Buying train tickets....Urgent advice please.

looby75

I've got to travel from Kilmarnock to Durham today. To buy single ticket from Kilmarnock to Durham it costs £42.70

My sister has told me that it is much cheaper if I buy a ticket from Kilmarnock to Carlisle (£12.90) and then another ticket from Carlisle to Durham (again £12.90) The only problem is I won't have time to get off the train at Carlisle and get to the ticket office to buy another ticket before the train leaves.

Will it be possible to buy both tickets at Kilmarnock station, or to buy the second half of my ticket on the train?

Thanks in advance.

pompeyrich

What a good find by your sister, you should be able to buy a ticket to or from anywhere from any station so give it a try in Kilmarnock if not it should be fine to buy on the train as the fare you quote is a standard single, it might be an idea to look for the guard as this would show you were genuinely looking to pay.

Altarf

You can (and perhaps should) buy both tickets before you get on the first train. Any station will sell a ticket from anywhere to anywhere (with a few odd exceptions).

One thing to be careful of is that the if you have a Kilmarnock to Carlisle ticket and a Carlisle to Durham ticket, the train must stop at Carlisle and not just go through Carlisle. You don't actually have to get off and back on the train, you just need to have been able to do so to make the tickets valid.

There a huge number of journeys where it is cheaper to buy two tickets, but the railway staff are not allowed to tell you. They can only tell you the cheapest ticket for the journey you asked for as one ticket.

The only way to find out is to have a look at the train routes and then have a play with the National Rail Enquiries web site. But as I said before, do make sure that the train you are on actually stops at the intermediate station.

To give you an example:

Nottingham to Luton - Open Return £78

Nottingham to Bedford plus a Bedford to Luton - Open Return £33+£13.80 = £46.80

A saving of £31.20. The only trouble is, although all the trains from Nottingham run through Bedford, only some of them stop. So if you do split tickets, you must make sure you are on the 'right' Luton train.

looby75

Thanks for your replys

I was able to get both tickets from Kilmarnock station, and it only cost me £25.10

I'm now going to try this for some of the other places I go to.

Altarf thanks for the the tip about the train having to stop at the station, I hadn't thought of that.