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Newcastle to Prestatyn

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Kryten2340

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Hi

I know this is short notice and it's likely to be walk on fares only but a mate of mine needs to be on Prestatyn for a job interview. Can someone work out the cheapest fare from Newcastle to Prestatyn and back? Outbound is next Thursday 17th at around 8:30am returning the next day at around 9am. No railcards, no travelling preferences other than date and times. He is about halfway between Newcastle and Sunderland on the metro if travelling from Sunderland Central makes a difference although my experience of trying to find a cheap Grand Central fare compared to East Coast is steep to say the least.

Thanking you all in advance.
 
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Oscar

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What about an Anytime Return from Newcastle to Carlisle (£18.00), TPE Advances from Carlisle to Preston (currently from £8.00 each way on those dates), an Anytime Return from Preston to Warrington (£15.50) and an Off-Peak Return valid at any time from Warrington to Prestatyn (£16.70)? Someone with better knowledge of the North West could perhaps suggest something better for Preston - Prestatyn. This at least saves £25 or so on the Off-Peak Return from Newcastle to Prestatyn.
 

bb21

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When does he have to be at Prestatyn station by?
 

yorkie

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the cheapest fare from Newcastle to Prestatyn and back?
The cheapest fare can be found on any booking site, or on National Rail Enquiries (which will give you a fare but won't actually sell a ticket). Alternatively there's brfares.com if you prefer a more 'advanced' interface, but bear in mind the fares it shows may not necessarily be available for your actual journey.

Advance fares start at £18 each way, and the cheapest walk-on return fare is the Off Peak Return (SVR) at £93.10 (Restriction: 8A, valid on any train, by any permitted route. Return within one calendar month).

If you are asking for the cheapest combination of fares/tickets, where journey time does not matter, then my answer has to be that no-one has yet devised a program that can guarantee to calculate that (and I will be very impressed if anyone does!) however there are some tools that can assist you (which I'll come to at the end of this post), and you can try individual searches and figure out the best compromise for you, between cost and convenience.

"Splitting" the journey into a combination of tickets can be cheaper than one ticket, though not always. A method to research this is to use a WebTIS website (e.g. EC, LM etc) and click the info (i) button next to the itinerary you want, then tick 'show all calling points', this shows the places where you could "split" the journey into a combination of tickets (note the train must call on the return journey too). Examples here include York, Leeds, Huddersfield, Manchester etc if you take the East Coast route, alternatively Carlisle, Warrington Preston etc if you take the West Coast route.

As you can see, "splitting" will restrict your options, especially if you choose a station that not all trains call at (such as if you chose Dewsbury or Stalybridge, for example).

Note that if you want to return a different day (as in this case), it will not be cheaper to split at stations where only Day Return (e.g. CDR) tickets are available. Therefore, it is generally only best to look at longer distance tickets, where (Super) Off Peak Return (SSR/SVR) fares can be combined.

MSEs Tickety Split site will offer a combination of two tickets for any journey that it identifies as being cheaper for two tickets compared to the through fare. It will not offer more splits, but you could of course do multiple queries. Also it will only show you singles, and the answers for returns may be different, so if you do use this tool, it would need to be used in combination with the methods above.

Another option is transcanbecheaper.info.
 

Oscar

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08.24 Newcastle – 09.57 Carlisle (Northern)
10.49 Carlisle – 11.56 arrive, 11.58 dep Preston (Lancs) – 12.20 Warrington Bank Quay (Virgin)
Currently £11.50 Advance Carlisle - Preston
12.26 Warrington Bank Quay – 13.23 Prestatyn (Arriva Trains Wales)
06.47 Newcastle – 08.13 Carlisle (Northern)
08.49 Carlisle – 09.46 Preston (currently £8 Advance) – 09.58 d. Preston – 10.20 Warrington Bank Quay (Virgin)
10.26 Warrington Bank Quay – 11.23 Prestatyn (Arriva Trains Wales)
£18 Anytime Return Newcastle – Carlisle
£15.50 Anytime Return Preston – Warrington Stations
£16.70 Off-Peak Return Warrington Stations – Prestatyn
09.19 Prestatyn – 10.18 Warrington Bank Quay (Arriva Trains Wales)
10.27 Warrington Bank Quay – 10.51 Preston (Virgin)
10.58 Preston – 12.20 Carlisle (TPE, currently £14 Advance)
12.28 Carlisle – 14.00 Newcastle

07.08 Prestatyn – 08.06 Warrington Bank Quay (Arriva Trains Wales)
09.14 Warrington Bank Quay – Preston a. 09.38 d. 09.41 – Carlisle a. 10.46 (Virgin)
Currently £8 Advance Preston – Carlisle
11.34 Carlisle – 12.57 Newcastle

Have a look at National Rail Conditions of Carriage Article 19 which compels Train Operating Companies to put a passenger on the next train if a connection is missed, regardless of ticket type (as long as the minimum interchange time is met when changing trains, this is 8 minutes at Carlisle or 5 minutes at Warrington Bank Quay).
 

lyndhurst25

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Sunderland to Prestatyn SVR £93.10 is the fare to beat. Oscar's best fare above adds up to £66.20. Ignoring Advance tickets, this is my effort:

Sunderland to Clapham (Yorks) via Carlisle (stop short at Lancaster) SOR £29.60
Lancaster to Earlestown via Warrington (stop short at Warrington) SOR £19.80
Warrington to Prestatyn SVR £16.70
TOTAL £66.10

Advances between Carlisle / Lancaster and Warrington in the middle part of the journey might save you a bit more.

Bear in mind that if you split tickets then the trains that you use must stop at the splitting points on both the outward and retune journeys (but you don't have to get off).
 
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Oscar

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lyndhurst25's suggestion is much better than mine, I'd go with that one. I thought someone with more experience might be able to think of something better.
Advances between Carlisle / Lancaster and Warrington in the middle part of the journey might save you a bit more.
No, they wouldn't. There are no reasonably prices Advances to Warrington as far as I can see, only to Preston, and then you'd need a £15.50 Anytime Return from Preston to Warrington.
 

kieron

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Lancaster to Earlestown via Warrington (stop short at Warrington) SOR £19.80
You'd save £2 by buying Carnforth-Earlestown instead. Lancaster is awfully expensive.

You can't actually bring these journeys up on the NRE site as there aren't many trains a day through Clapham. The details of the journeys are:

Newcastle-Clapham SOR (£29.60)
NCL-CAR 08:24-09:57
CAR-LAN 10:07-10:56

Carnforth-Earlestown SOR (£17.80)
LAN-WBQ 10:56-11:39

Warrington-Prestatyn SVR (£16.70)
WBQ-PRT 12:25-13:23

If the Newcastle-Carlisle train is delayed, there is a 10:49 train which reaches Warrington at 12:20.

The first return journey after 9am is:

Prestatyn-Warrington SVR
PRT-WBQ 09:19-10:18

Carnforth-Earlestown SOR
WBQ-LAN 10:27-11:08

Newcastle-Clapham SOR
LAN-CAR 11:08-12:00
CAR-NCL 12:28-14:00
 
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