Need rail ticket Hove to Oxford Circus

[Kate A]

need to figure out the cheapest way to get from Hove to Oxford Circus or close to Fitzrovia, London.
Will be commuting 5 days a week
Thanks!

 

[tom73]

Basic Annual (12 months) rail season between Hove and London Terminals is currently £4,844.00 which does NOT include onward travel once you arrive at London Victoria.
This supposedly works out at £10.43 per day. Data taken from National Rail website.
More experienced members will surely be along soon to give additional help.
On the Underground, Oxford Circus is just two stops (a few minutes) from Victoria on the Victoria Line but the basic rail season described above would not include that journey.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

If it is at all possible to get to Brighton rather than Hove, you will end up paying a lot less proportionally to the journey undertaken, as Thameslink only tickets are available from Brighton but not from Hove (even though there is about 1tph Thameslink from Littlehampton to Bedford calling at Hove). The Thameslink only Travelcard season to London Zones 1-6 is pretty good value for money as that line goes, at £111.40 a week (£4456 a year), so if you really can't get to Brighton it would be best to get a separate season ticket from Hove to Brighton or Preston Park (the price and validity are the same so they are interchangeable more or less), which is £14.50 a week (£580 a year). Edit: A season ticket from Brighton to Preston Park is also valid via Hove, and is marginally cheaper at £14.20 a week (£568 a year).

Due to the cost of an Underground single fare at the peak times you will presumably be travelling (peak time for Underground Zone 1 journeys is if you tap in between 06:30-09:30 or 16:00-19:00), and the cost of a separate season ticket to cover the Underground (the cheapest is a Zone 1-2 Travelcard, which is £35.10 a week - £1404 a year), it is almost always better value to buy a train season ticket that includes a Travelcard, as these are often priced at only £10-20 more a week than the non-Travelcard season, notwithstanding the fact that they give you a Travelcard in the full Zones 1-6 rather than just 1-2.

 

[gray1404]

Are the TL branded services calling at Hove going to become SN branded again at any point in the near future?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are the TL branded services going to become SN branded again at any point in the near future?

You're thinking of Littlehampton etc. Thameslink has always operated to Brighton and I would be surprised if this ever ceased.

 

[gray1404]

So sorry I missed, serving Hove from my post (now corrected). I meant to ask are the TL branded services that call at Hove going to revert back to being SN branded any time soon.

I remember there were a few morning and evening peak service to/from London Bridge and these were always SN branded.

 

[Hadders]

Just worth pointing out to the OP that a Brighton - London Zones 1-6 'Thameslink Only' season ticket would probably result in a longer journey time as Thameslink operate to London Bridge rather than Victoria. The OP would need to change at East Croydon for a train to Victoria (which is valid due to it being within the Zones) and then Victoria Line to Oxford Circus or continue to London Bridge and take the Jubilee Line to Bond Street then Central Line to Oxford Circus.

I know that technically Thameslink Only tickets are valid on any train operated by Govia Thameslink Railway (which includes Southern branded trains) however they are not intended to be used as such and the OP should not expect a hassle free journey.

 

[gray1404]

Although there may be problems at any point during the journey I think there would be likely to be any bother using it to get from Hove to Brighton (and back) - be that for local journeys into town or indeed to get a London bound train from/to Brighton. The ticket will work the Brighton barriers and the one stop to Hove I've never had my ticket checked as its so short.

The ticket should work the barriers at Hove too but if it didn't I have always found the station staff there to be very helpful and more interested in checking you know what platform you're going to and happy to answer any questions. If they have security staff manning the gate then they let you in with anything that is something of a ticket as they are clearly not revenue trained.

I think there might be problems if using Gatwick Express branded service on arrival or departure from Victoria. However, if using a Southern branded service to or from Victoria from either Brighton or Hove then I do not see any problems at Victoria it's self. This is because the ticket should work the barriers as it is valid within the zones and indeed the service would have called at/be calling at East Croydon and Clapham Junction anywhere where they could have boarded/be going.

So the only possible problem on Southern branded services could be from on board staff. I have had mixed experiences of this but I'd say 90% of the time my ticket has just been passed. I get the impression that staff that used to be Southern guards are more likely to get it right then those that have come in more recently and fresh as on board supervisors. When I have had such problems I have managed to fend them off.

