Laindon to Ealing Broadway

[mister_D]

Hello there

Last time I made this trip, from Laindon to Ealing Broadway, I paid about 14 pounds for a day pass, because I wanted to return. Is this the best way to go, providing I just want to go there and back?

Thanks in advance!

 

[MikeWh]

Will you be wanting to travel before 9.30am? If not then the day return fare is £11.60. The day travelcard gives you unlimited travel within the London fare zones but is always more expensive* than a straight return if you are starting outside the travelcard zones.


* This doesn't apply when the journey is wholly inside the travelcard zones because TfL and the TOCs would prefer you to use Oyster.

 

[W-on-Sea]

Having just compared (partly for my own benefit, as I use this route regularly) the various fares that arise by changing from a national rail ticket to a Tfl/Oyster one at each possible stop (Upminster, Barking, West Ham, Limehouse, Fenchurch Street/Tower Hill) the short answer is that it all depends on the time of your journeys. And that it is all completely illogical and that the fares are riddled with inconsistencies.

If you have an Oyster card loaded with pre-pay, AND you are travelling on a Saturday or Sunday, the cheapest way is to get a super-off peak return (valid on any train on c2c on Saturdays or Sundays) from Laindon to Upminster (£4.80) and then touch in on an Oyster pad (and if you are quick enough, get back on the same train), using Pay-as-you-go for the fare to Ealing Broadway (NOT via Paddington main line). This costs £2.40 each way, giving you a total fare of (4.80 + 2.40+2.40) = £9.60 if you do the same on your way back . In fact you could reduce this further to £7.40 (4.80 + 1.30 + 1.30) , if you took a route (ie via London Overground through Shepherds Bush or Olympia) that avoided zone 1.

Either of those fares is a substantial saving on the straightforward return ticket (£11.60)

If you are travelling Mon-Fri, and will be travelling in the peak hour in both directions (meaning: leaving Laindon earlier than the 9.29 train, the first on which off-peak tickets are valid), and starting your return journey at Ealing Broadway between 4pm and 7pm, the cheapest way is to get a return ticket from Laindon to Barking (£9.10), and use Oyster from there to Ealing and back. Presuming that you touch in at Barking between 6.30 and 9.30 am the direct fare to Ealing (again not via Paddington main line) is £3.10 single (£2.40 off-peak). Thus this journey would cost (£9.10 + 3.10 + 3.10) = £15.30 - which is still cheaper than the £16.10 return.

Conversely, if you are travelling offpeak (in both directions) the cheapest place to switch from a paper ticket to Oyster PAYG is Upminster, although in this case the total fare of £11.20 is only 40p cheaper than the off-peak day return from Laindon to Ealing Bdy.

Obviously if you have a railcard it all gets more complicated still.

 

[mathmo]

If you have an Oyster card loaded with pre-pay, AND you are travelling on a Saturday or Sunday, the cheapest way is to get a super-off peak return (valid on any train on c2c on Saturdays or Sundays) from Laindon to Upminster (£4.80) and then touch in on an Oyster pad (and if you are quick enough, get back on the same train), using Pay-as-you-go for the fare to Ealing Broadway (NOT via Paddington main line). This costs £2.40 each way, giving you a total fare of (4.80 + 2.40+2.40) = £9.60 if you do the same on your way back .

Out of curiosity, how does Oyster know that you've used a (mainline) train from Paddington or not? It's certainly possible to get from the Paddington H&C line station to a train on the nearest platforms without passing through any barriers, and at Ealing Broadway there's no problem either. Obviously your train might be on a different platform but it's usually not .
Also, why is this more expensive? The TfL fares finder says it costs £2.40 off-peak or £4.20 peak from Upminster to Ealing Broadway (no mention of route). The fare is the same to West Ealing which isn't accessible by tube so you'd have to use the main line. (That said, the Central Line from Bank is probably faster...)

 

[W-on-Sea]

Yes, sorry, you're right, both on the technicalities of interchange at Paddington and Ealing Bdy, as well as the fact, which I forgot, that the line from Paddington to Ealing (and on to Greenford I think?) was one of those NR lines brought into the Oyster PAYG system before the general roll-out to NR, and so is properly integrated into the fares system in a way that isn't generally the case with NR lines at London terminals. (Obviously, for historic reasons of line-ownership, etc, c2c and its predecessors have long been fully integrated farewise with TfL and its predecessors)

But, yeah, I would take the Central line too. (Annoyingly, it is never cheaper to change from paper ticket to Oyster PAYG at West Ham on this sort of journey, the obvious place to change to get to the Central line at Mile End)