Great Western Coffee Shop

Would a Taunton - Cardiff SDR be valid via Bath and Westbury?

I plan to buy the above ticket and want to travel Taunton - Cardiff - Reading.

What additional single ticket do I need to buy to get to Reading? Obviously the cheaper the better!

well if you want ultimate flexability with the added bonus of a ticket you can use for two extra days in the following week over a huge area freedom of Severn and Solent rover ^40.00 valid 3 out of 7 days which is valid from tivvy to bristol across to cardiff over to sailsbury southampton ... actually look at this http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Documents/Custom/Rovers%20Route%20Map%20South%20West.pdf and then a return from sailsbury to reading is about ^19

total ^59 but you get the bonus of 2 days extra travel within the blue routes on that map

Yep, I think so.

Firstly ticket is (assuming it hasn't changed since NFM03) routed Any Permitted.

According to my reading of the Routing Guide (http://www.atoc.org/rsp/Routeing_Guide/), the permitted routes (http://www.atoc.org/rsp/Routeing_Guide/permitted_route_identifier.pdf) between Taunton and Cardiff Centre (both routing points) are CE and CE+WE.

Map (http://www.atoc.org/rsp/Routeing_Guide/maps.pdf) WE is basically the B&H route between Paddington and Plymouth plus Castle Cary to Weymouth. CE is more extensive and does include the route from Westbury to Cardiff via the tunnel or Gloucester.

TLM

Good point Relex, if you are able to travel after 0900 or at a weekend (Rovers are not vaild before 0900 M-F) then the Rover might well be a good option, espally if you want to travel again off-peak later in the week.

autotank, you say you only want to travel Taunton > Cardiff > Reading. I'm assuming you need to get to Cardiff during the morning peak and then going on to Reading in the afternoon and stay there.

The cheapest way of doing this journey is a Day Single Taunton-Cardiff (SDS 19.80) plus an Super Off-Peak Single Cardiff-Reading (SSS 26.50) giving a cost of ^46.30.

If you want to get a Off-Peak Return (valid all day) from Taunton to Cardiff, that'll be 30.30 (SVR) plus either a Super Off-Peak Single to Reading from Bristol PW (19.50) or Westbury (17.50) gives a total of ^49.80 and ^47.80 respective.

So, I think really it depends if you want to come back to Taunton within the next month or not!

Cheers,
TLM

Exeter to Cardiff can be done either VIA Bristol or VIA Westbury

It never ceases to amze me how members of the Coffee Shop manage to come up with weird and wonderful combinations of fares and routes to lessen the cost of rail travel.

There is also a thread on the board with comments on "who should set fares?"

It seems to me Coffee Shop members could be ones. Each time we woek out a cheaper fare than given by the various websites that becomes the Fare for that journey. So you buy one ticket and use the most convinient route.

Hang on a minute wasn't that how the BR fare manuals worked you had key fare hubs with fares to all other hubs and then you had the same or add on fares to stations within the hub areas. I realise there were anomolies when you travelled away from the hub  from the last station in a zone to the first station across a zone boundary so didn't go through either the of the hubs. Howerver these could be catered for by having an add on to cross the boundary, with the main fare being adjacent hub to adjacent hub.

Please shoot me down it seems too simple.