Market Harborough to London season ticket

[mauebl]

I'm living in Market Harborough and have been offered a job in London. I'm likely to have to go into the office most days (and travel at peak times) so I'm looking at season ticket options - unfortunately the fares are eye-watering!

An annual season ticket between Market Harborough and London Terminals is £9,168 (!) I can see that by buying separate season tickets for Market Harborough to Wellingborough (£1,844) and Wellingborough to London Terminals (£7,112), I can get the price down slightly to £8,956 - are there any disadvantages to splitting the ticket in this way?

Any ideas for how I can get the cost down further? Flexi tickets are out due to the need to travel in most days (and I'm not convinced they are great value anyway). I don't really want to have to drive anywhere other than Market Harborough to start the journey unless there is a significant saving - the commute will already be long enough. I won't need a London Travelcard as I can walk to the office from St Pancras.

Failing that, I want to at least make sure I'm maximising the benefits of having a season ticket. Would a season ticket allow for travel anywhere other than the core mainline route between Market Harborough and St Pancras?

Thank you all in advance - any help gratefully received!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

An annual season ticket between Market Harborough and London Terminals is £9,168 (!) I can see that by buying separate season tickets for Market Harborough to Wellingborough (£1,844) and Wellingborough to London Terminals (£7,112), I can get the price down slightly to £8,956 - are there any disadvantages to splitting the ticket in this way?

Would the train used have to call at Wellingborough using such a combination of season tickets?

 

[sonic2009]

Annual season from Northampton to London Euston is £6328 - a saving of £2628 over the splitting option on the EMR services. But then you have to factor in the drive to Northampton.

 

[Watershed]

I'm living in Market Harborough and have been offered a job in London. I'm likely to have to go into the office most days (and travel at peak times) so I'm looking at season ticket options - unfortunately the fares are eye-watering!

An annual season ticket between Market Harborough and London Terminals is £9,168 (!) I can see that by buying separate season tickets for Market Harborough to Wellingborough (£1,844) and Wellingborough to London Terminals (£7,112), I can get the price down slightly to £8,956 - are there any disadvantages to splitting the ticket in this way?

Any ideas for how I can get the cost down further? Flexi tickets are out due to the need to travel in most days (and I'm not convinced they are great value anyway). I don't really want to have to drive anywhere other than Market Harborough to start the journey unless there is a significant saving - the commute will already be long enough. I won't need a London Travelcard as I can walk to the office from St Pancras.

Failing that, I want to at least make sure I'm maximising the benefits of having a season ticket. Would a season ticket allow for travel anywhere other than the core mainline route between Market Harborough and St Pancras?

Thank you all in advance - any help gratefully received!

Unfortunately there are no easy ways of making a significant saving on this route. Market Harborough is priced as an "intercity" route and attracts premium fares as a result.

One alternative would be to buy Advance tickets for your commute each day, but this would limit you to the booked train in each case (perhaps fine on your way down, but not much use if a meeting overruns on the way back home). Also there is no guarantee that they would be available at all, or at prices which make sense compared to buying a season ticket. From a quick look, Advance tickets for "peak" services both ways are around £46-58 booked a few weeks ahead, so still more expensive than a season at £39.63 per day (assuming 226 working days per year on an annual). So that is not an approach I could recommend.

Changing at Kettering onto the new 'EMR Connect' service opens up the opportunity of splitting Anytime Day Returns at Luton Airport Parkway, but even this would cost £66.30, and obviously there would be a cost in terms of journey time with the change and slower service.

Another option would be to drive to Rugby or Northampton stations - as season tickets from there to London are considerably cheaper than those from Market Harborough (from Rugby this would require restricting yourself to LNR services, but they have an hourly service which stops once at Milton Keynes, and a morning peak service which runs non-stop). Rugby to London LNR only would be £6136 per year and would also be valid from/via Northampton.

 

[WesternLancer]

Would the train used have to call at Wellingborough using such a combination of season tickets?

I'll stand corrected but I had the feeling this rule does not apply to season tickets (even though it does apply to other types of ticket eg like a Day Return or a combination of Advance tickets) - but it is an important consideration so hopefully others who know for certain can answer it correctly.

 

[Watershed]

I'll stand corrected but I had the feeling this rule does not apply to season tickets (even though it does apply to other types of ticket eg like a Day Return or a combination of Advance tickets) - but it is an important consideration so hopefully others who know for certain can answer it correctly.

Yes, splitting at Wellingborough with season tickets does not restrict your choice of trains. Non-stop splits are permitted when using one or more season tickets - NRCoT 14.3 refers:

14.3 Unless Condition 14.1 applies, if you are using a Season Ticket, daily Zonal Ticket, or another area based Ticket such as a concessionary pass, ranger, or rover, in conjunction with another Ticket and the last station at which one Ticket is valid and the first station that the other Ticket is valid are the same, then the train does not need to Call at that station for your combination to be valid.

Condition 14.1 doesn't apply in relation to normal season tickets so a non-stop split at Wellingborough is fine.

A Market Harborough or Wellingborough season would also be valid via the Bedford-Bletchley or St Albans-Watford lines into Euston.

 

[Andy Pacer]

Annual season from Northampton to London Euston is £6328 - a saving of £2628 over the splitting option on the EMR services. But then you have to factor in the drive to Northampton.

And presumably parking charges too.

