Looking for Sheffield to Manchester ticket purchasing advice

[Anne64]

Any help on this discussion would be greatly appreciated.

My daughter will be studying in Sheffield Hallam Uni and we visited for an open day.

We thought we had all sorted with flights to Manchester train tickets, but made a costly mistake taking the wrong train and had to buy tickets at a station and go back again and then on to Sheffield from Manchester Piccadilly (costly £89 mistake); we don't want to be making that mistake too often.

I'm looking for the best app for ticket online, most direct route (destination number etc) from Manchester Piccadilly to Sheffield, and are there student tickets making the travel a little cheaper?

Thank you for any information, much appreciated.

Anne

 

[Tetchytyke]

I'm not sure what you are asking for. The ticketing apps and websites are all much of a muchness (avoid Trainline as they charge additional fees) but they all provide the same tickets on the same trains.

Your situation is likely to have been that you booked an 'advance' ticket and these tickets are tied to one specific train. If you get on any other train they're not valid.

If you want flexibility then you need to choose an 'open' ticket (these will be called 'anytime' or 'off peak', sometimes 'super off peak'- off peak tickets may have time restrictions barring use at certain times of day). Apps and websites all have these for sale or you can buy one at the railway station immediately before travel. The only advantage of buying an 'open' ticket in advance is to secure a seat reservation.

Your child can get a 16-25 railcard to save one third on most fares. This doesn't require them to be a student unless they are aged over 25, in which case they can still get the railcard but only with evidence they are a full time student.

 

[jfollows]

An off-peak return, valid on any train after 08:30 and valid to return within 1 month is £18:55. One valid from 09:00 and only on slower Northern trains is £15:45. Both with the use of the railcard which costs £30/year. These are not the only tickets, there are day returns, advance tickets, and anytime tickets. You can buy them online if you want.
£26:10 and £21:70 for similar tickets from Manchester Airport to Sheffield and back.

These answers are a bit vague because your question is not precise; if you can be more precise in your requirements we can probably better match a ticket to them.

 

[Killingworth]

Taking the Northern stopping service is most students' preference. It may take half an hour longer but can be 1/3 the price in the same hour. (But avoid them on Sundays at present as many will be cancelled!) She needs a Student Railcard, see; https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/tickets-railcards-offers/promotions/16-25-railcard/

More details of Railcard here; https://www.16-25railcard.co.uk/?_g...469.860409002.1733090788-303614867.1731704311

 

[jfollows]

An advance single, Manchester to Sheffield, is available at £5.05 with a railcard on the 11:48 stopping train tomorrow, for example. £3.95 on 10 December.

 

[BRM]

The tickets for Sheffield - Manchester do seem very complicated, not helped by the websites and apps often showing the cheapest advance tickets which are train specific. And there being 3 different operators.
What is the cheapest ticket for this route that allows you to get the next available / any train from Man Airport to Sheffield?

 

[jfollows]

The tickets for Sheffield - Manchester do seem very complicated, not helped by the websites and apps often showing the cheapest advance tickets which are train specific. And there being 3 different operators.
What is the cheapest ticket for this route that allows you to get the next available / any train from Man Airport to Sheffield?

It's no more complicated than many other flows. But that's probably an observation about how mad the fares system has become.

An anytime short return is £33.95 and, mentioned above, an off-peak return valid after 08:30 on weekdays is £26.10. Assuming railcard. Cheaper Northern-only fares are also available, valid on any train as long as it's a Northern train.

Purchase flexible walk-up fares for any British train journey

Purchase flexible single/return tickets & Travelcards – in 3 clicks, at face value with no fees. Every British rail fare shown, railcard discounts included.

www.brfares.com

Unrestricted single ticket is £25.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

For this journey, it's a pity the through TPE Manchester Airport-Sheffield service was diverted to Liverpool.
The fares stayed the same, but the change at Piccadilly made life more complicated.

Would the Liverpool option be any use?
Arriving at Liverpool airport, it's a 20-minute bus ride to Liverpool South Parkway from where there are two direct services to Sheffield an hour (one EMR, one TPE).
The monthly return (any train/operator) is £30.55 with 16-25 railcard.
These are the same trains you would catch at Manchester Piccadilly about 40 minutes later.

Realtime Trains | Departures from Liverpool South Parkway all day on 04/12/2024

Train information at Liverpool South Parkway all day on 04/12/2024. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[Llandudno]

For this journey, it's a pity the through TPE Manchester Airport-Sheffield service was diverted to Liverpool.
The fares stayed the same, but the change at Piccadilly made life more complicated.

Would the Liverpool option be any use?
Arriving at Liverpool airport, it's a 20-minute bus ride to Liverpool South Parkway from where there are two direct services to Sheffield an hour (one EMR, one TPE).
The monthly return (any train/operator) is £30.55 with 16-25 railcard.
These are the same trains you would catch at Manchester Piccadilly about 40 minutes later.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...24-12-04/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

It’s no more than a 10 minute bus ride between Liverpool Airport and Liverpool South Parkway.

 

[trainophile]

It’s no more than a 10 minute bus ride between Liverpool Airport and Liverpool South Parkway.

