I'm 34 and looking at travelling by train once a month to a town game or/and back to Grimsby from the southwest. I'm trying to work out which rail card would be best. Any I try that I'm technically eligible for I save next to nothing. Yet when I look at ones such as the 26-30 I get hefty savings....

Quoted from lukeo

I'm 34 and looking at travelling by train once a month to a town game or/and back to Grimsby from the southwest. I'm trying to work out which rail card would be best. Any I try that I'm technically eligible for I save next to nothing. Yet when I look at ones such as the 26-30 I get hefty savings....

Try split ticketing, it might help.

Quoted from lukeo

I'm 34 and looking at travelling by train once a month to a town game or/and back to Grimsby from the southwest. I'm trying to work out which rail card would be best. Any I try that I'm technically eligible for I save next to nothing. Yet when I look at ones such as the 26-30 I get hefty savings....

It's not the cost you need to worry about, it's if the trains are running.

TransPennine up here are shocking, getting as bad as Stagecoach.

Quoted from DB

Try split ticketing, it might help.

This does help a bit.

*edit* I've managed to find a way of getting myself and son from taunton to Grimsby and back for £107 (I'd need a family rail cars though) probably about the same price as if I drove so very tempting

Unfortunately, it's not just the cost you have to consider, but also the reliability. My wife took a train to Sheffield yesterday to visit her sister. The train she was booked on (4.25-ish) was cancelled, as were all the others until later at night so I ended up having to leave work to look after the kids so she could catch the train an hour earlier - the only one running for about 6 or 7 hours! She's due back on Sunday and I fully expect I may have to drive to pick her up. Wouldn't surprise me if most of the train services were cancelled.

We're turning into a flipping third world country under the idiots running the show (into the ground). It would be a massive gamble to travel all the way from the south west on the train as things stand!

I've basically all but given up trying to go to away games on the train now, you just can't rely at all on them (nor can you get cheap advance tickets reliably like you could pre-pandemic). It's stupid because it's my preferred method of long travel but instead i'm forced into driving everywhere instead which isn't exactly great for the environment is it!

Dang. I appreciate the responses guys. I was hoping to come up on the 27th Dec and go back on the 31st. Do you not get compensation, refund or offered other transport if its cancelled?

Quoted from lukeo

Do you not get compensation, refund or offered other transport if its cancelled?

Supposedly but they make it a proper struggle to sort out with some stations having nobody working in them due to cuts or maze like customer services. I went a gig in Manchester from Warrington this week and there were no trains back from 9pm onwards as they were all cancelled due to 'short notice cancellations'. There was only a rail replacement bus just before midnight which would've got us home at 1.30am. Paid £35 for an uber instead which got us home in 20 minutes.

The country is tanking, is going to excrement and surrounded by actual excrement pumped into the sea. 🇬🇧

Unless you're a full-time student you aren't eligible for a rail card to use on your own. If you're traveling with a child, get a family one or if it's two adults, a Two Together card. Otherwise, try split ticketing.

When all else fails massage your thumb and have good pair of walking boots. 8)

I've just bought a family rail card...
£120 for me and my lad to get to Grimsby and back between Christmas and New year.
£30 for swindon away (cheaper to buy us both a ticket with the rail card then me solo without one, he will just be 'ill' on the day and unable to travel  ;) )

I use the line regularly to come down to Grimsby and without fail, every week - TPE cancel the services. It's an absolute shambles, it's gotten to the point where I'm having to finish work earlier to get an earlier train.

Sooner TPE give the route to another operator who'll actually run it properly, the better.

Good luck mate.

Thanks fella.
I've managed to do it with only 1 change. Taunton - Sheffield - Grimsby (same on the way back)
I have a feeling I may have some issues with sheffield - Grimsby (vice versa) but we arrive in Sheffield around 4.30pm so hopefully there will be a train at some point if ours does get cancelled, the way home is the 10.53 so i'll just make sure i'm awake early and see if theres any trains before it if it is cancelled  :D :B

Coming back from London yesterday Doncaster to Clee cancelled and they provided taxis and I was in Cleethorpes 5 minute early!

Had been offered a job interview for a 28k a year position in Stockport, but trains cancelled and was unable to attend, this was back in October.  :o

The following week I was hoping to attend a job fayre at Manchester United football ground, but same thing again.

Quoted from Nelly GTFC

Had been offered a job interview for a 28k a year position in Stockport, but trains cancelled and was unable to attend, this was back in October.  :o

The following week I was hoping to attend a job fayre at Manchester United football ground, but same thing again.

Sorry to hear that, it's just a never ending stream of awful service that is affecting peoples lives so negatively. People need to stop falling for cheap stuff like Northern powerhouses, building back better and levelling up. You can't do any of that with a third world public transport system.

Things haven't got any better for TPE, they point blanked refused to stick me and my daughter in a taxi yesterday from Doncaster as they cancelled our service last minute. Tried to fob us off and say it was strike day, when it wasn't.

Shambles of a service.

Well that didn't go to plan
... I was in the platform 30mins early, everything seemed OK, train was 5 minutes delayed... no big issue.
All of a sudden it said cancelled. Then many other trains became delayed and cancelled... Well over 100 people stood at taunton station (not the biggest). 1 lady i got chatting to was from Cleetohrpes and literally had the same trains as me, I hope she managed to get home! We've had to cancel our visit and I was refunded MOST of my money (£90) as they took away a cancellation fee and apparently my tip between taunton and Bristol was non refundable.

