How far ahead should trains be on sale?

[Bletchleyite]

From the Caledonian Sleeper thread:

Well that’s just unreasonable isn’t it? CS have a ticket selling horizon of over a year don’t they?

It's one problem with having such a nonsensically long sales horizon. Trains (whether Sleeper or not) are not planes, there is no need to have them on sale that far ahead. It just creates problems such as false expectations of what will and won't operate and stuff like Delay Repay.

Some people do like to book stuff ahead for certainty, but certainty isn't offered as a year is well ahead of any engineering works announcements. It's a false comfort, and a false comfort is always worse than honesty.

Do trains need to be on sale more than a couple of months ahead by which time stuff like engineering work is known? I don't think they do. It just becomes an increasingly silly race to the bottom on Advance ticket prices (and a profit centre for TOCs because tickets booked a year in advance are often not used).

 

[pokemonsuper9]

I generally buy my tickets either on the day or whenever my planned trains' seat reservations start to become busy (typically ~1 month in advance).
I almost never use advanced tickets (my only 2 cases within the last 2 year were purchases under 15 minutes before travel).

 

[Bald Rick]

The graph of how far ahead passengers book their journeys is fascinating. There’s a mini-spike 12 weeks out when they go on sale, then next to nothing for a couple of weeks, before a very slow steady rise until 2-3 weeks out when it picks up a little. But a significant majority of tickets are bought on the day or day before. The ‘spike’ at 12 weeks is rather less than 1% of tickets sold (more of a speck than a spike), and very heavily skewed to long distance journeys.

So, I think the question might need defining between long distance journeys and everything else?

 

[VT 390]

As long as the option to book at least around 1 month is available I am not really to bothered around how long tickets are put of sale.

What I do have issue with is different operators putting Advance tickets on sale at different times. This is because when planning a trip involving multiple services you either have to risk missing out on the cheapest advance fares while waiting for other operators to release their advances or by the advances with 1 operator but then other operators don't release their usual tickets for the date(s) you have booked for.

Of course there may be exceptions where advance fares are delayed on certain routes for specific reasons but as a general rule I really wish all advance fares were released at the same time, which is something I am hoping Great British Railways will eventually fix.
For local services I would not have an issue with tickets being released later where the only fares are flexible tickets costing the same price whenever they are booked and are available in unlimited limited quantities.

 

[35B]

I have had a number of situations where booking early has been highly desirable, and where the railway's inability to match airlines is actively unhelpful. The +12 horizon was welcome, and it is a stain on the industry that it is still not being met.

The reality is that people expect to be able to book early, and to get value from doing so. If I travel long haul, I can book a year in advance on a number of tourist oriented services. CS making bookings available a year in advance aligns with the airline industry, and is entirely appropriate bearing in mind that some of their customers will be purchasing berths as part of a larger itinerary.

The issue is not offering those bookings and meeting customer demand, but when there is a failure to be clear and transparent in the event of changes - as is also the case with airlines. Given the constraints on network scheduling, that issue is both at "+12" and in the event of on the day changes.

 

[alistairlees]

Well, the whole industry is moving towards a 6-month (minimum) booking horizon right now. It'll take a bit of time but it's on the way...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Well, the whole industry is moving towards a 6-month (minimum) booking horizon right now. It'll take a bit of time but it's on the way...

Including notification of planned engineering works? If not it's worthless.

 

[stevieinselby]

I can understand for sleeper services, people might want more certainty when planning ahead – but for regular trains, the industry has made a rod for its own back by bullying people into buying advance purchase tickets with restricted quotas in order to travel for a sensible price.

I'm planning to travel by train when I go on holiday later this year, but with the cheapest flexible return ticket being £230 and advance purchase tickets down to about £60 each way, as much as I dislike being fixed on specific trains there's no way I can justify buying a flexible ticket at that price differential, so I've put a note in my calendar of when the advance tickets are due to go on sale so that I can get straight in there – if I have to pay anything close to £200 then I'll just go by car which will be about £100.

Obviously the return ticket won't be available to buy until a week after the outward ticket if they are released on a rolling wave, so I've then got to decide which way to gamble – do I bet on there still being cheap enough outward tickets available a week later and wait to buy both legs at the same time, or do I buy the outward ones as soon as they are released to get the best price and keep my fingers crossed that I won't get stung on the return? A further annoyance is that I've got a choice of two different routes with different operators, who have different release schedules – so when the first one comes out, I won't be able to compare it with the availability on the other route.

A 3-month window should be ample, and TBH it wouldn't bother me if it was reduced to a 2-month window, maybe even 1-month – but it should be consistent across all operators at all times. I'm not sure how often people need to know more than a month ahead exactly when they will be travelling or what it will cost them – I guess if people are booking a short break and the train costs twice as much one weekend as the next then it might influence their decision about where or when to travel, so they would want to know that before booking accommodation, but I would have thought that would be a pretty niche situation – for most people, the imperative to book as early as possible just comes from the fact that the only sensibly-priced tickets are likely to sell out if they don't.