 

[Haywain]

also be valid via the Bedford-Bletchley or St Albans-Watford lines into Euston.

Although finding trains on either of those lines can be a bit of a lottery.

 

[mauebl]

Thanks very much everyone for the input so far. I don't really want to be driving to Rugby or Northampton every day, so it sounds as though the consensus is that I'll just have to stump up the £9k.

As a consolation, it looks as though I would qualify for an annual gold card as long as I buy the season ticket online or in London rather than at Market Harborough - does that sound right? (Seems a bit unfair that places a far flung as Stafford, Shrewsbury and Great Yarmouth are in the gold card area, but Market Harborough - an hour outside London - is not).

 

[Watershed]

Thanks very much everyone for the input so far. I don't really want to be driving to Rugby or Northampton every day, so it sounds as though the consensus is that I'll just have to stump up the £9k.

Yes, and the rail industry likes to spin that as good value! Long distance commutes in Britain are simply very expensive - an annual season valid on all trains across Germany costs around £3500 by comparison.

As a consolation, it looks as though I would qualify for an annual gold card as long as I buy the season ticket online or in London rather than at Market Harborough - does that sound right? (Seems a bit unfair that places a far flung as Stafford, Shrewsbury and Great Yarmouth are in the gold card area, but Market Harborough - an hour outside London - is not).

That's right. The Gold Card originally just applied to season tickets within the Network Southeast area (which remains the area of validity for Network Railcards) - so Market Harborough, having long been a station purely served by Intercity services, did not fall into that area. In 2015 the area was expanded to include places such as Stafford, Shrewsbury and Norwich as you say, but EMT (as it then was) did not expand the validity on their network.

Market Harborough does get quite a rough deal in terms of rail provision compared to other nearby towns of a comparable size.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Would an annual season from Market Harborough qualify for a Gold Card? Thought that it was only available as far out from London as Bedford.

 

[Watershed]

Would an annual season from Market Harborough qualify for a Gold Card? Thought that it was only available as far as Bedford.

A Market Harborough-Wellingborough season wouldn't - but a Market Harborough/Wellingborough-London season would, if bought from a ticket office within the Gold Card area or online.

 

[mauebl]

A Market Harborough-Wellingborough season wouldn't - but a Market Harborough/Wellingborough-London season would, if bought from a ticket office within the Gold Card area or online.

That was my conclusion from looking at the National Rail website.

Yes, and the rail industry likes to spin that as good value!

Looking forward to next year's increases with RPI running at ~10%...

 

[WesternLancer]

It's notable to think that quite large housing growth areas (so for new housing) seem to have been identified in this part of Northants and around Corby etc, with many new homes ahving been built it seems to me from passing observation - no doubt in response to govt house building targets and demand at least in part from the London employment market.

Yet the commuter fares prices on the route are clearly high compared with others and somewhat 'fossilised' in fare pricing structures that date back well before privatisation eg re the Network Southeast boundary being Bedford for example - when travel patterns would have been different because of different housing and employment markets at the time.

Very frustrating for the OP and others in similar situation I would suggest.

 

[Hadders]

That was my conclusion from looking at the National Rail website.


Looking forward to next year's increases with RPI running at ~10%...

This is a good point.

It might be worthwhile purchasing odd period monthly season tickets for the remainder of this year and then buy an annual season ticket the day before the price increase, historically prices increase on 2nd January but the last two years it has been March. This would maximise validity at this years prices before what is highly likely to be a significant increase next year.

 

[yorkie]

The limit of the "Network area" (which is for historical reasons) and the high fares on this line (north of Bedford) have been debated in numerous threads before, for example this one:

Are MML fares too high for the quality of service on offer?

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/emr-class-360s.205226/page-32#post-4994676 They're 20 year old Class 360s cascaded from another operator, which will have worse seating than both the HST and the Meridian until they are refurbished by EMR. Added to the fact the...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[74A]

Both stations have to be in the Gold card area to qualify for a gold card. As Market Harborough is out side the area it would not qualify.

If you did a London Bedford with a Bedford Market Harborough split then the London Bedford one would be a gold card.

 

[alistairlees]

Both stations have to be in the Gold card area to qualify for a gold card. As Market Harborough is out side the area it would not qualify.

No they don't. The criteria are:
- the purchase must be from a station within the Gold Card area (or online)
- one of the origin or destination must be within the Gold Card area

See https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/prc08c7ad3f74ac88236c9cef703a96b.aspx

 

[philjo]

Does your employer offer an annual season ticket loan? You then repay in monthly instalments via payroll.

 

[mauebl]

The limit of the "Network area" (which is for historical reasons) and the high fares on this line (north of Bedford) have been debated in numerous threads before

Thanks - interesting how these historical factors are still driving fares to this day. I suppose there is no incentive for the government to tear it up and start again (or if they did, it would no doubt be to "level up" the fares from other places...)

Does your employer offer an annual season ticket loan? You then repay in monthly instalments via payroll.

I believe so - that is probably what I will look to do.

 

[Hadders]

Thanks - interesting how these historical factors are still driving fares to this day. I suppose there is no incentive for the government to tear it up and start again (or if they did, it would no doubt be to "level up" the fares from other places...)

Absolutely. The fares system is a mess but make no mistake if they are simplified it will be the good value fares that increase.

We have already seen this at places like Brookmans Park with the roll out of contactless. And that’s in the Transport Secretary’s constituency!