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Look up fares for any train journey in Britain |
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Looking for train times? | Check out BRtimes.com. |
Article 5(3) of European Union Directive
2002/58/EC as
amended by Directive
2009/136/EC requires
that we obtain user consent for the following:
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This is an independent website that allows expert users to fully explore the variety of fares offered by the train companies in Great Britain, without having to plan a journey or specify times and trains.
Note: Not all the fares shown on this site are available to the general public. The ticketing system is not simple, and some amount of prior knowledge is needed in order to use the site effectively.
BR Fares Response to Office of Rail
Regulation Retail Market Review Consultation, 31 October 2014
BR Fares Response to DfT
Consultation on Fares & Ticketing, 28 June 2012
Further Information | ||
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How to find Cheap Fares | ||
SINGLE TICKETS |
RETURN TICKETS |
SEASON TICKETS |
Railcards & Discounts |
LONDON TRAVELCARDS |
The Trains you may use |
Developer API |
ROVERS & RANGERS |
About this site |
Index of all Fares Locations Origins | Destinations | ||
List of all Rovers & Rangers |
HOW TO FIND CHEAP FARES |
There are four main ways in which this site can help you to find cheap train fares:
If you have a particular query about a journey you wish to make cheaply, the RailUK Fares Advice forum is usually a good place to ask.
SINGLE TICKETS |
Single tickets are identified by an orange header in the query results. They allow a single journey in one direction from the origin to the destination. They generally fall into one of three categories:
ANYTIME SINGLE (valid for 2 days) and ANYTIME DAY SINGLE (valid for 1 day); both with no restriction on break of journey. |
OFF-PEAK SINGLE and SUPER OFF-PEAK SINGLE; not always valid at all times (although an Off-Peak single sometimes might be) and break of journey may be restricted – check individual ticket restrictions. Valid for 2 days, however the journey must be commenced on the first day. An overnight stay en-route is allowed—although in the case where the individual ticket restrictions prohibit break of journey, only if the journey cannot reasonably be completed on the first day. The journey may be resumed at any time (taking account of any validity restrictions) on the second day. |
OFF-PEAK DAY SINGLE and SUPER OFF-PEAK DAY SINGLE; not valid at all times and break of journey may be restricted (although usually isn't) – check individual ticket restrictions. Valid for 1 day. |
Further information is available in the Ticket Types & Conditions section of the RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide.
RETURN TICKETS |
Return tickets are identified by a green header in the query results. They allow an outward journey from the origin to the destination together with a return journey back again, either on the same day or up to a month later, depending on the ticket type.
Almost all return tickets are walk-up fares, available to purchase at the same price either at the day and time of travel, or up to a year in advance. As with walk-up single fares, they do not tie you to travelling on a specific train. You may travel via any permitted route for the journey, and you have up to and including 04:29 in the morning following the last day of validity to complete your journey. Break of journey is allowed on the outward portion of most return tickets and on the return portion of almost all of them. Where the validity is longer than 1 day, this can include multiple overnight stays en-route if so desired.
The main types of return ticket are:
ANYTIME RETURN (outward portion valid for 5 days, return portion valid for 1 calendar month) and ANYTIME DAY RETURN (valid for 1 day; outward and return journeys must both be completed on this day). Both these tickets may be used at any time with no validity restrictions and have no restrictions on break of journey on either leg. |
OFF-PEAK RETURN and SUPER OFF-PEAK
RETURN. Not always valid at all
times (although an Off-Peak Return sometimes might be; check
individual ticket restrictions).
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OFF-PEAK DAY RETURN and SUPER OFF-PEAK DAY RETURN. Not valid at all times and break of journey may be restricted on either portion (although usually isn't) – check individual ticket restrictions. Valid for 1 day; outward and return journeys must both be completed on this day. |
Other types of return ticket that may occasionally be seen in the results of a fares enquiry include special package fares, that include e.g. car parking or catering in the price, special Duo or Groupsave tickets that allow more than one passenger to travel, and fares with a nominal value used for issuing complimentary tickets or for accounting purposes.
Further information is available in the Ticket Types & Conditions section of the RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide.
