how many TOC-specific flexible fares are left which would need a strategic descision on whether it was appropriate to retain them? are we talking tens? hundreds? thousands? more?

There are around 6 million origin/destination pairs on the railway, but afaict the vast majority of them do not offer TOC specific fares.

I'm not quite sure what you are asking or how you'd measure it; if you defined your request exactly it may be possible for someone to query the fares database and produce a report. This would be best done in a new thread.

 

[SouthEastBuses]

Mainly stuff on the Brighton line and the LNR fares that are the topic of this thread.

And Chiltern Railways between Banbury and Birmingham, prices as follows in off peak day return with 16-25 railcard:

Chiltern Railways only: About £11
Any permitted: About £16

Does anyone have anything to add on the topic of the Manchester to London fare in question?

Mine is a bit different as I will buy buying the slightly more expensive Off Peak Day return (and I'd be doing it in reverse, so London to Manchester and back, however it will still be LNWR/TfW only), but the question is as follows

1. What's the earliest time I can depart London Euston on such ticket?
2. What's the latest time I can depart Manchester Piccadilly on such ticket? Basically, what time is the last TfW from Manchester to Crewe, and the last LWNR back to London?

 

[Alex365Dash]

Mine is a bit different as I will buy buying the slightly more expensive Off Peak Day return (and I'd be doing it in reverse, so London to Manchester and back, however it will still be LNWR/TfW only)

There isn't one. Assuming you mean the Off-Peak Return from London to Manchester, and it's just a standard weekday...

1. What's the earliest time I can depart London Euston on such ticket?

08:45, so the first train would be the 08:46 to Crewe, arriving into Manchester off the TfW connection at 12:15.

2. What's the latest time I can depart Manchester Piccadilly on such ticket? Basically, what time is the last TfW from Manchester to Crewe, and the last LWNR back to London?

The last one would be the 18:30 TfW service towards Cardiff, getting to Crewe at 19:08 to catch the 20:13 to London Euston.

That's in theory as Crewe has a 10 minute minimum connection time - in practice you'll make the 5 minute connection onto the 19:13 with the 20:13 being the last LNR to Euston but aiming for the 18:30 is probably a good idea so that in the event of disruption, you have a theoretically valid last connection back to London in which to exercise your rights under NRCoT Condition 28.2 to help you get home.

Or if you want to throw caution to the wind, you can also get the 19:30 TfW service getting to Crewe at 20:08 to catch the 20:13 to London Euston instead.

 

[SouthEastBuses]

There isn't one. Assuming you mean the Off-Peak Return from London to Manchester, and it's just a standard weekday...

The ticket in question is as follows: https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=EUS&dest=MAN&rlc=YNG&rte=371&tkt=SVR

Other than that, thanks for the info

 

[JonathanH]

Or if you want to throw caution to the wind, you can also get the 19:30 TfW service getting to Crewe at 20:08 to catch the 20:13 to London Euston instead.

If you really want to throw caution to the wind, the 2030 from Manchester also has a tight connection to London at Crewe (2113) and Northampton (2328).

(There is an almost ridiculous missed connection out of that Crewe train into a Euston train at Northampton 2249 arrival / 2251 departure but guess the two-track pathing south of Hanslope locks in the 2251 departure for the train from Birmingham.)

The 0048 arrival at Euston isn't particularly palatable though.

 

[td97]

Can anyone (perhaps @Wallsendmag) advise if the ticket can be purchased on lner.co.uk where filtering by operator is not possible?

 

[CHESHIRECAT]

The only place I've successfully managed is this Forums' own ticketing website!

 

[Stuwhu]

Can anyone (perhaps @Wallsendmag) advise if the ticket can be purchased on lner.co.uk where filtering by operator is not possible?

Does it come up if you put a via point of Atherstone?

 

[td97]

The only place I've successfully managed is this Forums' own ticketing website!

TPW or GWR mixing deck also work. However, LNER have a 5% cashback offer which would be useful to use.

Does it come up if you put a via point of Atherstone?

That used to work until the Dec 22 timetable change, when the southbound official connection at Crewe changed to 1hr 5.

 

[CHESHIRECAT]

Does it come up if you put a via point of Atherstone?

Nope..

 

[kieron]

Can anyone (perhaps @Wallsendmag) advise if the ticket can be purchased on lner.co.uk where filtering by operator is not possible?

Filtering by operator is possible on LNER, but someone using its GUI first has to coax it into showing you a train which uses the right operator.

Alternatively, you can just enter a URL with in it like this one. The important pieces are the &vcrs=ATH and &toc=AW bits.

I did try clicking through from NRE (as you could do with a trainline-supplied site such as TfW's), but that didn't work with LNER when I tried it.

 

[Watershed]

as you could do with a trainline-supplied site such as TfW's

Trainline no longer supply TfW

 

[kieron]

Trainline no longer supply TfW

My mistake. It's still pretty good at selling tickets with NRE itineraries, whoever provides it.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Can anyone (perhaps @Wallsendmag) advise if the ticket can be purchased on lner.co.uk where filtering by operator is not possible?

For more options start at NRE and then go through to whichever site you fancy

 

[td97]

Alternatively, you can just enter a URL with in it like this one. The important pieces are the &vcrs=ATH and &toc=AW bits.

For more options start at NRE and then go through to whichever site you fancy

Thanks, both worked for me. Starting with NRE was the easier option.

 

[317 forever]

I wonder whether this same ticket is valid just from Stockport to Watford Junction, keeping strictly to TfW and LNWR, but without travelling between Manchester and Stockport or between Watford Junction and London?

Even if it is, I recognise it may be inadvisable to use it on the first available train as there will have been no genuine break of journey.

