Daily Mail Trains offer - cheap long distance travel

[Ploes]

b) there's a bus replacement between Lockerbie and Edinburgh, I figured it wasn't really worth it.

If you have a first class ticket they sit you next to someone who's showered in the last week.

[orudge]

Well, I travelled on my journey yesterday. Due to engineering works and signal failures and so on it wasn't the most pleasant journey, but for a fiver, I can't complain. They didn't even take the coupons off me or want to see them!

[JamieLei]

We've got tickets booked as a family to go to London - for £40 return it isn't the cheapest (Virgin AP can go as low as £45.70 for 3A and 1C Family Railcard, and LM CDR is £49.95). But we can't complain - something has to be done else we'd have sinned by buying the Daily Hate Mail for nothing.

[Railwaymodeler]

They didn't even take the coupons off me or want to see them!

Some reason, I see a lot of that on the commuter trains here in the Chicago area. Half the time the conductor and trainmen miss someone in each car it looks like. I guess it can be considered a bonus ride.

[JamieLei]

Some reason, I see a lot of that on the commuter trains here in the Chicago area. Half the time the conductor and trainmen miss someone in each car it looks like. I guess it can be considered a bonus ride.

I think the point Owen Rudge was making was that the conductor didn't want to see the coupons for the promotional fare, so he could have got away with a very discounted ride without having the coupons in the first place. On long distance trains in the UK, the conductor is usually quite good at getting round most of the train (ie on CrossCountry there are full ticket checks after Birmingham New Street and Leeds, even if you've been checked before). (PS, Orudge you could probably make another super-cheap journey while booking is still open).

On commuter rail, it's often a bit more difficult as people tend to get on and off A LOT. In the US it would be even more difficult to get round to everybody due to the bi-level cars. I take it that Metra is a pay-train, where you purchase your ticket on-board - I suppose they could do the British thing and make you buy tickets before you buy, and if you're not in possession of one, you get a £20/$40 fine.