Southeastern Season Ticket confusion

[RitishBrail]

Hello! I'm moving to Tonbridge in January and I'm hoping to buy a Tonbridge - London season ticket in the next few days, but I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the options on the Southeastern website. The departure station needs to be Tonbridge, and arrival can be into LBG, BFR, CTK or WAE. Putting that into the Southeastern site, two of the options I'm shown are as follows:

Obviously the 'via Redhill' option saves a lot of money, but I can't seem to find a single sensible journey which would justify paying £3,500 per year to travel between Tonbridge and London... via Redhill.

I phoned Southeastern to try and understand the situation and the lad at their callcentre suggested the best route at 8:30 on a weekday using the first ticket would be: Tonbridge - Orpington - London Victoria - Gatwick - London Bridge, which would take around three hours. Surely both he and I have misunderstood the situation? Southeastern can't seriously be selling a ticket that costs £3.5K but which would mean a commute of six hours per day, right?

Any help understanding what on earth the via Redhill ticket is supposed to be for would be great. Is it just a total nonsense ticket? As much as I'd like to save myself £900, I don't much fancy adding five hours to my daily commute!

Thanks

 

[TFN]

I assume that the "via Redhill" requires you to take a Southern train to East Croydon, changing there for Thameslink (or Southern) to LBG, and if needing Waterloo East changing again at LBG.

City Thameslink and Blackfriars can again be achieved by changing at East Croydon for a Thameslink service.


The "Any permitted" option would permit ahe direct Southeastern service to Charing X, changing there for a Thameslink if needing other destinations.

 

[paul1609]

The Tonbridge to Redhill Line is currently closed because of an embankment collapse near Edenbridge the normal timetable can be downloaded from this page https://www.southernrailway.com/travel-information/plan-your-journey/timetables its timetable 30. As the line is currently closed you can use the via Redhil ticket via Sevenoaks.

 

[RitishBrail]

Ah, that makes much more sense! I'm surprised not surprised that the person at the callcentre didn't know about the line disruption.

Still, looking at the normal timetable the cheaper route would take about an hour and a half, rather than just over 30 minutes, so I guess I'll have to shell out the extra cash.

Thanks for the help!

 

[KingJ]

Most travellers between Tonbridge and London will go for the faster route via Sevenoaks. As others have mentioned, the cheaper via Redhill route takes quite a lot longer normally and is significantly disrupted for the foreseeable future. A few years ago, trains along the Tonbridge to Redhill line continued to Victoria (and London Bridge additionally during the peaks) which made the via Redhill option somewhat more usable, if still a fair bit slower.

If you have some flexibility in your travel however, you may find that daily Off Peak Day Returns are cheaper (currently £18.00/day without discounts). The first Off-Peak train from Tonbridge is the 09:09, and is fast to London only calling at Sevenoaks. There are no evening peak restrictions. This only works out cheaper than a season of course if you can travel later and don't travel in 5 days a week. But if you can travel later and can work from home one or two days a week, daily tickets do end up cheaper. Bonus discounts if you hold any sort of applicable railcard!

 

[alistairlees]

Since there are no longer direct trains from Tonbridge to London via Redhill - you will always need to change at Redhill - then the via Redhill ticket has lost its usefulness.

Another way of saving money is to buy a Tonbridge to New Cross annual season and a New Cross to London Zones 1-2 annual season. The train does not need to stop at new cross for this combination to be valid. This is a well-known (to passengers, staff and rail user groups) solution.

 

[paul1609]

Since there are no longer direct trains from Tonbridge to London via Redhill - you will always need to change at Redhill - then the via Redhill ticket has lost its usefulness.

Another way of saving money is to buy a Tonbridge to New Cross annual season and a New Cross to London Zones 1-2 annual season. The train does not need to stop at new cross for this combination to be valid. This is a well-known (to passengers, staff and rail user groups) solution.

I don't think a Tonbridge to New Cross and Zone 1-2 annual season will be cheaper than a Tonbridge to London Terminals season which is what the OP requires. Its for saving on an all zones travel card that it works. There is a £250 cheaper ticket thats available but I'm not going to post it here.

 

[BluePenguin]

Since there are no longer direct trains from Tonbridge to London via Redhill - you will always need to change at Redhill - then the via Redhill ticket has lost its usefulness.

There hasn’t been any direct trains for a while. They used to run to London Bridge and later London Victoria. Sadly the direct trains were lost in the May timetable. Every so often when there is engineering work Southeastern will divert this way calling only at Redhill and East Croydon on the way.

If you don’t mind the change and a longer journey time, then there is a huge saving to be made.

As a side note, travelling West to go North is not logical. However this is more of an issue if coming from Ashford but I will save that for another thread