SEASON TICKETS |
Season tickets are identified by a blue header in the query results. They allow unlimited travel over all permitted routes between the origin and destination for the period of validity of the ticket, up to and including 04:29 on the day following the last day of validity. They have no validity restrictions and allow unlimited break of journey at all intermediate stations. They can usually only be purchased a few days (at the most) in advance of the beginning of their validity period.
Season tickets are normally available either for a period of 1 week,
or for any period between 1 month and 1 year. In most cases the price
of a longer period season is calculated using the weekly season as a
base rate, according to the following formula:
3.84 x (no. of whole months) + 0.64 x (no. of 5-day
periods) + 0.13 x (no. of remaining days)
with the result rounded up to the next 10p.
Note that any period between 10 months 13 days and 1 year is
calculated at a flat rate of 40 times the weekly base rate, so there
is no point in buying a season with a validity within this range; an
annual season will be the same price.
Selecting the relevant weekly ticket from the fares enquiry results will load the Season Ticket Calculator, which can be used to quickly and easily calculate the price of a longer period season for any period of your choosing. For commuters who only travel Monday to Friday, it is often advantageous to buy a season with an odd number of days, e.g. to start on a Monday and end on a Friday, and avoid paying for some weekends when the ticket would not be used.
Some journeys (mainly long distance journeys to London) have a separate base rate for calculating the price of a monthly or longer season. This is generally at a more advantageous rate than if the weekly price were to be used as a base rate (or indeed there may not even be a weekly season available for the journey). This is known as a market-priced season and where it exists, is shown separately to the weekly season in the fares enquiry results.
Further information is available in the Multi-Journey Tickets section of the RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide.
LONDON TRAVELCARDS |
London Travelcards allow unlimited travel on National Rail, London Underground, Docklands Light Railway and Croydon Tramlink services within the zones indicated on the ticket, and on all Transport for London-sponsored bus services, irrespective of the zones indicated on the ticket. They will be shown automatically as part of the results of a fares enquiry when the destination station lies within the London zones. To enable at-a-glance comparison of different Travelcard fares, the zones covered by each Travelcard are indicated below the ticket name.
A travelcard issued from an origin station outside the London zones is known as an Out-Boundary Travelcard, and allows either a return journey (in the case of a Day Travelcard), or unlimited travel (in the case of a Season Travelcard) along any permitted route from the origin station to any boundary station, together with unlimited travel within the London zones.
Any suitable boundary station may be used to calculate a permitted route to the London zones; the only requirements are that:
A normal "In-Boundary" Travelcard may be extended to cover a one-off or occasional journey outside the zones it covers by purchasing a boundary zone extension ticket. The price of these, where available (generally for destinations within the former British Rail Network SouthEast area), is queried by using a journey origin of BOUNDARY ZONE X, where X is the outermost zone covered by the Travelcard.
Travelcards can be grouped by their validity into three main types. Note that although a Travelcard's validity for rail travel expires after 04:29 on a given day, it is valid for any bus journeys that continue after this time, as long as they were started at 04:29 or earlier.
TRAVELCARD SEASON
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ANYTIME DAY TRAVELCARD
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OFF-PEAK DAY TRAVELCARD and SUPER OFF-PEAK
DAY TRAVELCARD Validity is different for the legs of the journey outside and inside the London zones:
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Note: the Travelcards suggested by this site might not always cover the entire journey. The price and validity of a Travelcard is based on the zones the journey passes through, however the Travelcard suggestions are only based on the zones that the origin and destination stations lie within. It is important to check the route you wish to take on a London zonal map (e.g. this map from TfL) and to make sure that all the zones you will pass through are covered by the Travelcard.
Further information is available in the Multi-Journey Tickets section of the RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide.
Zonal Single or Return Fares
Related to this, is that when you query fares for a journey to a
London Underground or Docklands Light Railway station, in addition to
relevant Travelcards you may be offered zonal single or return fares.
The same proviso applies: you must check your intended journey on a
London zonal map, and make sure that the ticket covers all the zones
that the Underground or DLR leg of journey will pass through.
Oyster or Contactless Pay As You Go Fares
Between stations in the London zones (and slightly outside them in
some cases) it is also possible to pay for your journey using the
Oyster Pay As You Go (PAYG) system. This requires possession
of either an Oyster Card or a contactless payment card. Full details
of Oyster/Contactless PAYG prices are given on
the LT Fares website, a
companion site to this one.
