The UK's cheapest fare?

Interesting find !

Be curious to know what the 'genuine' cheapest fare is?

I remember back in the 80's in my 'haulage' bashing days, a lot of the older blokes who would ordinarily have to pay full fare, used to purchase annual season tickets in order to gain what used to exist and was known as 'Annual Season Ticket Holders Railcard'.

This used to give a discount on all fares akin to the YP railcard, so buy forking out £££ for an annual season ticket (that in theory you would probably never use), you could easily save money over the course of a year (presuming you travelled enough to warrant it)

I remember some of the Birmingham lot opting for Manchester Piccadilly - Oxford Road annual season tickets

Never needed to go down this route myself, so never researched it, but can only presume back in the mid to late 80's this must have been the cheapest annual season ticket ? ! ?

Somebody's clearly also a member of RailUK Forums! This has been discussed at length there and I think it was suggested that this was a railtour fare that has not been cancelled. STOP PRESS: this member has not read the OP's post properly: apologies!

The cheapest Annual Season that can be used as a Gold Card is was thought to be £140: the 'ticket to Ryde' from Ryde St Johns to Esplanande or vice versa, and Newhaven Harbour to Newhaven Town...well they were as it has now been pointed-out that Exeter Central to Exeter St Davids is £120! As a matter of interest a single Ticket to Ryde is 80p on the old 1938 Stock but Exeters' is 90p. The Exeter tickets may or not give you the free SWT tickets each year...is Exeter St David's's fare set by GWR or SWT? The Ryde ticket used to give you free SWT tickets but no longer does so...clamped down on...and Newhavens' fares are set by Southern so they do not qualify for SWT tickets. The cheapest SWT annual tickets that I know of from past researches was St Margaret's to Twickenham: £308 Standard Class and £832 First Class. In the past this was much cheaper and entitled, it was thought, the holder to free SWT FC tickets. However it seems that the free tickets were Standard only.

I mention these Gold Cards as the free SWT tickets could be used Waterloo-Exeter..

Sheffield to Attercliffe (now closed) was the one that my dad (lifelong booking office/railway back office) said that people used to buy all the time to gain the AST railcard.

yes - I do recall someone holding an Attercliffe Road - Sheffield (or it may have been Brightside ?) AST back in the day!

One I had always considered as a potential 'cheapie' was Culrain - Invershin on the Far North, effectively 2 hamlets separated by a bridge totalling 34 chains (from memory)

Just stuck it into the National Rail site to compare price against the previously mentioned Ryde and Exeter AST's (Attercliffe Road of course now defunct).

A season ticket is not available between these stations !

That said the single is £1.10 when compared to 80p and 90p respectively at Ryde and Exeter

You forget the child ticket is 5p

The website seems a bit overloaded..I've bought 100 child tickets for pickup from London Marylebone ;D

Can you imagine though, running up and down the train with a fistfull of tickets waiting for people to board and sit down, before saying "Oi! Thats my seat! And that one! And that one too!"...

Shoulda thought of clicking the 'reserve' button. Would've reserved a rush hour train. Mwuhahaha.



You people are full of great ideas.

I once travelled on First Transpennine to my parent's with an orchid for Mother's Day, there were two other people in the carriage so I placed it between the seats opposite so it wouldn't fall over as we went over the bad joint at Warrington/Trafford/Guide Bridge/Standegde/Dewsbury. The Guard asked me to move it or pay for a ticket, I accused her of being over-officious as there were only two other people in the carriage; I could understand if passengers were standing because of my plant.

She was most insistent, so in the end I relented. I wrote to the Customer Service team and told the story, I finished by asking how much a ticket would cost - the plant was under five years old and thus would travel free surely? They wrote back saying that under fives are expected to sit on their parents lap, and that "We hope your plant will be happy to travel with First Transpennine Express again." ;D I was glad that the Customer Service bod saw the ridiculity of it all!

I think the restrictions are perfectly logical to be honest.

On the subject of railcards, I don't understand why ATOC haven't introduced a national railcard scheme. It's a no-brainer, most off peak trains are just transporting fresh air, and to get people to use them, fares need to be cheaper. According to research, an extra 15% in passengers numbers during off-peak in effect at no extra cost as the trains have to run with or without passengers if a national scheme was introduced. This would reduce the subsidy from the Govt as well. You could pretty much abolish all other railcards (as the other cards have very little additional benefit over a national scheme) making Guards/RPIs jobs easier. If you want we could make the card free of charge for people who would get their own category of railcard, such as young or disabled people.

NSE introduced the Network SouthEast Card but after privatistaion ATOC has slowly added more restrictions. I bet if BR was still about, a national railcard would've been introduced, just like most stated owned networks in Europe.

10am restrictions are pretty unfair when the train leaves at 9.55am and the next one is at 10.55am!