Advice needed regarding Cardiff to London walk up ticket.

[Geoff_K]

I'm planning to get the 11.16 from Paddington to Cardiff on Friday 21st of November, but I would like some help with my return journey on Sunday 23rd November.

Normally, I'd buy a return ticket a few days before leaving London, making a guess as to what time I'll reach Cardiff Central Station when booking the return half of the ticket. On this occasion, I won't know what time I'll be getting to Cardiff Central Station to come home, until I actually arrive.

I really don't want to find myself either in a rush, or hanging about for ages at the station, so I'm thinking about buying a ticket when I get there.

Is there any advantage between buying the Cardiff-Paddington ticket from a ticket machine, or from the ticket office?
Would I get a seat reservation?
What would be the most suitable 'standard' walk up ticket of those available?
There is a big rugby match in Cardiff on the Saturday, so is this likely to affect the availability of tickets on the Sunday?

I have a Senior Rail Card BTW.

I'm not accustomed to buying train tickets on the day at the station, so I would appreciate any advice that you might have.

Cheers

Geoff.

 

[Hadders]

I'd buy a Super Off Peak Return from Paddington to Cardiff which costs £68.75 with your railcard. This allows you to catch any train from Paddington between 10:01 and 15:01 and after 19:01 on the Friday.

On the Sunday you can use it on any train to return.

I would book the ticket a few days ahead of travel and reserve seats on the 11:16 from Paddington for your outward journey and on the return journey you're aiming to take. You're not obliged to use these reservations - you can travel on any train on which the super off peak ticket is valid. If you use a different train you won't have a reserved seat so you'd have to find an available seat. You can reserve a seat through the GWR website, although without checking, I'm not sure what the cut-off time is.

 

[yorkie]

The forum's site has an "open return" option; you can use our seat picker to select your desired seat on your outward journey.

I take it Crayford to Paddington is covered by a Season ticket or other pass, or you're not travelling from Crayford on that particular day?

 

[John R]

No rugby on the 23rd, but the weekend will be busy with Wales playing NZ on the 22nd.

 

[jfollows]

Normally, I'd buy a return ticket a few days before leaving London, making a guess as to what time I'll reach Cardiff Central Station when booking the return half of the ticket. On this occasion, I won't know what time I'll be getting to Cardiff Central Station to come home, until I actually arrive.

You appear to be locked in to the idea of advance tickets, which are indeed for specific trains only.
The advice here is good, and I suggest you acquaint yourself with off-peak return tickets and their variants which are much more flexible. They come with a restriction code, which you can look up, which details when they can or can’t be used, but often there are no restrictions at weekends.
You can also make seat reservations separately, so for example you can make a reservation for the train you think you’re likely to use, but this doesn’t prevent you from travelling on earlier or later trains.
The railway industry wants everyone to buy advance tickets for specific trains, and does its best to confuse you away from buying more flexible tickets, but you will get straightforward advice here if you ask.

 

[AdamWW]

You appear to be locked in to the idea of advance tickets, which are indeed for specific trains only.
The advice here is good, and I suggest you acquaint yourself with off-peak return tickets and their variants which are much more flexible. They come with a restriction code, which you can look up, which details when they can or can’t be used, but often there are no restrictions at weekends.
You can also make seat reservations separately, so for example you can make a reservation for the train you think you’re likely to use, but this doesn’t prevent you from travelling on earlier or later trains.
The railway industry wants everyone to buy advance tickets for specific trains, and does its best to confuse you away from buying more flexible tickets, but you will get straightforward advice here if you ask.

And indeed on some routes - this being one of them - much of the time advance tickets are only slightly cheaper than flexible ones but will come up on many ticket engines in preference because they are programmed to show the cheapest fare even when the saving is hugely dispoportionate to the greatly reduced flexibility.

I have also seen people fooled into buying an advance ticket for an outward journey and a flexible single for the return as no advances were available for that leg, without being warned that a flexible return ticket would be considerably cheaper overall.

I'm not sure any of this is conspiracy rather than just non-customer focussed behaviour. But it's still not good.

 

[DeverseSam]

It’s only £15 on the Monday if you buy through Seatfrog, and Sunday hotels are cheap..

 

[Geoff_K]

Thanks for the info everyone.

I have a 60+ Oyster for the Crayford-Paddington bit of the journey.

