If you’ve ever complained about the cost of train travel in the UK and wondered if there’s a single journey in the country that’s actually affordable, well, today you need wonder no more. The Independent took it upon themselves to do God’s work and uncover which train ticket is the cheapest in Britain.
And so without further ado, drumroll please… For only 70p you can take the nine-minute journey from Manchester Piccadilly to Stockport! And that’s without a railcard. If you have a railcard, you can afford the trip with nothing but a fifty pence coin and still get change.
If that seems too good to be true, that’s because it kind of is. The price is only available on Transport for Wales, which only run trains once an hour. So if you miss your train, you’ll either have to wait for the next one, or fork out up to £4.90 for an anytime advance single. Unless the next one happens to be Northern Rail, in which case you’ll only be spending £2 for the six-mile train-ride.
The trip is also the cheapest in the UK per mile, sitting at only 12p per mile. It is so cheap, in fact, that booking your ticket on Trainline will incur a booking fee which, at 79p, increases the cost of your journey by 112 percent.
If that all sounds like a lot of numbers and train jargon, don’t worry. The point is, if you work in Manchester but live in Stockport (or vice versa) and you’re also good at planning ahead, you probably have the cheapest commute of anyone in the UK. Hold onto that. In times like these, the only bigger claim to fame than that is personally knowing Martin Lewis.
Make sure your journey to Stockport isn’t disrupted by strikes: A full roundup of UK train strikes in January and February.
If you need another fix of train-related news, check out how off-peak tickets from Edinburgh to London are being scrapped.
Or, snap up a Eurostar ticket in their current flash sale.
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