• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Three Bridges - Leighton Buzzard - Bristol TM Monday 9th August

Status
Not open for further replies.

DLJ

Member
Joined
13 Mar 2017
Messages
18
Hi

I'd be grateful for any suggestions for routing / best value ticket combination for the following itinerary:

Three Bridges dep. approx 11am to arrive Leighton Buzzard c. around 2pm
Leighton Buzzard dep. approx 5pm to arrive Bristol Temple Meads before 10pm.

I don't have any railcards, but can be fairly flexible on the above times as long as I have around 3-4 hours in Leighton Buzzard (especially if it means avoiding any peak restrictions).

Thanks in advance
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

Hadders

Veteran Member
Associate Staff
Senior Fares Advisor
Joined
27 Apr 2011
Messages
12,981
Is this a weekday or weekend journey? Are you returning from Bristol at any point?
 

Watershed

Veteran Member
Associate Staff
Senior Fares Advisor
Joined
26 Sep 2020
Messages
11,945
Location
UK
If you're happy to use Advance tickets, the journey can be made for £42.60.

There's currently a Southern only Advance available from Three Bridges to Leighton Buzzard on Monday, departing at 11:34 and arriving at 13:47 (changing at Clapham Junction), for £8.50.

And there's Advances available for £34.10 from Leighton Buzzard to Bristol Temple Meads on virtually all services to via Bath. Note - there are no direct Paddington-TM trains due to engineering works; you need to change for a bus at Bath or Bristol Parkway, but the former route gives much better Advance availability.

Now it's worth noting that the outward journey above involves using the Southern service from Clapham Junction to Milton Keynes, which is suspended under Southern's "pingdemic" timetable. But Southern has arranged ticket acceptance (not that there'd be much alternative in this situation!) allowing you to travel on the Victoria line from Victoria to Euston, thence on WMT, so whilst your journey may take a little longer than planned, and you'll have to change once extra, you won't have to pay anything on top:
The following ticket acceptance is in place on weekdays:

London Northwestern services between:

  • Milton Keynes Central and London Euston, for tickets routed via the West London line or Southern Only
London Overground services between:

  • Watford Junction and London Euston, for tickets routed via the West London line or Southern Only
  • Clapham Junction and Willesden Junction, for tickets routed Southern Only
London Underground services between:

  • Victoria and Euston on the Victoria Line
It will cost you rather more than £8.50 for Three Bridges-Leighton Buzzard if you buy a ticket after Saturday, as the "pingdemic" timetable appears on journey planners on Sunday for each following week - therefore you wouldn't be able to buy a Southern only Advance.

If you want to use walkup tickets, your best bet will likely be to get a Thameslink only Off-Peak Day Travelcard (£17.70) plus an Off-Peak Day Return from Boundary Zone 6/Hatch End to Leighton Buzzard (£15) and a Super Off-Peak Single from West Drayton to Bristol TM (£36.20 route not via London). That would add up to £68.90, but the latter ticket would restrict you to services departing Paddington after 7pm, which means you couldn't get to Bristol before 21:05.

Alternatively you could avail of the above Southern ticket acceptance, and replace the first two tickets with an Off-Peak Day Return from Three Bridges to Leighton Buzzard (£32.20 route via Kensington Olympia), albeit you'd have to pay an extra £2.40 for Oyster/contactless PAYG on the Tube (as ticket acceptance only applies between Euston and Victoria, not Euston and Paddington). That would add up to £70.80.

If you're making any sort of return journey within a month, it may be cheaper to get different tickets, so I've written the above on the assumption it's a one-way journey.
 
Last edited:

sonic2009

Established Member
Joined
19 Jan 2010
Messages
4,915
Location
Crewe
Looking at a single journey on the 9th of August I would go with the following :

Three Bridges dep 1134 - Clapham Junction arr 1207 dep 1239 - Leighton Buzzard 1347 Southern only advance single £8.50 - (although this appears in journey planners the trip will indeed be cancelled between Clapham & Leighton Buzzard, but as Watershed has mentioned your ticket will be accepted via Victoria & Euston)

Leighton Buzzard dep 1755 - London Euston arr 1825 - transfer via Tube - London Paddington dep 1918 - Bristol Parkway arr 2031 dep 2047 via rail replacement arr Bristol Temple Meads 2115 - Advance Single £43.10

Total cost : £51.60
 
Last edited:

DLJ

Member
Joined
13 Mar 2017
Messages
18
This is exactly the information I was after, and I'm grateful for the detailed replies - thanks all.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top