As I have said before Advance is cheaper, Turn up and go fares dearer than they were a few years ago as the above example shows.
Bit off topic but still fares related. Tomorrow will see trains running every 20 minutes between London-Birmingham/Manchester which is EXCELLENT. Not only that Virgin are offering Advance fares to these destinations starting at just ^5.50/^8.50 which again is EXCELLENT.
My point is that running every 20 minutes makes no difference if to get the cheapest fares you still have to book in advance. Surely the point of running every 20 minutes should be to promote a good value turn up and go rail system because of the extra capacity you could offer cheaper turn up and go fares at off-peak times.
More trains increase the availiabilty of Advance fares and obviously compare favourably to flying
To Manchester and Scotland yes
You cant fly London to Brum - many times I wish I could have done it in reverse.
e.g. 930 am translatlantic from LHR - oh for a
BHX▸ shuttle........