Train tickets and times

August: As the train from Thurso to Edinburgh was over an hour late I claimed the fare back under the Passengers Charter.
Three weeks later I received travel vouchers for the full amount (£15.70), plus £5 compensation for Scotrail not responding within 7 days. 

13 July:
Picked up the train tickets from the machine yesterdat...took a while!  
QUESTION: How many tickets do you need to get one passenger and a bike from Thurso to Deal..?
ANSWER: 11 (!)

 8 May: The train tickets from Scotland are booked ! The cheap tickets appeared this morning and I bought them straight away. Thurso to Edinburgh, with bike for £15.70 (not bad for a journey of 7hours 40mins). (Got this 
refunded....SEE ABOVE) Edinburgh to Deal with bike for £47. Splitting it like this not only meant saving money, but I can choose the train from Edinburgh. I'm getting the 1730 from Edinburgh arriving in Deal at 0034 with only one change. Just for interest, the website price of a ticket Thurso to Deal was £185 (!). I paid £62.70......

7 May: Bought a single ticket from Deal to Penzance for £26.50. According to the timetable on the internet, the train departs Deal at 1040 and arrives Penzance 1830.  However the connection time in London was only 50 minutes and getting from St. Pancras to Paddington with a laden bike through London will take at least half an hour I reckon, so somehow needed to get an earlier train from Deal.....
To depart and hour earlier from Deal meant  a more expensive ticket...so I typed in Deal to Penzance via Waterloo (!)...... and a ticket came up leaving Deal an hour earlier but for the same price. Result!

5 May: Change of plan. Found out that there are Thurso - Edinburgh tickets for £15.70. That's an amazing price for a 7.5 hour journey. Of course I'll have to wait a week to book, as the price now is £61. Edinburgh to Deal is (will be...) £47. Price now: £ 149 (!) Who pays these prices?
Having trouble getting a bike space on the London to Penzance sleeper. I book a bike space but it keeps losing it when reviewing the booking. Got in touch with First Great Western who told me there probably aren't any spaces left. I'm going to call them to make sure. If it's true I'll take a day train down and stay overnight in a B&B
Just phoned FGW and indeed, there are no bike spaces available on the sleeper (there are only 2...) I wonder who nabbed them before me?? I'll therefore get a day train down and overnight B&B....

27 April: Train tickets have become available from Thurso to Inverness! This should be exciting news....but no. Tickets can be bought but it's not possible to reserve a seat. No seat reservation = no bicycle reservation. It appears that seat/bike reservations are only available later on (about a week later it would appear..) Another anomaly of the British system...

8 April: The UK has probably the most complicated and strange ticketing systems in the known universe!  Tickets become available 3 months before travel and one would have thought these would be the cheapest. Not true! Wait a bit and the prices go down...soemtimes considerably. It's also worth spending some time (...lots of it...) looking into splitting the journey and buying singles for each part.
At the moment, a single from Deal to Penzance in July costs around £140 but I reckon I'll get that for £50 with a bit of luck! Thurso to Deal is £185 (!) at present. I hope to pay about £60 by splitting it up. 

Train times

17 July
Deal d. 0941
Ashford a. 1028
Ashford d. 1043
London St. Pancras a. 1121
London Paddington d. 1306
Penzance a. 1833

30 July
Thurso d. 0841
Inverness a. 1213
Inverness d. 1253
Edinburgh a.1622
Edinburgh d.1730
London King's Cross a. 2217
London St. Pancras d. 2312
Deal a. 0034

 




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