Cheap and flexible single rail tickets

ahenry

Stena has some rail and sail tickets for travel between Belfast, Dublin and Rosslaire and any railway station on the mainland UK.

The best thing about these tickets is that they are a fixed price and they are available with no booking, and as I understand it, you can travel on peak hours trains at busy times of the year (finding a seat may be another matter). There are no quotas of cheap tickets like with Super Advance tickets - the only restriction may be if there is no more space on the ferry. For foot passengers, I would have thought that that was going to be pretty rare.

For instance for the Belfast Stranraer ferry http://www.stenaline.co.uk/stena_line/stena_line_uk/belfast_-_stranraer/gb/by_rail.html the most expensive single tickets are £46 Children pay half this. They also have discounts for railcards (Senior and Young Persons).
With this, you can start from somewhere like Penzance, go to Glasgow, Stranraer, on the ferry to Belfast and then on a bus into the centre of Belfast.

A normal single ticket from Penzance to Glasgow would be £147.50 (!)

You can pay cash for this ticket. You will always need to change trains at Glasgow so, I don't see that they can stop you if you wanted to just use it between Penzance and Glasgow. There could be a problem if you try to leave a station that has automatic ticket barriers. However, it is quite normal to need to go to parts of the station on the open side of the barriers (to go to the toilet, or a shop), and then you would be free to make your escape.

For a return trip, then you might need to have had the ticket stamped from the start of the journey, so it might not be valid for a Glasgow-Penzance single. I haven't tried this so I don't know how it would work out.

There are also some apex fares which are slightly cheaper, but need to be booked and don't have any further discounts.

There are similar tickets for the Fishguard Rosslaire route (anywhere on the mainland of the UK to Fishguard and then on the ferry to Rosslaire for £29 or less) http://www.stenaline.co.uk/stena_line/stena_line_uk/fishguard-rosslare/gb/by_rail.html
or to Holyhead, Dun Laoghaire and Dublin for £27 http://www.stenaline.co.uk/stena_line/stena_line_uk/holyhead-d_laoghaire/gb/by_rail.html

http://www.seat61.com/Ireland.htm has a lot more detail on the various options.

Flying will be quicker than taking the train for a lot of journeys, and often at off peak times it will be cheaper. There are hidden costs though. I flew to Northern Ireland last weekend. The night before was a bit of a panic to find passports. They aren't required for a border crossing, but as photo ID. Parking for a couple of days was £20 and then I got stuck for another £79 when I found that I had made an error typing in one of the names. £19 of this for administration fees and £60 as Easyjet effectively refund you the cost of the old ticket and sell you a new one at whatever the going rate is when you make the change).

caliston

For gory details of the restrictions, see the relevant Rail Links manual (section D).

The rules are slightly different for each route. Exactly what the restrictions are on the train sections are isn't clear - some say a ticket isn't valid without a through reservation. Some say tickets must be sold at least 7 days in advance (so they're not quite as flexible). Some say that you'll be accommodated on a later train if your ferry is late, which imply you must travel on the reserved train if it isn't. Read the small print carefully.

munsterforever

hmmm. i'm after going to penzance from dublin on one of these rail and sail tickets-does anyone know if i would be allowed to take the euston train from holyhead and then get the tube to paddington and go to penzance that way? or will they make me go to brum and changer there and plymouth.

If you are allowed to go via london i would take the sleeper from paddington and pay the extra charge for the berth-would that be ok?