Travelling to Theatres (and back) by Public Transport

No problem and now we have a dedicated thread for such matters I'll be delighted to help anyone else looking for suggestions how to save money on public transport.

I should mention that most of my knowledge has been gained from the excellent RailUK forums and that's where the real experts are.

Erm, sometimes, not always. Though I've certainly managed to lie to a ticket-checking guy that I was CERTAIN it was included *eyelash flutter* when it wasn't and he believed me and let me off the hook. Always read the small print.

Also, don't mistake public transport in Germany for London. If I want to go home from the local musical theatre, it takes me about 15 mins by car in total and 20 minutes by bike. If I use public transport, it takes at least 40 minutes and nothing tanks my mood like arriving at the nearest stop after a ten minute walk late in the evening to see the next tram will be along in 14 minutes.

So whenever weather allows, I'll go by bike and if my mum comes in from the sticks, we go by car.  Public transport only last-resort when the weather is awful and I'm alone. 

So, in short, yes it's a good idea on the whole, but in order to get people to use public transport, said public transport must improve A LOT. 

Thought I would mention yet another route that can be considered when booking trains to Leeds. For my particular journey travelling up on a Friday this looks to be cheaper for me than LNER for the outward journey.

Grand Central London Kings Cross to Wakefield Kirkgate Advance £13.50
Northern Trains Wakefield Kirkgate to Leeds Std single £4.30 (or £5.60 Return)

As the second leg is an anytime ticket there are no worries about missing a connection.

Can give your destination and date?

Advance tickets for weekend journeys on some rail companies are currently only made available for booking  4 -6  weeks before the dates of travel. You may have to wait until March to book your return journeys. You can, however, already book some April weekend tickets and if you post more detail either here or on the other thread  I'll give you some specifics if I can. As an example I recently booked London to Leeds via Wakefield on Saturday 4 April for £11.75 with a railcard (about £18 no railcard)

Sign up here
www.lner.co.uk/travel-information/travelling-later/early-bird-ticket-alerts/
for your travel days and they should email you when the advance tickets come free. They've not anounced any days in April as having Kings Cross shut, so they wil become available. And they're usually cheap for Saturday afternoons, as the day trippers all come home later...

Ah sorry that would've been a good idea! So it's April 11th, and the destination is Bradford (it has two stations, either is fine - going via Leeds is fine too)

The 10.48 and 15.48 direct Grand Central trains from Kings Cross to Bradford should have their £15 advance fares for Saturday 11 April available by the end of the month.

For later departures to Bradford with LNER costing from £18.50 lichtie's advice is spot on but they are sometimes on sale before emails are sent out. They aren't yet available beyond 7 March.

Oh great. Looks like I'll be spending more time than usual on the slower Liverpool Street line in the next year. As if I don't spend enough time on trains already! Given, as far as I can see, the work is to improve the East Coast mainline & not the branch to Cambridge, it doesn't look like I'll even be getting any long-term benefit from it.