Thetownend.com

Just looking to go to London in a few weeks. Two adults £49 each!? Thought it was only 30something.

May have to look at these rail cards but don't really know what is best. I assume you can't just borrow a mates if they have one and actually have to have yours on you when you travel?

A railcard is only really useful if you are going to travel regularly. I bought a Network railcard for £30 but I'm travelling to London 3 times a week from Northamptonshire so it paid for itself within the first month of me buying rail tickets. For me it saves me 1/3 on my return journey from Euston out of London - I suspect it'll be the same for your journey from London to Swindon (i'm assuming that's where your travelling from/to).

Train travel is extortionate in this country and ticket prices are going up again next April I expect.

Yeah just looking to get from Swindon to London. I'm sure I looked the other week and it was only 30something each. Big increase.

Gert the ''two together railcard''. That's £30 for a year, it's an app & you then have both pics of the two members on it, I think I've only had to show the pics once tbh.

I don't know if it's the same on GWR but I find that buying singles for specific trains tends to be much the cheapest way to do it. It's a pain as it takes any flexibility out of travelling, but might be worth having a look at more 'off peak' times to see if single tickets save you any money.

Did see that one and was thinking about it. Saw you can get it half price some places, one was Tesco but I don't seem to have enough clubcard points. If its a third off though its paying for itself pretty quickly.

Have you tried split ticketing as that may be cheaper, the odd one up here is that if I go from Oxenholme to Newcastle it saves a fortune to split it into Oxenholme-Carlisle and then a second ticket from Carlisle to Newcastle vs. just getting a simple Oxenholme-Newcastle ticket.

I think there are various app's that will do it for you, in that case the nice bloke behind the counter in the ticket office advised me!

Tried the old split at didcot trick and it didn't make a difference. Used to reduce it by about 15 to 20% that.

Train fares do seem to have gone up a lot recently, I have a railcard plus 9 times out of 10 if I am travelling any distance a client is paying it so I don't bother spending age on it but it is a sodding joke, probably not helped on Swindon-London with GWR having no competition.

We bought a Two together railcard using Tesco Clubcard vouchers.

When the voucher exchange was 3 for 1 the railcard effectively cost us £10 & we saved about £30 on our first train into London.

Weirdly as I'm going to Stratford, I put that in instead of Paddington and planning to just use contactless for tube and its coming up as 43 each including tube. That is a bit more reasonable.

That might be factoring in Elizabeth Line from Paddington to Stratford which might be better value than a standard tube journey.

I know you are travelling from further away but, if you can find on street parking close to a tube station in outer London, Mrs F and I travel for around £8- £9 each using contactless on the tube.

Aye, remember when we played Millwall away on Boxing Day a few years back.
Drove to start of Jubilee Line at Stanmore.
Massive car park. All good.
Got back to find that some cunt had parked so close that I could only get in via passenger side which involved a bit of contortion to get over the gear stick, but yeah & drive / tube option can be a good one.

Have you looked into driving to Oxford Parkway and getting the train into Marleybone as parking is cheap.

Parking tariffs for Oxford Parkway station:
Up to one hour: Free.
Up to 11 hours: £2.00.
Between 11 and 24 hours: £4.00.
Between 24 and 48 hours: £8.00.
Between 48 and 72 hours: £12.00.
https://www.nationalrail.co.uk › o...
Oxford Parkway Station - National Rail

You treacherous dog.
We have a perfectly good railway station at Swindon and yet you suggest that CWIG should drive to Oxford, OXFORD!?
What on earth is wrong with you? I despair.

If you are going to do that, you may as well drive to Reading or Maidenhead and get on the Elizabeth Line from there.

I'm drinking anyway or I'd probably just drive so far and tube in yeah.

Does the elizabeth line actually go as far as Reading? I keep seeing that it does but haven't actually seen any evidence of it with online timings.

Allegedly, although I never seem to get on a train bound for Reading when I leave work at CW back in the Paddington direction - usually Maidenhead or Heathrow are the end destinations. Having a quick look at the TFL site, it suggests they run every 15-30 minutes.

Only a suggestion not gemmed up like yourself.

Only joshing Jimbo.
In fact, ashamed to admit that I did look at Oxford Parkway as a possible drive / rail option for a work trip the other day!

I do know people that prefer driving to Parkway and getting the train into London rather than driving along the M4 and parking up. Just have to forget its enemy territory😆

Never forget the best thing’s about Oxford are the means of leaving.

Yep, I've got the tube into London from Reading. You do have to change trains at some point.