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Shepperton to Ely/Cambridge

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STEVIEBOY1

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Good morning, all being well I need to travel from Shepperton SHP to Ely, in Mid to Late September, outbound on a Friday to get there by 1245 ish. The return will be from Cambridge main station on the following Tuesday about 1445ish.

I have two queries. I do have a NSE card and I could use contactless for the UndergrounD across London.

I have looked at various ways to get the cheapest fares. Would you agree that the best way is just a through return ticket from Shepperton to Ely, I think that should allow me to get on at Cambridge on the way home?

Also are there still issues with the rail firm from KGX to Ely/Cambridges with booking on line this far ahead, as the system says, something along the lines of, they can not confirm that this service will run and some additional services may be missing from the journey planner. ?

Thanks.
 
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Hadders

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There aren’t any Advance fares or seat reservations between Kings Cross and Ely/Cambridge sonthere’s no point in purchasing ahead of travel. Simply buy on the day.

There are still issues with the timetable but you shouldn’t have issues getting to/from Ely and Cambridge (it’s the smaller stations like Arlesey that are really suffering).

With any luck you’ll get a delay of 15 minutes and be able to claim some delay repay.

I’m out and about so can’t check fares but I suspect the through ticket with Network Card discount will be cheapest.
 

arb

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You can save a few pounds by buying a return to Cambridge (£26) and a single from Cambridge to Ely (£2.95) instead of a return to Ely (£32.65). I don't know if there are any similar tricks at the London end of the journey.
 

Hadders

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Remember the OP has a Network Railcard so splitting could fall foul of the £13 minimum fare.
 

jopsuk

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for the outbound leg, with a through ticket using NSE discount on a weekday National Rail gives an earliest arrival in Ely of 1254, as the "not before 1000" restriction applies making the first departure from Shepperton the 1011. This gets you to Vauxhall for 1059, and there's no way then to make it to Kings Cross for 1112, so it's the 1142 service.

I've not looked at the numbers, but if you want to use the NSE discount and the 0941, one possibility might be to split at Hampton Wick. But I'm going to guess this isn't going to save much or at all.
 

arb

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You can save a few pounds by buying a return to Cambridge (£26) and a single from Cambridge to Ely (£2.95) instead of a return to Ely (£32.65).
Remember the OP has a Network Railcard so splitting could fall foul of the £13 minimum fare.
Oh, yes, I forgot about the minimum fare. So it would be full price (£4.50) for the Cambridge to Ely single. This still saves a little bit.
 

mildertduck

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There are usually good priced tickets on the (slightly slower) route from Liverpool Street to Cambridge in advance, so if the OP is not too worried about the duration of travel, combining AP London Liverpool St to Cambridge with AP Cambridge to Ely might save a few pounds.
 

E759

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Shepperton - Waterloo £8.90
Liverpool St - Cambridge £7 Advance
Cambridge - Ely £3
Cambridge - Liverpool St £7 Advance
Waterloo - Shepperton £8.90
£34.80
Plus contactless Waterloo/Liverpool St (I've no idea how to calculate tube fares!)
 

Hadders

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Shepperton - Waterloo £8.90
Liverpool St - Cambridge £7 Advance
Cambridge - Ely £3
Cambridge - Liverpool St £7 Advance
Waterloo - Shepperton £8.90
£34.80
Plus contactless Waterloo/Liverpool St (I've no idea how to calculate tube fares!)

The tube fare on Oyster will be £2.40 each way. Plus the journey from Liverpool Street is significantly slower than from Kings Cross (1h15 compared to less than 50 minutes).

If a 12:54 arrival at Ely is acceptable then I'd purchase a Network Railcard discounted Shepperton - Cambridge Off Peak Return for £26.00 and an undiscounted Cambridge - Ely costing £4.50. Total £30.50

If @STEVIEBOY1 needs to arrive before 12:45 which would mean leaving Shepperton on the 09:41 then I'd buy:

Shepperton - Hampton Wick Anytime Day Single £5.10 (undiscounted)
Hampton Wick - Ely Off Peak Return £27.60 (with Network Railcard discount - the 09:41 from Shepperton calls at Hampton Wick at 10:01)
Hampton Wick - Shepperton Anytime Day Single £5.10
Total £37.80 The train would need to call at Hampton Wick which I believe all Shepperton trains do.
 

bspahh

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The tube fare on Oyster will be £2.40 each way. Plus the journey from Liverpool Street is significantly slower than from Kings Cross (1h15 compared to less than 50 minutes).

If a 12:54 arrival at Ely is acceptable then I'd purchase a Network Railcard discounted Shepperton - Cambridge Off Peak Return for £26.00 and an undiscounted Cambridge - Ely costing £4.50. Total £30.50

If @STEVIEBOY1 needs to arrive before 12:45 which would mean leaving Shepperton on the 09:41 then I'd buy:

Shepperton - Hampton Wick Anytime Day Single £5.10 (undiscounted)
Hampton Wick - Ely Off Peak Return £27.60 (with Network Railcard discount - the 09:41 from Shepperton calls at Hampton Wick at 10:01)
Hampton Wick - Shepperton Anytime Day Single £5.10
Total £37.80 The train would need to call at Hampton Wick which I believe all Shepperton trains do.

