I am travelling on Saturday from Bradford Interchange to Manchester Airport. The normal fare is £19.10 route HALIFAX or £24.70 route ANY PERMITTED. But am I right in saying that a £6.60 single Bradford Yk Stns to Littleborough route HALIFAX plus a Greater Manchester Rail Ranger for £4.40 will do (assuming I travel through Halifax and the train calls at Littleborough)? If so, will I have any trouble getting the Rail Ranger from Northern Rail at BDI?
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Bradford Yorks to Manchester Airport
- Thread starter island
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
You don't need to get a Rail Ranger. You can just get two singles, Bradford to Littleborough and Littleborough to Manchester Airport (£3.50) and both tickets can be bought at Interchange. But the train has to stop at Littleborough. I've bought a GM Rail Ranger at London Euston so in theory you should be able to get it at Bradford Interchange, but I wouldn't be surprised if they have difficulty issuing it.
If you want to save more money, you could get a First West Yorkshire FirstDay and get the bus from Bradford to Rochdale via Halifax and Todmorden, or from Bradford to Manchester via Huddersfield, then get the train from Rochdale or Manchester to the airport.
Do you want to go outside the City Zone? Then you need a Daysaver instead of a Rail Ranger.
Yes, except G-MEX is now called 'Deansgate-Castlefield'.
Though if you can also get a train an hour that stops at neither and change at Hebden Bridge or Todmorden onto the slow train which calls at Littleborugh but not Walsden - this adds 5 minutes to your journey time compared with the direct stopping train or 20 minutes compared to syaing on it.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
and don't mind taking all day,
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
From my experience staff at Halifax were quite capable of issuing GM tickets (although they issued my rail ranger as from Halifax when I'd asked for it to be from Littleborough - probably not an issue as I had a Halifax-Littleborough ticket too - not sure if they could actuallt change that).
Although when I asked for a GM evening return they took a litle while - were pleasantly interested in how I was saving money.
Last edited:
Although splitting at Todmorden only saves 10p over the through Bradford > Littleboro fare, so is hardly worth it.
The staff at Bradford area stations can be pretty thick tho. There's one guy in his 20s who's a crank and who knows everything (he's often to be seen down at the KWVR), but he mainly serves to highlight the rest of them. One woman was simply unable to sell me a return ticket from Shipley to Oxenhope KWVR, in the days when said ticket gave a KWVR rover ticket for a couple of quid less than buying it at Keighley. She was very keen to sell me a very expensive return to Oxenholme tho. I ended up missing my pacer to Keighley and had to get a 333 instead, so as I'm sure you can imagine, I was a bit gutted (it was a Sunday, so quite a long wait).
Another time I was at Bradford Interchange and there was a right cock up going on on the Calder Valley line. There was going to be no trains to Leeds for over an hour, and annoyed customers were asking about the alternatives. The staff were shrugging and suggesting that customers should go to the bus part of the Interchange and ask there. In the end I stood forward and told the queue that if they walked 5 minutes across town to Forster Square that there would be a half hourly service waiting to whisk them to Leeds in comfort.
OTOH, one of the girls (shoulder length dark hair) who works sometimes at Shipley and sometimes at Forster Square is a bit of a honey.
If there is any difficulty at Bradford Int ticket office then I would have thought all guards on Man Vic trains would know how to sell a GM Rail Ranger or Daysaver. Not sure if they would give you grief given that you boarded at a staffed station. Hopefully not. Worst case scenario would be to get off at Littleborough and get the next train.
I know where to go now when I miss my Pacer...
As one of the guards that work to Vic probably not a problem so long as they have a valid ticket that takes them into GM, ie a ticket to Rochdale on a semi fast or Littleborough on a slow.
Solent&Wessex
Established Member
- Joined
- 9 Jul 2009
- Messages
- 2,749
It still does, although the destination is now "Keighley & WVRly" (NLC = G053). It is basically the fare to Keighley plus the KWVR Return fare, which is accepted as a Rover, thereby saving £4. If you have any railcards then you get the discount on the full fare, not just the national rail bit of it, thereby potentially making an even bigger saving.
- Status