megatrain.com

Advantages: Same train, same journey, massive discount!
Disadvantages: Limited journey options

Most people are familiar with the Scottish based budget travel company Megabus, run by Stagecoach. The brightly coloured blue and yellow buses are road travel's answer to Ryanair and Easyjet - offering no frills trips at silly prices. However, Stagecoach's more recent foray into the realm of budget train travel is less well known. I would usually use thetrainline.com to buy train tickets (or preferably southwesttrains.co.uk - who do not charge a ...
...day trip to London and the cheapest price I was quoted, booking well ahead, was well over £100 for 2 people, returning the same day. In desperation I scoured the internet and came up with Megatrain. Megatrain's price for the same journey, on the same day, was £32. For 2 people. It seemed too good to be true! Megatrain operate on a ticket-less basis in the same way as some budget airlines do. I was sent an email confirmation with Reservation codes ... Read review

Advantages: can save a fortune on train fares!!!
Disadvantages: limited choice

the name megatrain.com might remind you of megabus.com (see my other review on that one) and there is indeed a connection as the two are operations of Stagecoach plc. Stagecoach run bus services throughout the UK and abroad, and have interests in some train franchises. they run South West Trains outright, which already offer cheap fares via their own website megatrain.com however takes things to another level, as Stagecoach have a 50/50 interest ...
...the format of the megatrain.com website is similar to megabus.com, its pretty intuitive. basically you select origin and destinations, and dates, from drop-down menus there is a tab which will give you timetables you can get the reservation sent to your mobile as a text for 10p which means the whole transaction is paperless I have not looked at every combination of origins / destinations but as an example there is Glasgow-Carlisle and Manchester, ... Read review

Advantages: Cheap, flexible, countrywide travel
Disadvantages: None

Megatrain.com is absolutely fantastic, I cannot sing it's praises enough! The same concept as megabus.com, this company provide amazingly cheap transport around the UK. In this case, via train. The main network of deals travel in and out of London connecting with different Cities. Megatrain.com do not have their own trains, rather seats or carriages within trains that are already running. These are with companies such as Virgin and South West ...
...comfortable. All bookings for Megatrain are taken online, where you can select your desired travel times and dates, and are presented with all available options. It is clearly presented and easy to operate, very user friendly. You are provided with a username and password allowing you to access your account and make any neccessary changes. No tickets are issued with this system, you simply print off the confirmatory e-mail with your travel details ... Read review

Advantages: Easy to use website, and very cheap tickets!
Disadvantages: Seems to good to believe!

i must admit I was slightly apprehensive the first time I used megatrain; i couldn't quite believe that they could sell tickets for so little, and not being issued with a ticket was off-putting. However, I'm a sucker for a good deal so bought return tickets to Sheffield anyway for a grand total of £11! i turned up at the station, my reference number clutched in hand (they don't issue tickets) A conductor ticked me of on his list and that was that; ... Read review

Advantages: On-line train ticket booking. Can get cheap tickets.
Disadvantages: Often crashes. A bit confusing.

.... An alternative mode of cheap train travel - from £1 a seat - is megatrain.com - who piggyback their carraiges onto other services. However, this is only available from London to the South West and a few other parts of the country, so isn't much use for most people. To sum up then - traveline is a useful website for helping you plan a journey and get reasonable deals on train tickets. However, it would be much better if there was a simpler system of ticketing in the first place, where you could get a single ticket from any station to any other and with sensibly priced tickets, all at the same rate no matter when you were travelling, or how much notice you gave. Tickets could be priced according to that novel idea of how far the journey is. I remember a comedian complaining about the railways, saying "through ticketing - we used to be able to manage... Read review

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