The timetabled times for Liverpool Street to Cambridge are slower than the Kings Cross trains. However, they are less likely to get cancelled at short notice.

To get between Cambridge and Ely, there is a ticket for only Greater Anglia trains for £2.20 (£2.30 for a day return). In the middle of the day this will mean using the Cambridge-Norwich trains, which leave at 9 minutes past the hour. In the morning and evening peaks there some of the trains from Liverpool Street carry on to Ely, and there are extra Greater Anglia trains that start in Cambridge.
 

E759

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Travelled to Peterborough and Waterbeach last week using ShamblesLink and GN. Every train I caught ran late. On the way home the late GN train caused me to miss my SmablesLink connection resulting in a 30 delay to arrival home.
 

Hadders

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Bear in mind that tickets between Shepperton/Hampton Wick and Cambridge/Ely are routed 'Any Permitted' so the route between Liverpool Street and Cambridge could be used in case of disruption. I'd check the exact situation just before arrival at Vauxhall and if deciding to use the service from Liverpool Street I'd get the Victoria Line from Vauxhall to Tottenham Hale and pick up a Cambridge service there.
 

arb

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Travelling via Liverpool Street and meeting the constraint of arriving by 12:45 requires departing Shepperton earlier than 09:41. National Rail Enquiries says you'd have to depart at 08:41 but I suspect you'd have enough time to make the cross-London connection if you left at 09:11. Either way, this means that more of the journey has to occur before the Network Railcard discount becomes valid at 10:00, thus pushing the overall price up again. Back of the envelope appears to be 2 * £8.90 undiscounted singles from Shepperton to London, 2 * £2.40 oyster fares across London, 2 * £7 advances between Liverpool Street to Cambridge (minimum price if you're lucky with availability), and an undiscounted £4.50 single from Cambridge to Ely, which is a minimum of £41.10 in total.

If you want to make use of the cheaper Greater Anglia only fare from Cambridge to Ely, then you'd have to get the really slow stopping everywhere service from Liverpool Street arriving in Cambridge at 11:51 in order to connect into the Greater Anglia Norwich service, which departs at 12:09. If you get the "semi-fast" train from Liverpool Street, you'll find that it very annoyingly arrives at xx:09, and you'll have exactly an hour's wait for the next Greater Anglia train to Norwich via Ely. Or an approx half-hour wait for a Great Northern train to Ely. And if you're going to take a slower service to Cambridge in order to connect into a Great Northern train to Ely, you might as well have taken that Great Northern train all the way from London in the first place.

For example, the 11:12 from King's Cross gets you to Ely at 12:23, or as a backup in case it's cancelled, the 11:42 gets you to Ely at 12:54. Whereas travelling from Liverpool Street, you need to depart London earlier than either King's Cross option, at 10:58, and even then you only get to Ely, using Great Northern from Cambridge, at the backup time of 12:54.

It's good to be aware of the Liverpool Street options as a backup in case of complete carnage on the King's Cross line, but it is very much a slower option, and doesn't seem to viable in this example given both the constraint on arrival time in Ely and the desire to use the Network Railcard. I would say it's only worth going via Liverpool Street if reliability/predictability is more important than both journey time and cost.
 

STEVIEBOY1

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Thank you for all your tips and suggestions, I may well go with what Hadders has mentioned in thread 10 here. Even saving a quid or two is worth doing, goes towards the bar bill later:D .
 

robbeech

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Shepperton - Hampton Wick Anytime Day Single £5.10 (undiscounted)
Hampton Wick - Ely Off Peak Return £27.60 (with Network Railcard discount - the 09:41 from Shepperton calls at Hampton Wick at 10:01)
Hampton Wick - Shepperton Anytime Day Single £5.10
Total £37.80 The train would need to call at Hampton Wick which I believe all Shepperton trains do.

What are the actual restrictions? Is it “trains timed to depart” or just general time restrictions. If the latter could you not buy the Shepperton to Ely discounted return, buy the Shepperton to Hampton Wick SDS and start short on your Ely return there saving you having to buy another SDS on the Tuesday?
If it’s ‘trains timed to depart’ of course then this doesn’t work.
 

Hadders

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With a ticket from Shepperton it's trains 'timed to depart'. The issue is the Network Card restriction rather than the Off Peak time restriction.
 

STEVIEBOY1

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In fact, I think I have just found another slightly cheaper way to do it;

Shepperton/Hampton Wick on the 09.41 sgl 5.10
Shepperton/Cambridge Rtn NSE, connecting on to the 10.01 cat Ham WK 26.00
that would allow me to come back from Cambs at 1444 ish through to Shp
& Cambridge Ely STD sgl 4.50 total £35.60

Thus allowing me a bit more time to make my connections etc.
 
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