Preston - Liverpool Round Trip

[afyutr]

Hi all. I am planning on doing a bit of a round trip by rail, visiting a few pubs en route. Althoguh I have no real date in mind at the moment to help the questions I'm posing it'll be a Saturday (let's say Oct 18th), and the group will be 4 or 5 of us (maybe 2 railcards but best just to ignore these for now); travelling out at 1000 from Preston to Ormskirk; down to Moorfields with 2 or 3 stops; back up the Southport line to Southport with a further 2 or 3 stops, and then cutting across to Burscough Bridge at 1917, a walk to Burscough Junction for the 2100 back to Preston. I was wondering if the best option is as follows:

£6.50 Preston - Ormskirk CDR (I think)
£4.20 MerseyRail DaySave All Areas
£4.10 Southport - Burscough Bridge SDS (or SOS?) (why is this cheaper than a CDS?)
Total £14.80

The confirmation I'm wondering about is if we can start short on the return portion of the CDR from Burscough Junction to Preston?

Lancashire Day Ranger £22.00 - there's no benefit in the Lancashire Day Ranger for this day I suspect?

We may jump on the 2X bus back to Preston from Southport if time is running short. I don't think there's any tickets including buses between these two places?

Apologies if I have any of the codes for tickets or times wrong.

 

[fowler9]

Hi all. I am planning on doing a bit of a round trip by rail, visiting a few pubs en route. Althoguh I have no real date in mind at the moment to help the questions I'm posing it'll be a Saturday (let's say Oct 18th), and the group will be 4 or 5 of us (maybe 2 railcards but best just to ignore these for now); travelling out at 1000 from Preston to Ormskirk; down to Moorfields with 2 or 3 stops; back up the Southport line to Southport with a further 2 or 3 stops, and then cutting across to Burscough Bridge at 1917, a walk to Burscough Junction for the 2100 back to Preston. I was wondering if the best option is as follows:

£6.50 Preston - Ormskirk CDR (I think)
£4.20 MerseyRail DaySave All Areas
£4.10 Southport - Burscough Bridge SDS (or SOS?) (why is this cheaper than a CDS?)
Total £14.80

The confirmation I'm wondering about is if we can start short on the return portion of the CDR from Burscough Junction to Preston?

Lancashire Day Ranger £22.00 - there's no benefit in the Lancashire Day Ranger for this day I suspect?

We may jump on the 2X bus back to Preston from Southport if time is running short. I don't think there's any tickets including buses between these two places?

Apologies if I have any of the codes for tickets or times wrong.

Apologies for not providing any ticket advice but I would recommend the Freshfield and Hightown pubs which are both close to the stations of the same name.

 

[afyutr]

Cheers for the pub advice - probably more important than the ticket advice TBH

So Freshfield and Hightown would be preferable to Formby? I would love to stop everywhere but there's not enough hours or trains in the day... Real Ale is a bonus but not critical.

 

[fowler9]

Cheers for the pub advice - probably more important than the ticket advice TBH

So Freshfield and Hightown would be preferable to Formby? I would love to stop everywhere but there's not enough hours or trains in the day... Real Ale is a bonus but not critical.

The Freshfield is a decent real ale pub and not too far from the station. The Hightown is really close to the station and does some decent real ales. The Railway in Formby is alright but nothing more in my opinion but is right by the station. From there it is a decent hike up to the Cross House and the other pubs in the area. They are decent pubs, pleasant places to spend an hour but I'd say the Freshfield and Hightown are nicer.

If you have time in Southport check out The Guest House. Not too far from the station. A really nice pub with some good ales.

Just wanted to add, I'm not knocking Formby, it is a nice place to go for a pint, just that when it comes to pubs close to the station the others are a bit better. The Railway is still worth a visit.

 

[bb21]

Starting short on Day tickets is always permitted.

 

[Merseysider]

You could just split at Burscough Junction to save money.
PRE-BCJ return £6.30
BCJ-MRF return £6.00

National Rail Enquiries will allow you to travel Liverpool - Southport - Burscough - Preston.

 

[tony_mac]

£4.20 MerseyRail DaySave All Areas

£4.80..

Anyway, if you are just making a single round-trip journey (and not going back on yourself), you can do that with an off-peak day return.
Preston to Liverpool is £12.90 - (or same price to Hightown, for which either route looks quite reasonable).
A Duo ticket also seems to be available.

 

[afyutr]

So is it permitted to go from MRF to BCJ via Southport on that return leg when splitting?

If just getting an off peak day return I didn't think you could get on and off several times (in an extreme example just moving one station at a time). Happy days if this is allowed as long as you don't double back.

 

[afyutr]

£4.80...

Doh...

 

[Merseysider]

So is it permitted to go from MRF to BCJ via Southport on that return leg when splitting?

If just getting an off peak day return I didn't think you could get on and off several times (in an extreme example just moving one station at a time). Happy days if this is allowed as long as you don't double back.

Yes. I'm not sure if it's mapped or not but NRE definitely permits it.

The restriction code for the ticket in question is B3 which allows unlimited break of journey.

 

[afyutr]

Thank you for your help. Off-Peak Return seems to be the answer to this particular conundrum. Shame the PLUS BUS zone doesn't extend a bit further out of Preston!

 

[Merseysider]

Thank you for your help. Off-Peak Return seems to be the answer to this particular conundrum. Shame the PLUS BUS zone doesn't extend a bit further out of Preston!

Well you could always use split ticketing on your bus journey, PlusBus halfway and cash fare the rest