Train ticket help please

Pokebus

I'm planning a trip to Manchester from Cambridge soon & I've realised that by splitting the journey into 4 separate singles (Cambridge to Birmingham, Birmingham to Manchester & reverse) that I can get ticket price down to under £40 return which is great, but I'm a little worried.... I've given myself ample time to change trains at Birmingham (apparently it's got about 93 platforms) but what if one of my trains is unexpectedly late or delayed or cancelled? If I then miss my connecting train will I be forced to stump up the usual price?
Any advice gratefully received.

Tabitha
(Wife of Pokebus)

robt_2

Short answer - if your booking advance tickets, then yes.

McKneff

Have you tried to get a price for one way letting the train company sort out connections and the same coming back, if the price is okay i would go for that.

Just yeserday we got the train from Oxford, had to change at Birmingham, (we had 15 mintes to do this)
The train from Oxford was five minutes late setting off, so we had a 10 minute leeway, then within 2 miles of Birmingham some mindless moron pressed the emergency button so we were at a standstill for 10 minutes and
we missed our connection by just 2 minutes. The rail company just stamped our tickets (because it was their fault) and we were on our way on the next train an hour later.
Peace of mind is worth at least a couple of quid

yorkie2

Try splitting at a point where you do not need to change trains where the train calls? e.g. instead of Birmingham, try splitting at Wolverhampton?

National_Conditions_of_Carriage wrote:

You may use two or more tickets to travel on one train journey as long as together they cover the entire journey and one of the following applies:-

(a) they are zonal tickets;

(b) the train you are on calls at the station where you change from one ticket to another; or

(c) one of the tickets is a season ticket...