THE TRAINS YOU MAY USE |
Although passenger rail services in Great Britain are operated by private companies, the benefits to the passenger of an integrated ticketing system have been retained, and all train companies are obliged by the Ticketing & Settlement Agreement to accept normal inter-available tickets for travel via any permitted route.
Permitted routes are defined by the
National
Rail Conditions of Travel as follows:
All tickets have a routeing associated with them. If this routeing is ANY PERMITTED, then the ticket is valid via any permitted route as described above. (Note that the letters AP in a routeing indicate the routeing is for an Advance Purchase fare, generally an Advance Single.) The routeing may be used to restrict the tickets for use on a particular train company or companies; in this case the routeing will generally contain an abbreviated version of the train company name(s) followed by the word ONLY.
The routeing may also be used to restrict the range of permitted routes to those passing through or avoiding a particular location or locations. If travel must pass through a particular location, the name of this location (optionally preceded by the word VIA) is shown in the routeing. If travel must avoid a particular location, the name of this location is preceded by the words NOT or NOT VIA. When two locations appear in the routeing separated by a space or a – character, travel must go via both those locations. When the locations are separated by a / character, travel must go EITHER via one OR the other location.
Occasionally the location given in a routeing restriction may not lie on any of the normal permitted routes. These tickets are usually more expensive than the equivalent ANY PERMITTED ticket. In this case a route that follows any permitted route from the origin to the via point, followed by any permitted route from the via point to the destination, is a permitted route for the through journey. More commonly, the routeing restriction may indicate that travel is not allowed via some location that does not lie on any permitted route anyway. In this case, the negative routeing restriction is superfluous and can be ignored.
Further information is available in the Routeing section of the RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide.
ROVERS & RANGERS |
Rovers and Ranger tickets are identified by a purple header in the query results. They allow unlimited travel within a defined area for a defined period of time.
Note: Rovers and Rangers are held in a separate part of the database from point-to-point fares and Travelcards. They do not appear in the results of a point-to-point fare query and can only be queried using the special form above.
They generally fall into one of two categories:
Further information is available in the Multi-Journey Tickets section of the RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide.
RAILCARDS & DISCOUNTS |
When making a fares query, an optional railcard or discount entitlement may be specified. The query results will then show only those fares that are available with that railcard or discount, alongside the discounted prices.
Detailed information on entitlement to and validity of the various railcards and discounts is not contained in the fares database and thus not available on this site. Instead, below is a brief overview of some of the most popular types of discount cards and the most important conditions relating to their use.
Further information is available in the Discounted Fares section of the RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide.
About the BR Fares Website |
This site was launched in its current form in February 2012, following a short experimental period when it was known as cheaperrailfares.com. The fares database used by the train companies in Great Britain is very complex; most travel information websites hide this complexity and gloss over the details. BR Fares attempts to take an alternative approach where, instead of hiding the complex parts of the fares information, we try to display it as clearly as possible.
Publication of the fares data by third parties was formerly a legal grey area, however this is no longer the case since the welcome release of the data under a free distribution license by the Association of Train Operating Companies in 2013.
BR Fares was designed and developed by Paul Kelly, and is operated by BR Fares Ltd.
About Me (Paul Kelly) |
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I became interested in railway computer systems after discovering
Clive's
On-line Routeing Engine in 2009. This led me, via the
RailUK
Fares & Ticketing Discussion Form to the Avantix Traveller
Fares Information CD. I thought it would be an interesting challenge
to reverse-engineer the data format on the CD to gain access to the
fares database. This I did with
librailfare, which
was the basis of the first version of the BR Fares site.
I'm an Electrical Engineer originally from Northen Ireland, but currently living in England after a 3-year spell in Berlin, Germany. In July 2014 I transferred ownership of the site from myself to a separate entity, BR Fares Ltd., primarily for convenience so that the site can stay based in England even if I travel to other countries again. |
About BR Fares Ltd. |
BR Fares Ltd. is registered as a company in England and Wales, number 09074225. | |
Registered Office: Work.Life 33 King's Road Reading Berkshire RG1 3AR |
E-mail Address: info@brfares.com |
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Site Operator: BR Fares Ltd.
This site is not accredited by National Rail. |