 

[JB_B]

If it is at all possible to get to Brighton rather than Hove, you will end up paying a lot less proportionally to the journey undertaken, as Thameslink only tickets are available from Brighton but not from Hove (even though there is about 1tph Thameslink from Littlehampton to Bedford calling at Hove). The Thameslink only Travelcard season to London Zones 1-6 is pretty good value for money as that line goes, at £111.40 a week (£4456 a year), so if you really can't get to Brighton it would be best to get a separate season ticket from Hove to Brighton or Preston Park (the price and validity are the same so they are interchangeable more or less), which is £14.50 a week (£580 a year). Edit: A season ticket from Brighton to Preston Park is also valid via Hove, and is marginally cheaper at £14.20 a week (£568 a year).

Due to the cost of an Underground single fare at the peak times you will presumably be travelling (peak time for Underground Zone 1 journeys is if you tap in between 06:30-09:30 or 16:00-19:00), and the cost of a separate season ticket to cover the Underground (the cheapest is a Zone 1-2 Travelcard, which is £35.10 a week - £1404 a year), it is almost always better value to buy a train season ticket that includes a Travelcard, as these are often priced at only £10-20 more a week than the non-Travelcard season, notwithstanding the fact that they give you a Travelcard in the full Zones 1-6 rather than just 1-2.

If/when the Littlehampton Thameslink service reaches an adequate frequency to be useable, I don't think the OP should need a separate Brighton-Preston Park season to travel on TL between Hove and London.

(1) They would meet the operator( brand) restriction as they'd be travelling on Thameslink services.

and

(2) At Hove they would be on a permitted route between London and Brighton. (There are no include/exclude location records for route 00789 Thameslink Only.)

AFAICS the fact that they could not then go on to complete the unmade leg of the journey from/to Brighton while still meeting the operator restriction should be irrelevant.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

If/when the Littlehampton Thameslink service reaches an adequate frequency to be useable, I don't think the OP should need a separate Brighton-Preston Park season to travel on TL between Hove and London.

(1) They would meet the operator( brand) restriction as they'd be travelling on Thameslink services.

and

(2) At Hove they would be on a permitted route between London and Brighton. (There are no include/exclude location records for route 00789 Thameslink Only.)

AFAICS the fact that they could not then go on to complete the unmade leg of the journey from/to Brighton while still meeting the operator restriction should be irrelevant.

Indeed, but for the sake of £14 a week I don't know if they would want to go through the potential hassle of being accused of being off-route.

 

[JB_B]

Indeed, but for the sake of £14 a week I don't know if they would want to go through the potential hassle of being accused of being off-route.

That's a fair point.

 

[kieron]

If Kate A feels a "Thameslink only" ticket is a bit too limiting, there are some other tickets which have no operator restriction but still cost less than a Hove-London travelcard.

 

[swt_passenger]

If/when the Littlehampton Thameslink service reaches an adequate frequency to be useable...

But the 3 morning up and 3 evening down is all that is ever intended. I suppose it’s conceivable that someone’s travel times might fit them exactly.

 

[JB_B]

But the 3 morning up and 3 evening down is all that is ever intended. I suppose it’s conceivable that someone’s travel times might fit them exactly.

I did use "If/when..." for precisely that reason. (One train per hour was mentioned by another contributor up-thread.)

TBH I haven't fully kept up with the whole aspiration/fail/rejig/fail/etc cycle of Thameslink 2000-2020 and googling generates a radically inconsistent set of results (many of which have long since been abandoned.) No doubt there is a definitive indication of what the full Thameslink roll-out will look like somewhere - I'd be grateful if you could provide a link.

 

[swt_passenger]

I think the best summary is here:
http://www.flua.org.uk/documents/GTR 2018 Timetable Consultation Phase 2 .pdf
There’s a sort of sleight of hand going on. The map suggests at first view a 2 tph peak service but the description of service group “TL4” then explains that it is “high peak only” and only 3 trains in each direction as far as Littlehampton is concerned.

 

[JB_B]

Thanks for the link, swt_passenger. That looks like the mid-2017 plan (which, as we know, failed to survive contact with reality in May 2018.) It's good that the Fen Line Users Association continue to host it for the record but is there anything more recent (from a current official source?)

 

[swt_passenger]

Thanks for the link, swt_passenger. That looks like the mid-2017 plan (which, as we know, failed to survive contact with reality in May 2018.) It's good that the Fen Line Users Association continue to host it for the record - but is there anything more recent (from a current official source.)

I believe that is still the plan they are working towards, although obviously delayed. May 2018 was a step on the way. There’s never been anything different published on the GTR website about any changes to the final origin/destination pairs.