If I get a train from Cardiff to London on the Sunday using a Super Off-peak Return, for which I don't have a reservation , is there any advice for the easiest way to get a seat? I'm assuming that there will be unreserved carriages, but are there other sections of the train that would be more likely to have spare seats?

 

[Watershed]

Your 60+ Oyster card is valid across Zones 1-6 (including on the GWR train to/from Cardiff) so you actually only need a ticket from the last station in Zone 6, which is West Drayton.

A Super Off-Peak Return from there, routed "not via London" (as your 60+ Oyster covers Paddington-West Drayton), costs £66.50 so it saves you a little bit.

You can still get a reservation on your intended outward train, by logging into the GWR website's My Account function (create an account if necessary) and then selecting "View Bookings" -> "Make a seat/bike reservation". This can be done completely independently of buying your ticket - you don't need to buy your ticket through GWR to use this functionality.

You can use the same functionality to get a reservation for your way back from Cardiff, but I'm not sure what GWR's cutoff is for reservations made on the day. It's possible you'll just get issued with a "counted place" (i.e. "sit in any available seat") if you miss the cutoff.

And yes there are unreserved seats in coaches G, D or K on each GWR class 800/801 train, depending on whether it's formed of 5, 9 or 10 coaches:

G is unreserved on 9 cars, along with the high numbered seats in D.
G is unreserved on 10 cars along with the standard part of K.
The standard part of D is unreserved on 5 cars.

Sometimes train companies fill up reservations from one coach and then move onto the next. I don't travel on GWR 80x services often enough to say if that's the case here - I know on XC it is usually coach D and F that fill up first, for example.

 

[mangyiscute]

Thanks for the info everyone.

I have a 60+ Oyster for the Crayford-Paddington bit of the journey.

If I get a train from Cardiff to London on the Sunday using a Super Off-peak Return, for which I don't have a reservation , is there any advice for the easiest way to get a seat? I'm assuming that there will be unreserved carriages, but are there other sections of the train that would be more likely to have spare seats?

Simplest piece of info for getting a seat - as long as its 9 or 10 car, walk to the back of the train at Cardiff (away from the stairs up). People always congregate at the stairs up, if you head to a quieter part of the platform it'll be far easier to get a seat. I find the back of these services are usually quieter.
Find any seat with a green light for the reservation indicator - usually there are plenty.

 

[pwharley]

Simplest piece of info for getting a seat - as long as its 9 or 10 car, walk to the back of the train at Cardiff (away from the stairs up). People always congregate at the stairs up, if you head to a quieter part of the platform it'll be far easier to get a seat. I find the back of these services are usually quieter.
Find any seat with a green light for the reservation indicator - usually there are plenty.

That only applies to IETs which start at Cardiff.
If they've started from Swansea, the rear carriages fill up there and Neath, as they are nearest the entrance.

 

[AdamWW]

That only applies to IETs which start at Cardiff.
If they've started from Swansea, the rear carriages fill up there and Neath, as they are nearest the entrance.

But people do get off in Cardiff and there isn't usually much competition from other people getting on at the far end of the platform.
This isn't so useful though when the train is in reverse formation.

 

[mangyiscute]

That only applies to IETs which start at Cardiff.
If they've started from Swansea, the rear carriages fill up there and Neath, as they are nearest the entrance.

I find most people boarding there alight at Cardiff, and the numbers on cardiff outweigh those onboard previously who stay through to England quite a lot

 

[Geoff_K]

Once again thanks for the very useful information.

Is it possible to select a particular seat, when making a seat reservation at the time of buying the ticket, or through "View Bookings" -> "Make a seat/bike reservation" on a GWR account?

 

[Watershed]

No, there isn't a seat selector functionality. You can give seating preferences (forwards/backwards facing, aisle/window etc.) but RARS, the industry reservations system, is notoriously poor at actually honouring those requests.

 

[Geoff_K]

No, there isn't a seat selector functionality. You can give seating preferences (forwards/backwards facing, aisle/window etc.) but RARS, the industry reservations system, is notoriously poor at actually honouring those requests.

Thanks.

 

[Haywain]

You can give seating preferences (forwards/backwards facing, aisle/window etc.) but RARS, the industry reservations system, is notoriously poor at actually honouring those requests.

I believe that as far as directionality is concerned it is because they will have been specified as 'airline' seats with no specified direction of travel.