Sunderland Thread

 

Sorry I was given duff info its actually being shown live on BT Sport.

Double Maxim wrote: If I didn't fly I would get the train the day before and stay over thanks.

I'm sure you know yourself, but it is often cheaper to book two separate tickets. Maybe book one from Sunderland (or Newcastle) to London, then a separate one to Plymouth a few hours later.

That way you can pick the cheapest tickets for each part, plus the layover breaks up what is otherwise quite a long journey.

Yeah, I know of it. However, when you are going via London, it is handier and potentially cheaper again to book two separate tickets with a longer layover.

Split ticketing generally works as follows:

Say you search Newcastle to Plymouth, it may be that a Newcastle to Plymouth ticket on one train is £100. However, on the same train, Newcastle to Birmingham may be £40 only, and Birmingham to Plymoth also only £40. Split ticketing will find those cheaper tickets and enable you to book the Newcastle to Plymouth ticket for £80.

What it won't do is check if, say, Newcastle to Birmingham is £40 on a 10am train arriving at Birmingham at 2pm, while the 6pm train from Birmingham to Plymouth is only £20. It will check each of the quickest connections and see if the ticketing can be split in the middle of that journey with tickets for the same train. It won't search for separate tickets for slower connections with longer layovers, which can often be a cheaper way of making the same journey.

And for Newcastle to Plymouth, personally I would go via London rather than on the cross-country direct service. The LNER trains are nicer than the cross-country ones and if you avoid the newer GWR trains from London to Plymouth, they should be nice too. The cross-country pendolinos are a bit tight because of their shape being built for tilting, even though that is now turned off on a lot of them, if not all of them.

There are plenty of ways to get there and the split ticketing website is good for some of them but not all of them. I'd personally use it for two searches: Sunderland to London and London to Plymouth, and build in a layover in London too.

 

Good man SD.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post this.