Any advice gratefully accepted. I now need to travel to Plymouth twice a month from Newbury at the weekend. Sometimes it is travel there on Saturday and back Sunday, sometimes on one of the days there and back same day. Often the journey is finalized at the last minute making advance tickets sold out/expensive. I don't qualify for any railcards and am under 55.

Usually I use a off Peak return @ ^64.00. I have been looking at split fares and realized that if I buy a combination of day returns Newbury-Westbury-Taunton- Exeter-Plymouth on the days I go there and back in a day the total fare is ^45.50 for the four day returns which are cheaper than off peak return (^64). Providing I am on a train that stops at all I presume this is ok - the day return fare doesn't exist for Newbury to Plymouth (only the off peak return).

1. Am I right on the day returns
2. Am I missing a trick in some combination of tickets that I could use to bring down cost (is there a break point that I should be looking at).

Any thoughts or help would be great.

Thanks for tip off had missed this completely so advised family and friends in area.

When I lived in Gunnislake and used to go and see my sons in Brighton very regularly we tried every combination and decided best route was via Reading - Gatwick mainly for relatively easy platform changes, comfort of journey and length of journey. This was also their favorite for coming to see us.

Used Exeter - Clapham - Brighton (SW trains) several times as cheap but longer - got really fed up with booking seats that were not tagged and subsequent fight to sit down.  There also used to be a single weekend Plymouth - Brighton direct which I would recommend to no one if it is still running.

I wasn't taking much notice at Newbury on Thursday but would like to know what the odd formation I saw displayed on the destination board actually was - is there anyway that I find out ie  do messages like trains running short or in reverse, or in this case with coaches out of order that get displayed get saved anywhere.

That does explain it and presumably they were being careful re platform 10 too and didn't display 3.18 until later because of alert.

Many thanks.

I use the 7.47 from Newbury which I thinks starts Exeter and that uses 5.

Interestingly exercise going on at Plymouth as well http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/8023826.stm this week so may just be exercise but certainly seemed interested in two distinct areas of Paddington yesterday.

Does anyone know what was happening at Paddington today which was swarming with police some who arrived under blue lights. There seems to be concentrating around platform 5 and the left luggage office on platform 11?

Just being nosy really. Caught the 15.18 from platform 10 which literally platform wasn't displayed until 15.10 which was fun. Anyone know

I accept the comment re it has to be done (and that there are many years to catch up on and you cant take every event into consideration) but as a ordinary member of the public who trys to use trains when possible rather than be a single passenger in a car, this weekend has done nothing to encourage me that I should (and I suspect there are a lot of fellow passengers today who feel the same).

My journey today Newbury to Burgess Hill.

No trains to Reading - option drive to Reading
No trains from Reading to Gatwick via Guildford - option go via Clapham Junction.
Decide to go Basingstoke - Clapham Junction to save some time (drive to Basingstoke)
First SW Basingstoke - Clapham Junction standing as full.
Train Clapham Junction - Burgess Hill given by rail enquiries not running. Alternative to Haywards Heath - just got seat
Rail Relief Bus Hayward Heath - Burgess Hill - not enough buses so queues and short fuses
Same return standing all the way from Clapham Junction to Basingstoke.

Next time I'll take the car.

Conclusion too many engineering stoppages in one day in a relatively small area of the South East and not enough capacity on the trains that did run for what ever reason. I know its not FGW^▸ (First Great Western) but Haywards Heath was amazing with the number of passengers they were trying to cram on to too few buses - someone got it wrong and a goodly number of passengers had a very poor traveling experience which does the idea of leisure rail travel no good.

Thats my lot and end of my moaning.

I guess my real complaint was that there was so much going on this weekend and from a traffic flow perspective this couldn't have been a good day to choose. Apart from the London Marathon there were a lot of people traveling - it was almost like a weekday rush hour at times. Surely the planners must have some idea that this was going to be such a busy weekend (or maybe I am being Naive) . Having so many stoppages just wasn't clever.

Is it just me or is there no coordination with major events/likely travel patterns that draw crowds on railway lines vs engineering works.

London Marathon today and anyone who wanted to travel to London via the Kennet Valley line was pretty much stuffed. Ended up driving to Basingstoke and using the very packed South West Trains service.

Having moaned about First Great Western - Southern had also scheduled engineering works between Haywards Heath and Brighton on what turned out to be a lovely sunny day - fights were nearly breaking out as hoards of travelers tried to get on to rail relief buses.

Add to this the fact that there seemed to be no service Reading to Gatwick which was causing chaos at Gatwick.

Not a day to try and travel by rail.

Must have caused some damage. I thought the two were unconnected. Thanks for info.

Just found pic on http://www.tauntontrains.co.uk/NEWS-INFO.htm

Anyone know what was happening at Westbury??? Just come up from Plymouth on the 10.44 Paddington ( four stops only - Exeter St Davids, Bristol Temple Meads, Reading, Paddington). Didn't get into Reading until 14.45.

Crawled around Taunton with Train Manager advising no trains Taunton to Westbury (signaling fault). Further interest was the Cardiff and Old Oak cranes in the yard at Taunton with a wagon on it side minus bogies seemingly having split the yard throat.

I had friend traveling down last night from Reading late on an Advance Purchase - was advised not to travel. Traveled today to Plymouth as all restrictions had been lifted for travel today on yesterdays tickets (even Advance Purchase which seemed valid on any train).

I can see what you mean definitely Theale like

Andy

It normally does but was out of order. Having said that the machine at Newbury didn't take cards for about four days during January.

But you are right if everyone uses cash -could be well worth ram raiding.

Andy