 

[Mike Machin]

I just hope 'turn-up-and-go' customers remain caterecfor. I have only ever on one occasion booked a ticket the day before I travelled, usually if I use a train, even long-distance, it's a spur of the moment decision.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I just hope 'turn-up-and-go' customers remain caterecfor. I have only ever on one occasion booked a ticket the day before I travelled, usually if I use a train, even long-distance, it's a spur of the moment decision.

I don't think there is any proposal to prevent that. Even the LNER "trial" offers vaguely reasonably priced Advances right up to departure other than on trains that are very busy. Not as good as a guaranteed off peak walk up but not wildly different in most cases.

 

[Bald Rick]

Including notification of planned engineering works? If not it's worthless.

Well in excess of 99% of rail journeys are not affected by engineering works.

Anyway, AIUI bookings won’t be opened where engineering works may affect timings, and there will be a notification system where there are late changes that do affect them.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Well in excess of 99% of rail journeys are not affected by engineering works.

And in that 1% of cases, the trip may not even be possible as planned at all and has thus been mis-sold.

Yes, I know airlines do it. Airlines shouldn't do it either, it's no excuse.

Anyway, AIUI bookings won’t be opened where engineering works may affect timings

I would sincerely hope not. Though that does create issues where one has to book a Friday out Advance when the Sunday isn't known for ages, and is quite a risk. It's much better just to have a short horizon in my book when everything is known and whole periods can be released at once. This shouldn't be any more than about 2 months out really. At most.

 

[35B]

And in that 1% of cases, the trip may not even be possible as planned at all and has thus been mis-sold.

Yes, I know airlines do it. Airlines shouldn't do it either, it's no excuse.



I would sincerely hope not. Though that does create issues where one has to book a Friday out Advance when the Sunday isn't known for ages, and is quite a risk. It's much better just to have a short horizon in my book when everything is known and whole periods can be released at once. This shouldn't be any more than about 2 months out really. At most.

Your book is one where plans are made at that short window. Mine is one in which the unavailability of tickets until that close can be a major problem and cause me to go elsewhere - a classic being a 3 week foreign holiday, where tickets were being released about 8 weeks before. Great for the outbound, not so good for the return - especially if there'd been a delay.

The industry should be stretching, not compressing, the booking window. It should then be managing properly the impact where changes do happen - not saying "tough luck"

 

[Bletchleyite]

Your book is one where plans are made at that short window. Mine is one in which the unavailability of tickets until that close can be a major problem and cause me to go elsewhere - a classic being a 3 week foreign holiday, where tickets were being released about 8 weeks before. Great for the outbound, not so good for the return - especially if there'd been a delay.

The industry should be stretching, not compressing, the booking window. It should then be managing properly the impact where changes do happen - not saying "tough luck"

But that's even worse for you when you can't get to your booked flight because engineering works mean the first train is a train+bus journey taking twice as long and you didn't know that when you purchased and thus didn't for instance book a coach while they were cheap.

Perhaps in that case better planning is needed on the railway's part with regard to engineering works. But it's not viable to make that as long as I suspect you'd want to see.

But my book is more common than yours. Only a small proportion of rail travellers are heading to the airport for a three week break. Most people do that once a year AT MOST, whereas they go to work daily.

Two months is plenty, and aside from emergency works it's entirely possible to ensure that the timetable released will be the one that runs aside from unexpected on the day disruption. Six months and that gets very hard.

 

[JamesT]

Your book is one where plans are made at that short window. Mine is one in which the unavailability of tickets until that close can be a major problem and cause me to go elsewhere - a classic being a 3 week foreign holiday, where tickets were being released about 8 weeks before. Great for the outbound, not so good for the return - especially if there'd been a delay.

The industry should be stretching, not compressing, the booking window. It should then be managing properly the impact where changes do happen - not saying "tough luck"

I would agree, I'm potentially looking at booking things for this summer. Waiting for the railway booking horizon risks things like hotels being booked up or getting more expensive. But on the flip side, I wouldn't want to book a hotel without having some confidence on the train times and costs.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would agree, I'm potentially looking at booking things for this summer. Waiting for the railway booking horizon risks things like hotels being booked up or getting more expensive. But on the flip side, I wouldn't want to book a hotel without having some confidence on the train times and costs.

You do have a reasonable level of confidence on the train costs - look up the Off Peak or Anytime fares, it won't be more than that (aside from an inflationary increase). That's one reason walk up fares are important (yes, you, LNER).

A cheap Advance is a bonus.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

whereas they go to work daily.

Most people going to work daily don't care about how early tickets become available, they'll be using Monthly or Annual season tickets.

 

[The Planner]

Including notification of planned engineering works? If not it's worthless.