 

[Watershed]

I wonder whether this same ticket is valid just from Stockport to Watford Junction, keeping strictly to TfW and LNWR, but without travelling between Manchester and Stockport or between Watford Junction and London?

Yes - there are no break of journey restrictions on either the Super Off-Peak or Off-Peak versions

Even if it is, I recognise it may be inadvisable to use it on the first available train as there will have been no genuine break of journey.

There is no such thing as a genuine vs "fake" break of journey but if what you're saying is that you wouldn't take a train which you couldn't have taken from the origin station on the ticket, then I agree this is probably inadvisable.

 

[317 forever]

Yes - there are no break of journey restrictions on either the Super Off-Peak or Off-Peak versions


There is no such thing as a genuine vs "fake" break of journey but if what you're saying is that you wouldn't take a train which you couldn't have taken from the origin station on the ticket, then I agree this is probably inadvisable.

Thank you for your feedback.

So to be specific, as the first train out of Manchester that the ticket would be valid on is the 06.26 I would connect with the 7.30 or a later one outbound.

 

[317 forever]

UPDATE : My experience on the day.

I attempted to board the 8.39 from Stockport but could not get through the gates. (My Crewe train from Heaton Chapel had unusually pulled into platform 0, so of course no cross platform interchange to platform 2). The attendant saw off-peak and was firm about it not being not valid before 9.30. Maybe he didn't see reference to LNWR/TfW or did not know the ticket. I preferred not to argue as it was a special fare from Manchester, not a local fare from Stockport.

The gate again did not open just after 9.30. He scanned it on his mobile and he did then let me through. Even more of a relief was that, although the advertised connection was 65 minutes, we reached Crewe on time and I jumped onto the LNWR train straight away without needing to wait an hour there.

Perhaps I should have printed my email from LNWR confirming 8.30 from Manchester and the off-peak return.

I accept that it was a privelege to have been able to travel from Stockport to Euston on a special cheaper fare from Manchester, albeit boarding a train due to stop at Stockport anyway.

I continued to Euston, partly to avoid questions in case there was an inspection on the slow LNWR train, but also to have coffee at Leon at Euston. (Other coffee outlets are of course available at Euston).

 

[mangyiscute]

My tactic is to have the ticket page up on brfares, and then if the gateline inspector/ticket inspector incorrectly says it isn't valid, you can show them the restrictions for the ticket and they should let you through - this has worked for me on the infamous euston barriers with an off peak ticket that was valid during peak time, and therefore initially refused.

 

[hkstudent]

My tactic is to have the ticket page up on brfares, and then if the gateline inspector/ticket inspector incorrectly says it isn't valid, you can show them the restrictions for the ticket and they should let you through - this has worked for me on the infamous euston barriers with an off peak ticket that was valid during peak time, and therefore initially refused.

Brfafes is not a official site that some staff may dislike it. Maybe better to use the national rail restriction code instead

 

[Haywain]

Brfafes is not a official site that some staff may dislike it. Maybe better to use the national rail restriction code instead

Some staff won't like being shown the details no matter what the source!

 

[td97]

Brfafes is not a official site that some staff may dislike it. Maybe better to use the national rail restriction code instead

Northern social media team point their customers to it if it can help answer a question, particularly surrounding peak/off-peak restrictions and ticket prices.

in case there was an inspection on the slow LNWR train

There's more chance of winning the lottery jackpot

 

[blakey1152]

UPDATE : My experience on the day.

I attempted to board the 8.39 from Stockport but could not get through the gates. (My Crewe train from Heaton Chapel had unusually pulled into platform 0, so of course no cross platform interchange to platform 2). The attendant saw off-peak and was firm about it not being not valid before 9.30. Maybe he didn't see reference to LNWR/TfW or did not know the ticket. I preferred not to argue as it was a special fare from Manchester, not a local fare from Stockport.

The gate again did not open just after 9.30. He scanned it on his mobile and he did then let me through. Even more of a relief was that, although the advertised connection was 65 minutes, we reached Crewe on time and I jumped onto the LNWR train straight away without needing to wait an hour there.

Perhaps I should have printed my email from LNWR confirming 8.30 from Manchester and the off-peak return.

I accept that it was a privelege to have been able to travel from Stockport to Euston on a special cheaper fare from Manchester, albeit boarding a train due to stop at Stockport anyway.

I continued to Euston, partly to avoid questions in case there was an inspection on the slow LNWR train, but also to have coffee at Leon at Euston. (Other coffee outlets are of course available at Euston).

I appreciate that there is a huge range of tickets available for travel across the network but it just always infuriates me that some gate line staff just see the words off peak and refuse perfectly valid tickets because its not 9.30am yet. London Bridge is a prime example of this as it seems that all Off-Peak tickets come up as seek assistance before 9.30am and you have to hope that the person on the gate understands or is far too busy to check tickets and just lets you through anyway

Although on my trips up to Birmingham and the like I have since discovered that interchanging at Cannon Street and crossing the road to the new Bank station entrance is far easier to get up to Euston than going via London Bridge...Escalators all the way which is great when you've got luggage!!

 

[Puffing Devil]

The Manchester-Crewe-Euston TFW/LNR ticket is now £50.40 as opposed to the Crewe-Euston LNR off-peak at £50.20. As the former has no break of journey restrictions, it would seem to be better value for anyone who could use an occasional Crewe-Manchester trip or needs a break of journey on the outbound.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Manchester-Crewe-Euston TFW/LNR ticket is now £50.40 as opposed to the Crewe-Euston LNR off-peak at £50.20. As the former has no break of journey restrictions, it would seem to be better value for anyone who could use an occasional Crewe-Manchester trip or needs a break of journey on the outbound.

Let's count to 10 and watch that be "fixed"...