East Anglia tips and tricks

[Kilopylae]

I've been asked to deliver a short fares workshop for staff at the charity I work for this Wednesday afternoon. The main purpose of the workshop will be to migrate staff to a Trainsplit for Business workspace, and explain the basic idea of Railcards and split tickets. However, I am not local to the area where this group of staff travel (Greater Anglia and southern commuter ECML), so I was wondering if anyone had any specific knowledge.

Individuals make regular weekday journeys, weekly or once every two weeks, from London to Chelmsford, Southend, Norwich, and Peterborough. They tend to be at peak times. It's fine for these to be booked in advance.

We are a small charity, and travel costs are currently a disproportionate expense for us, so any advice I can pass on to our staff will be greatly appreciated!

 

[walkingsophie]

Tips about advance tickets:
You can use https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/travel-information/advance-booking-dates/ to see when advance tickets become available.
You can use https://www.brfares.com/ to check what the different price brackets of the advance tickets are, so that you know how expensive the advance you are buying is compared to other possible advances.
Advance tickets can be amended for a small fee anytime before the journey is supposed to take place, so if someone knows they won't be travelling they can amend it to use the ticket for future travel.

Tips about flexible tickets:
You can refund flexible tickets for a small fee until the day before the journey is supposed to take place.
You can use https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ticket-types/ticket-validity-finder/ to check the restriction code to see what times an Off-peak/Super Off-peak ticket is valid
Flexible tickets are sometimes valid via unexpected routes, easiest way to check would be to see if https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/journey-planner/ offers you the same ticket when using via points
You can split your journey unless the ticket's restriction code says otherwise, which could be useful for doing journeys like London -> Colchester -> Chelmsford -> London while only using a return ticket between London and Colchester

Tips about Trainsplit:
If someone has a complicated travel plan, the advanced settings on Trainsplit can account for quite a lot, do have a play around

Tips about Railcards:
This is a list of railcards: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/railcards/
Many railcards have restrictions on the times they can be used, do have a look at what times they are valid
Network Railcard only covers half the area being talked about here, do have a look at its map of validity
You can get an Annual Gold Card for buying a year long season ticket, and it covers basically all the areas being talked about here other than Peterborough. The cheapest season ticket eligible is between Hatton and Lapworth, which costs about £250 per year. It might be valuable for people frequently travelling to/around Norwich. Other forum members can advise more on this

Tips about other types of tickets:
There are some rover/ranger tickets available in the area, which could be useful if doing many journeys away from London in a single day. See http://railrover.org/index.html for more details

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I've been asked to deliver a short fares workshop for staff at the charity I work for this Wednesday afternoon.

You might just want to re-phrase that! 'Short fares' suggests not paying the correct amount for the entirety of a particular journey.

 

[Haywain]

You can use https://www.brfares.com/ to check what the different price brackets of the advance tickets are, so that you know how expensive the advance you are buying is compared to other possible advances.

I would say that chacking against the price of flexible tickets is more important. Encouraging lay people to try and get into the minutiae of Advance ticket levels is too complex for most.

Advance tickets can be amended for a small fee anytime before the journey

They can be amended, and the fee will depend on the retailer (some are free, some charge per transaction and some charge per ticket). The timing of a change can depend on the availability of suitable facilities.

You can refund flexible tickets for a small fee until the day before the journey is supposed to take place.

Or you can avoid buying them in advance which completely removes that problem.

Network Railcard only covers half the area being talked about here, do have a look at its map of validity
You can get an Annual Gold Card for buying a year long season ticket, and it covers basically all the areas being talked about here other than Peterborough. The cheapest season ticket eligible is between Hatton and Lapworth, which costs about £250 per year. It might be valuable for people frequently travelling to/around Norwich. Other forum members can advise more on this

The OP states that the journeys tend to be at peak times - both of the above are designed for off-peak use only, so would be of limited use.

 

[walkingsophie]

both of the above are designed for off-peak use only, so would be of limited use.

Whether the travel was Evening or Morning peak wasn't specified, and both are valid during the evening peak, so they may have some utility.
I also did mention looking at the time restrictions of the various Railcards.

Rest of your points I completely agree with.

 

[smsm1]

When travelling north of Manningtree, splitting at Manningtree used to be a good splitting point, especially with the network rail card. (I haven't double checked to see if this is still the case but have no reason why it wouldn't be.) Network Railcard can't be used before 10am with some exceptions and has a £13 minimum fare Monday to Friday.

For some trips a peak single for morning journey plus Railcard single for return can work out slightly cheaper than an anytime return l, though very dependant on the route.

Purchase flexible walk-up fares for any British train journey

Purchase flexible single/return tickets & Travelcards – in 3 clicks. Full details of all British rail fares shown, with built-in Season Ticket Calculator.

www.brfares.com

No evening peak restriction on off peak tickets when travelling north of Manningtree based on the Norfolk school holidays.

 

[Kilopylae]

Thank you so much everyone for the replies.

Tips about advance tickets:
You can use https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/travel-information/advance-booking-dates/ to see when advance tickets become available.

Fantastic. I didn't know that one - is that something relatively new or have I been missing out?

You can use https://www.brfares.com/ to check what the different price brackets of the advance tickets are, so that you know how expensive the advance you are buying is compared to other possible advances.

Also a great tip, thank you.

You can split your journey unless the ticket's restriction code says otherwise, which could be useful for doing journeys like London -> Colchester -> Chelmsford -> London while only using a return ticket between London and Colchester

Good one to flag up as people might not think of that - thank you.

There are some rover/ranger tickets available in the area, which could be useful if doing many journeys away from London in a single day. See http://railrover.org/index.html for more details

Fortunately (or unfortunately), our staff don't have to do that!

You might just want to re-phrase that! 'Short fares' suggests not paying the correct amount for the entirety of a particular journey.

I was just on the thread about SWR short faring, too. Perhaps it was an unconscious influence

When travelling north of Manningtree, splitting at Manningtree used to be a good splitting point

The timings don't work out for us to exploit the edge of Railcard availability and Trainsplit, at least, doesn't offer a Manningtree split. I probably won't encourage them to try to work out splits "manually" - better to stick to Trainsplit.