It does sound a bit futile as the confirmed period possession plan is 26 weeks out, but if the solution is as @Bald Rick notes then its mitigated.

 

[35B]

But that's even worse for you when you can't get to your booked flight because engineering works mean the first train is a train+bus journey taking twice as long and you didn't know that when you purchased and thus didn't for instance book a coach while they were cheap.

Perhaps in that case better planning is needed on the railway's part with regard to engineering works. But it's not viable to make that as long as I suspect you'd want to see.

But my book is more common than yours. Only a small proportion of rail travellers are heading to the airport for a three week break. Most people do that once a year AT MOST, whereas they go to work daily.

Two months is plenty, and aside from emergency works it's entirely possible to ensure that the timetable released will be the one that runs aside from unexpected on the day disruption. Six months and that gets very hard.

I think the ambition should be to do better, at minimum to the standard of 3 months notice.

It may be a minority view, but it is one that is relevant. The railway should not just be going for the lowest common denominator.

 

[deltic]

For long distance travel bookings should be open 6 months in advance of travel and non-emergency engineering work should also be known that far in advance. If it's not it suggests a lack of a proactive data led asset management system.

 

[joncombe]

I also think six months, ideally longer. I often travel between the south of England and Scotland. Accommodation sells out fast in many parts of Scotland, certainly more than 3 months. So I usually end up booking flights because they are open for bookings and trains are not. If I hold out for the train there is a risk the fares are unaffordable when released or there will be bus replacements for half the journey. I would use the train more if they could provide more certainty about if there are engineering works and advance fares at reasonable prices. As it is it's too much of a risk.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Feb 2026 ==

I also think six months, ideally longer. I often travel between the south of England and Scotland. Accommodation sells out fast in many parts of Scotland, certainly more than 3 months. So I usually end up booking flights because they are open for bookings and trains are not. If I hold out for the train there is a risk the fares are unaffordable when released or there will be bus replacements for half the journey. I would use the train more if they could provide more certainty about if there are engineering works and advance fares at reasonable prices. As it is it's too much of a risk.

 

[Bald Rick]

I think the ambition should be to do better, at minimum to the standard of 3 months notice.

The rail industry has been at the required 12 weeks notice for years now - the longest continuous time ever.

 

[Snow1964]

Two months is plenty, and aside from emergency works it's entirely possible to ensure that the timetable released will be the one that runs aside from unexpected on the day disruption. Six months and that gets very hard.

I would disagree, it's not just holidays, eg we managed to secure tickets to Chelsea Flower show in May (secured the tickets few months ago), but can't finish planning the trip and buy the associated rail tickets, because they are still not on sale.

For big (and expensive) one offs, I would like to get everything agreed, not have to wait to book part later. The current short release dates are a farce, I can book restaurants for the trip before the rail tickets.

Should be able to book the train 4+ months (ideally 6 months) ahead, consistent with other parts of a trip, event or journey

 

[alistairlees]

The rail industry has been at the required 12 weeks notice for years now - the longest continuous time ever.

How many continuous years?

 

[Bald Rick]

How many continuous years?

That’s testing me without looking back at some old papers. I may have to correct myself! It’s certainly the longest continuous time for over a decade.

 

[alistairlees]

That’s testing me without looking back at some old papers. I may have to correct myself! It’s certainly the longest continuous time for over a decade.

Really? It can’t be more than four continuous years (2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025) surely? During Covid (and for a few years afterwards) booking horizons were terrible - Avanti could not even do a week at one point. I’m not even sure that 2022 was a full 12 weeks.

In any case, I’m fairly sure that some TOCs on some routes don’t reach 12 weeks even now.

 

[Starmill]

It does sound a bit futile as the confirmed period possession plan is 26 weeks out, but if the solution is as @Bald Rick notes then its mitigated.

Indeed. And for schedules which are affected by that, nothing that comes out of that is going to be available whatsoever pre T-16, given it won't have actually been written.

The Smarter Information Smarter Journeys 'publish as bid' workflow is also producing some very odd results. For example if you look at the first week of May 2026 timetable, you can see that half of the Northern amended schedules were published on what I assume was the bid deadline day a month ago, and the rest are yet to appear even now. I'd be willing to bet they're all sat there, with 99% of them showing validated, though.

 

[Bald Rick]

Really? It can’t be more than four continuous years (2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025) surely? During Covid (and for a few years afterwards) booking horizons were terrible - Avanti could not even do a week at one point. I’m not even sure that 2022 was a full 12 weeks.

In any case, I’m fairly sure that some TOCs on some routes don’t reach 12 weeks even now.

T12 was lost post May 2018. Barely recovered when Covid happened.

 

[alistairlees]

T12 was lost post May 2018. Barely recovered when Covid happened.

Yes but I’m wondering if there was more than four years of T12 before the timetable meltdown? To be honest I can’t remember right now.

 

[deltic]

Can anyone say how long in advance you could reserve a seat in the 1960s and 70s?