Better to be safe than sorry, she might just miss a bus and have to wait for the next one. Or the traffic might be bad.

My slight concern is if she's travelling from and back to Ireland, would term times/holidays fit into a monthly return ticket? Wouldn't be much good if the return ticket expired before she could use it.

 

[Samm]

I'm looking for the best app for ticket online, most direct route (destination number etc) from Manchester Piccadilly to Sheffield, and are there student tickets making the travel a little cheaper?

There are 3 trains per hour running between Manchester Piccadilly and Sheffield:

• 2 fast trains operated by TransPennine Express (TPE) and East Midlands Railway (EMR), which take around 50 minutes.
• 1 stopping train operated by Northern, which takes about 1 hour 20 minutes.

Typically, the Northern stopping service is the cheaper option. However, TPE currently offers Half Price Train Tickets for Students when using a 16-25 Railcard. This might make TPE the best value and quickest option!

You can check out the TPE student offer here: https://www.tpexpress.co.uk/special-offers/student-train-tickets

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It’s no more than a 10 minute bus ride between Liverpool Airport and Liverpool South Parkway.

The buses take different routes, and the longer one takes well over 10 minutes in the peak.

 

[Anne64]

Thank you all im sorry if I confused you all, there are so many trains going to Sheffield Id need someone with me to direect me to the correct one and the correct platform. I swear when we were coming back to Manchester there were 4 trains cancelled and we made our flight with 10 minutes to spare (got fast tracked through security!!) In Ireland we have about 2 trains to each destination lol. Also is it much the same price to buy tickets online or jiust before you travel in the train station.

 

[Killingworth]

Thank you all im sorry if I confused you all, there are so many trains going to Sheffield Id need someone with me to direect me to the correct one and the correct platform. I swear when we were coming back to Manchester there were 4 trains cancelled and we made our flight with 10 minutes to spare (got fast tracked through security!!) In Ireland we have about 2 trains to each destination lol. Also is it much the same price to buy tickets online or jiust before you travel in the train station.

If travelling on a Sunday Northern stoppimg services, the cheapest, are currently suffering multiple cancellations, last week 2 in 3.

If travelling to the Airport the faster TransPennine and East Midlands services stop at Platforms 13 and 14 in Piccadilly, the same platforms used by the Airport services.

In theory advance ticket purchases are cheaper and the same prices should apply at the ticket office, online or at a ticket machine. Tickets for immediate travel are likely to cost more.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

It's perhaps worth pulling everything together.

Trains in Great Britain* are generally fairly frequent. So looking at trains from Manchester Piccadilly to Sheffield on a weekday leaving in the hour after 7.30 in the morning, there are 3 different trains. The simplest way to make sure you have a valid ticket is to go to the ticket office or a ticket machine and buy an anytime single ticket. For Manchester to Sheffield that will cost £26.60 and is valid on any train in standard class accommodation (n.b. some trains also have first class which costs more).

It would obviously be nice to pay less, but to pay less means accepting some restrictions - and broadly, the more restrictions, the cheaper the fare. The first place for any student to start is with the 16-25 Railcard (and also available to full time students of any age). This costs £30 for a year (expected to go up to £35 next March) and reduces most fares by a third. That would reduce the Manchester to Sheffield single to £17.70

The next place to look is return tickets. For someone going to Sheffield and back with a 16-25 Railcard, that fare is £25.95 (so just short of £13 each way).

To get below this involves accepting some restrictions. If the journey can be made after 0830 (so no good for a 9 o'clock lecture) the return drops to £18.55: using only trains run by Northern (on this route, they're the slow trains) can get a return down to £14.90 as long as you only travel after 0900 and come back (still on a Northern train) the same day.

Finally, and often even cheaper, there are 'Advance' tickets which can only be used on a fixed train (so if you miss your train you have to buy a new ticket for another train, and no refund for the missed ticket) but are quite cheap.

We don't make it easy to get it right - many people here find it very frustrating.


*A geographical expression here, to describe the big rock with London, Edinburgh and Cardiff etc. on it.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

In theory advance ticket purchases are cheaper and the same prices should apply at the ticket office, online or at a ticket machine. Tickets for immediate travel are likely to cost more.

Confusingly it's tickets labelled Advance (with a capital a) that are cheaper because they are restricted to one train. Otherwise tickets that are not Advance but are booked in advance of travel should be the same price everywhere including booking offices and ticket machines excpet that some retailers may offer discounts to selected customers.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Which ticket retailers would/might add on a fee (and, if so, how much) for an (any operator) Manchester Stns -> Sheffield 'Anytime Day Single' which should almost always be had, on a walk-up basis, for £17.70 (with appropriate railcard discount) on the day of travel?

 

[_toommm_]

Which ticket retailers would/might add on a fee (and, if so, how much) for an (any operator) Manchester Stns -> Sheffield 'Anytime Day Single' which should almost always be had, on a walk-up basis, for £17.70 (with appropriate railcard discount) on the day of travel?

Do you mean a booking fee? If so, Thetrainline do in bookings other than the day of travel.