Cumbria Travel Pass

Has these been discussed since the detsils of validity have become available?



£40 for 1 day, £99 for three consecutive days. Children half fare. Railcard discounts are available.
No time restrictions.
Any ToC, but only available Lancaster to Carlisle via WCML or Cumbrian Coast line, plus Windermere branch. No validity on Settle & Carlisle or Hadrian’s Wall lines, both of which have stations in Cumbria. No validity on Morecambe branch.
Stagecoach buses within Cumbria, and to/from Lancaster. Windermere boats.
Unspecified discounts on Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway plus other boats.
Available as a conventional paper ticket, or some crazy M-ticket that has to be shown on a mobile device along with photo ID!

This has replaced the Cumbria Day Ranger, Cumbrian Coast Day Ranger, Cumbria Round Robin, Lakes (and Furness) Day Ranger. The Settle & Carlisle Day Ranger and the Hadrian's Wall Day Ranger are also discontinued.

My feeling is that the only plus point of the new ticket compared to the old selection is the lack of time restrictions.

Overall looks to be a good value ticket, functioning as an effective price cap for most transport in the Lake District region. Many of the former rangers (e.g. lakes pass, Cumbria day ranger) were fairly poor value for money (compared to walk-up fares) unless you spent the full day bashing stations. It being 3 consecutive days rather than 3 in 7 is annoying, but not hugely surprising, frankly I'm quite surprised they're even accepting railcards.
There are some strange choices regarding the non-rail modes:

lyndhurst25 said:

Stagecoach buses within Cumbria, and to/from Lancaster. Windermere boats.

Click to expand...

From the NR site:

Boundaries: The Country of Cumbria – Northern, TransPennine & Avanti services within Cumbria (Lancaster <> Carlisle via both Barrow-in-Furness and Penrith, including services Oxenholme to Windermere), Stagecoach Bus services within Cumbria (excluding school buses), plus the Lakes Day Cruises on Windermere for a half lake cruise or full lake single only.

Click to expand...

Seems unnecessarily complicated - can anyone explain what's preventing offering full validity on Windermere cruises and non-Stagecoach bus operators?

lyndhurst25 said:

This has replaced the Cumbria Day Ranger, Cumbrian Coast Day Ranger, Cumbria Round Robin, Lakes (and Furness) Day Ranger. The Settle & Carlisle Day Ranger and the Hadrian's Wall Day Ranger are also discontinued.

Click to expand...

Most of these make sense, but it's particularly nonsensical to scrap the Hadrian's Wall (Tyne Valley) and S&C rangers then 'replace' it with a ticket that isn't even valid on either line!

lyndhurst25 said:

Unspecified discounts on Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway plus other boats.

Click to expand...

Not sure about the R&E, but I'd expect that on the non-Windermere boat routes (Derwentwater, Coniston, Ullswater) it'll either be a very small discount (e.g. 10% off), or they'll let you on for free with the Travel Pass, or the staff won't have any idea that the ticket exists. I highly doubt that Northern keeps regular contact with the Lakes boat operators.

Farigiraf said:

Most of these make sense, but it's particularly nonsensical to scrap the Hadrian's Wall (Tyne Valley) and S&C rangers then 'replace' it with a ticket that isn't even valid on either line!

Click to expand...

Those have been "replaced" by the substantially more expensive Northern Explorer.

https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/tickets/cumbria-travel-pass states the rail travel is valid throughout Cumbria, so I would suggest this allows travel out to Brampton and Kirkby Stephen. Morecambe is just outside Cumbria.

The National Rail page has some nonsense on it. It says available to buy from 08 May 2007 and doesn't even list Carlisle as an available station.

There are T&Cs on the Northern page and I would be comfortable relying on these. I agree it could be pretty good value.

Farigiraf said:

Seems unnecessarily complicated - can anyone explain what's preventing offering full validity on Windermere cruises and non-Stagecoach bus operators?

Click to expand...

From a bus perspective there aren’t any other real operators in Cumbria.

There are a very small number of routes with smaller operators - mainly Reays in the North and West - however they are low capacity, infrequent, and don’t comply with legislation for bus tracking amongst other things.

lyndhurst25 said:

My feeling is that the only plus point of the new ticket compared to the old selection is the lack of time restrictions.

Click to expand...

I can't speak for the S+C and Hadrians Wall tickets as I never dealt with them, but the Cumbria Day, Cumbria Coast, Cumbria Round Robin, and Lakes Day tickets didn't have time restrictions either.

davp said:

https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/tickets/cumbria-travel-pass states the rail travel is valid throughout Cumbria, so I would suggest this allows travel out to Brampton and Kirkby Stephen. Morecambe is just outside Cumbria.

Click to expand...

The statement is confusing as it then goes on to contradict it by stating the routes and operators it is valid on which as you say does not include all rail travel on Northern services in Cumbria.

I used a 1-day Cumbria Travel Pass last month, with no problems. I bought it from one of the Avanti ticket machines at Preston (which issued it on CCST).

I used it on numerous trains between Lancaster and Barrow, and up to Windermere, as well as five Stagecoach buses - I was expecting at least one bus driver to be unaware of the ticket, but they all accepted it with no trouble at all, which was a pleasant surprise!