The Cheap way to get between London and Manchester

Nick Brown

Nick Brown

2 min read

It can be really expensive to get between London and Manchester. In the peak time, it’s £180 each way to catch a train. Ouch. But there are ways to do it for less.

Advance tickets are often available, sometimes at quite short notice, for around £80. If you can book a long way in advance, it can be much cheaper than that. But at TrainSplit we’ve come up with a way of doing it for much less, sometimes even on the day.

One method relies on there being competition on the mainline between London and Crewe. On this line there are two train companies running in competition. Arriva West Coast run the express services to Manchester, but London Northwestern Railway also run semi-fast services to Stoke and Crewe.

If you’re not in a hurry, why not take one of the alternative trains to Crewe (or Stoke) and change there for a local train to Manchester? This can bring the price down dramatically. As you’d expect, TrainSplit will find these “alternative journeys” for you automatically. If you are really looking for cheap journeys, try switching the website into “cheapest” mode. And, as usual, if it’s cheaper, we’ll automatically split your ticket for you.

So now you have a choice. Take the fast train and pay the price, or take a slightly slower one with a change, and potentially pay much, much less. Either way, use a site like TrainSplit and you can decide – is time or price more important to you?

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