Redcar Central to Maryport

[pennine]

Hi there, just a quick message. On Wednesday 5th September I'm going from redcar Central to Maryport returning on the Friday 7th September.

I have tried to look for split ticketing (no success unless im doing it wrong). I do have a 16-25 railcard. i was just wondering if anyone else has the magic touch or is the case that this journey simply doesn't have it.

Another strange thing I noticed. From Newcastle to Carlisle (operated by Northern rail) you can now get advance fares. I never knew North did advance fares on any of their services!!!

 

[cuccir]

Redcar - Maryport anytime return is £29.05 with 16-25 railcard

Redcar - Wigton is £16.85 return with a railcard. You'll then need an Anytime Day single from Wigton-Maryport on the outward trip and from Maryport-Wigton on the return, which are £2.10 with a railcard after 10:00, or £3.20 before 10:00.

 

[ainsworth74]

Another strange thing I noticed. From Newcastle to Carlisle (operated by Northern rail) you can now get advance fares. I never knew North did advance fares on any of their services!!!

They've introduced them on a couple of flows another location is Leeds - Sheffield/Nottingham. The advances on the Tyne Valley Line are fairly new, I think they were introduced a month or so ago.

 

[pennine]

Redcar - Maryport anytime return is £29.05 with 16-25 railcard

Redcar - Wigton is £16.85 return with a railcard. You'll then need an Anytime Day single from Wigton-Maryport on the outward trip and from Maryport-Wigton on the return, which are £2.10 with a railcard after 10:00, or £3.20 before 10:00.

Thank you very much for saving me £8! I owe you a pint :P
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Could I ask you, how long did it take you to come up with idea of spiltting the fare at Wigton! I really need to sharpen my skills up!

 

[cuccir]

I come from Barrow-in-Furness originally and have been living in the north-east for the last 8 years, so I've just got the experience of finding cheap fares when travelling from the north-east down the Cumbria Coast Line!

The reason this one works: Wigton seems to be the last stop south down the Cumbria Coast Line which is associated with Carlisle for ticket pricing when coming from the north-east. As the Tyne Valley line is a single-operator line, with relatively poor stock, it's a pretty cheap line, and so you benefit from a good price for that journey. To speak more generally: whenever you're changing trains in a city and the line you are changing on to has a few local stops immediately after the city, it's often worth checking those stops as split points.

I'm slightly reluctant to post the full details of this on the forums (in the past, TOCs have read them and changed their pricing policy), but as you're on less than 5 posts and so can't received private messages I'll let this one out of the bag, so to speak!

 

[pennine]

Lol! im dead chuffed! Well as much as I love Linda who works int he ticket office at redcar central, I think it may be sensible to keep shush about the saving and order online and pick up from the machine lol!

 

[yorkie]

Could I ask you, how long did it take you to come up with idea of spiltting the fare at Wigton! I really need to sharpen my skills up!

Probably zero seconds

Seriously though here are some suggestions (for future reference) on how to do it:

* use brfares.com and select advanced mode, this will show you which stations are clustered in a group. For example, you can see that Poppleton to Darnall is the same fare/flow as York to Sheffield.

* use trainscanbecheaper.info to suggest good splitting points (but always check the validity with an online booking engine or the Routeing Guide manually)

* you could also get a lot of ideas on how to find anomalies and determine permitted routes etc, by joining us at one of our free fares workshops.

 

[attics26]

Lol! im dead chuffed! Well as much as I love Linda who works int he ticket office at redcar central, I think it may be sensible to keep shush about the saving and order online and pick up from the machine lol!

hell no! ... save 8 quid and talk to Linda (say hello from all @ Darlo)
---

 

[pennine]

hell no! ... save 8 quid and talk to Linda (say hello from all @ Darlo)
---

Lol and she wouldn;t bring the attention fo it to a higher level lol!

 

[soil]

Lots of tactics for finding cheaper fares.

As Yorkie says, the clusters help.

It makes sense to check splits first, and then maximise distances using the clusters.

E.g, for your journey you've got

Redcar Central - Mayrport http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=RCC&dest=MRY&rlc= &expert=on

£44 Anytime Return (undiscounted price)

And the actual route is:

Redcar Central - Newcastle
Newcastle - Carlisle
Carlisle - Maryport

Redcar Central - Newcastle is £15.40 return
http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=RCC&dest=NCL&rlc= &expert=on

Newcastle - Carlisle is £18 return
http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=NCL&dest=CAR&rlc= &expert=on

Carlisle - Maryport is £11.60 return
http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=CAR&dest=MRY&rlc= &expert=on

So that's £45 - no saving

Then trying to stick these segments together, you find

Redcar Central - Carlisle

http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=RCC&dest=CAR&rlc= &expert=on
£25.50

Carlisle - Maryport we know is £11.60

So that's down to £34.10

Trying the other two segment merge, Redcar - Newcastle at £15.40, then Newcastle - Maryport is £27.80
http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=NCL&dest=MRY&rlc= &expert=on

So that's £43.20

So splitting at Carlisle is clearly the best approach, although looking at the DAY return fares from Newcastle, it might not be if we were returning the same day.

Here the problem can arise of the train not stopping at the stretched point. So we do need to check.

For Redcar - Carlisle (£25.50), we see that we can actually stretch as far (check the map: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/passenger_services/maps/nationalrailnetworkmapZoom.pdf) as Wigton for the same price.

So Redcar - Wigton is also £25.50. A quick check on NRE shows that all trains Carlisle to Maryport call at Wigton. So that's no problem.

Wigton - Maryport has no day return fare

http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=WGT&dest=MRY&rlc= &expert=on

so we just buy two singles for £3.20 each

So that's £31.90.

Incidentally, if we check fares from Middlesborough, in the next cluster closer from Redcar, we see that they are the same to Wigton as from Redcar:

http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=MBR&dest=WGT&rlc= &expert=on

So we are getting good value from Redcar.


In this case there's just one TOC, but in cases where the are several TOCs on your route you can find that playing on fare competition by splitting between stations that have competition can help, and simply splitting so one section is all on TOC A and the rest all on TOC B can also work.

 

[pennine]

Another question im curious about. the three services to Glasgow Central along the Tyne Valley line from Newcastle operated by Scotrail, are they contracted to Northern for the part between Newcastle and Carlisle? Always wondered lol!

 

[ainsworth74]

Effectively yes, between Glasgow and Carlisle they're operated by Scotrail crew whilst between Carlisle and Newcastle they're operated by Northern crew.