I cannot remember if this has been posted before. Whenever we go back to see our family in England, we prefere to travel by train? Brive to Paris, Paris to London and then to Brighton/Worthing. We have always booked three months in advance to get the best "Prem rate". We, after our youngest son had a major accident this summer, had to look at other ways of getting back other than flying. We have found thetrainline.com We are going in three weeks and have saved a THIRD of the price. and all tickets are e-mailed or ready for collection. A huge saving for us and one we can use as an emergency. Son suffered a fractured skull and eye socket, mountain biking without a helmet, and he is a serving Police Officer!!!!! All well now.
Judy
Judy

quote:

Son suffered a fractured skull and eye socket, mountain biking without a helmet, and he is a serving Police Officer!!!!! All well now.

O Judy !
What a nightmare. Glad he is recovering. I can't even begin to imagine your anguish.

I nearly forgot the train info. Very good to know. Thanx.
Hope you and he get better all the time.

Thank you for the link Judy, I've had a look at the site and it does look interesting, great piece of info there.
Glad to know your son is recovering, what a fright it must have been. Now he WILL wear a helmet won't he.

Thank you both, a good way to travel throughout England, all prices good but before booking try a few times, prices change all the time.
Yes son WILL wear a helmet, he hasn't been back to where he had the accident yet but has got on the Bike.Thanks for your thoughts.
For all my friends in the States, we became Grandparents on Sunday, to a little boy Luka, born in Atlanta, where my eldest son and his beautiful wife live. Will need slow travel now for travelling the States, and meeting extended family. Hard life being "retired "

Thanks Judy. This is helpful information. I wasn't certain if the site was open to visitors living outside of the UK and Europe so I signed up as a user. No problems. I also tested it by trying to purchase a ticket from London to Edinburgh and it seems to work fine. I put that I wanted to pick it up at a self-service machine and I got all the way to where it wanted my credit card. So I'm guessing this will work fine for all travelers. It would be great if someone from North America could confirm. (I'm going to shortcut it to the UK forum).

Here's a link to the website:
The Trainline
I left of 'the' in the address at first and got to the website for the band Train. Oops...

I also noticed that they have a Twitter account and an application for the iPhone. The twitter account looks useful especially if you have any questions on booking a ticket.

Thanks again.

(Also, I wish your son a speedy recovery)

thetrainline.com is run by one of the rail companies (Virgin, IIRC). If you use www.nationalrail.co.uk, you will have the option of buying from several ticket retailers, including the company that's actually running the train in question.

In addition, The Trainline charges for credit card transactions. Most of the railway companies make no charge.

The option to print the ticket at a machine in your chosen station works very well. It doesn't have to be the station that you are travelling from, it can be any station with a ticket machine.

PatrickLondon, do you mean to say that the costs will be the same whether we book from the trainline or through nationalrail.co.uk?
Would this be a way to avoid the extra cost that the trainline charges for credit card transactions?

You can also use this train company site, they sell tickets for all routes and there is no surcharge etc.

http://www.nationalexpress.com/trainslanding.aspx