Entirely expected, unfortunately! It's a fool's errand trying to plan anything around a train journey at the moment. The franchises have their profits protected by the government so they've got no willingness to negotiate with the unions or, for that matter, to provide a decent service even when there isn't any industrial action. Absolute shambles.

Quoted from lukeo

Well that didn't go to plan
... I was in the platform 30mins early, everything seemed OK, train was 5 minutes delayed... no big issue.
All of a sudden it said cancelled. Then many other trains became delayed and cancelled... Well over 100 people stood at taunton station (not the biggest). 1 lady i got chatting to was from Cleetohrpes and literally had the same trains as me, I hope she managed to get home! We've had to cancel our visit and I was refunded MOST of my money (£90) as they took away a cancellation fee and apparently my tip between taunton and Bristol was non refundable.

If you claimed delay repay you would have got every single penny back.

I booked through trip.com and they take an admin charge..
The cancellation was through a signal fault apparently

Quoted from lukeo

I booked through trip.com and they take an admin charge..
The cancellation was through a signal fault apparently

Delay repay is claimed through the train companies, you can still claim delay repay even if you have booked your ticket through another retailer, also delay repay does not charge any admin fees or anything.

Too late now but something to remember for the future

Thanks for that... For all of my sins I've booked a train for Swindon away, this time through the trainline . Com

I'm in communication with trip.com at the moment and looks like I'll be getting a bit more back

By all accounts TrampPeasant Excuse have quit bothering about their customers, they know they've lost the contract and deservedly so.
I hope Abellio who are tipped to take over perform better.

Quoted from lukeo

Thanks for that... For all of my sins I've booked a train for Swindon away, this time through the trainline . Com

I'm in communication with trip.com at the moment and looks like I'll be getting a bit more back

Train was cancelled. Last time I try it. So I've wasted £30 on a family ticket and will cut my loses at that and never try again.

It's taken them many years of work (Thatcher era and since 2010), but signs appear to be that the Tories have finally managed to break the country as all the privatised industries are now failing. Massive bills to the government following the failure of many energy companies who couldn't cover their losses in the pretend market created to give the illusion of choice. Water companies have stripped all the money out of the system that they could to give to shareholders and now pump excrement into the waterways at the drop of a hat.

Postal service has gone to excrement. The chaos during the first couple of years of the pandemic was understandable, but the management spent £400 million on a share buyback in 2021 rather than investing in new technology and now they are trying to screw the postmen over to turn them into gig workers to compete with the likes of Evri/Hermes.

Social care massively underfunded because the block grant to the councils who pay for it has been hacked back again and again, the NHS teetering on the brink thanks to underfunding leading to crumbling buildings, not enough beds and a complete lack of forward planning.

No surprise that the trains have been a basket case for some years but the tipping point has been reached and half of the franchises aren't even pretending to offer a proper service. They are still getting paid whether or not they run the trains!

It comes to something when you've got to give up on making plans because there is little chance of the train service running. A landmark birthday for me this year and we had tentatively discussed taking the train up to Edinburgh for a couple of nights (providing babysitters could be arranged). Had to knock that plan on the head. I don't fancy driving up there as it wouldn't be nearly as relaxing.

What a shitshow this country is becoming.

Well, I am looking forward to my weekly visit to Grimsby tomorrow.

Leave Darlington at 6.34am & arrive in Grimsby just before 10.45am, absolutely ridiculous.

Bus from Darlo to York (Engineering work).
York to Doncaster.
Doncaster to Grimsby & 1 hour waiting in total between York & train to Grimsby.

Wouldn't shock me either if TPE cancel my 9.39am train too. Paying £76 for the privilege too.

Sadly and despicably, the train operators get paid by the government whatever happens, so basically they don't give a fook whether the trains run or not.

What a wonderful government we have.

And that’s why the strikes are continuing Ginny, the government aren’t budging, the RMT are deliberating over the new offer (which is basically the same as the last one) I think they’ll put it out to vote to it’s members, Network rail and the government know a lot of the workforce are struggling financially so will hold out, it’s a sad state of affairs mate.

Quoted from cmackenzie4

And that’s why the strikes are continuing Ginny, the government aren’t budging, the RMT are deliberating over the new offer (which is basically the same as the last one) I think they’ll put it out to vote to it’s members, Network rail and the government know a lot of the workforce are struggling financially so will hold out, it’s a sad state of affairs mate.

I'm getting a clear signal that the government are just trying to derail everything Chris 😏

Quoted from lukeo

I've just bought a family rail card...
£120 for me and my lad to get to Grimsby and back between Christmas and New year.
£30 for swindon away (cheaper to buy us both a ticket with the rail card then me solo without one, he will just be 'ill' on the day and unable to travel  ;) )

Can't do that - no accompanying sprog, no discounted adult ticket.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64680175

Hopefully TPE lost their contract at the end of May as they've been nothing short of a shambles.

My lad travelled back from Sheffield for the Colchester game, arrived in Clee around 12p.m...his return train options were steadily being cancelled as he was travelling , so by the time he arrived at 12p.m his one return train option was the 12.25 train....ridiculous.

I well remember the Tory campaign of 2010 in which they said that we lived in "Broken Britain".

Evidently, it wasn't broken enough for them, and they have spent 13 years breaking it some more.

The trains, like many other institutions, are a disgrace in a so called modern society.