Title: An insider's guide to cheap rail tickets | Travel | The Guardian
Headings: An insider's guide to cheap tickets
Travel
An insider's guide to cheap tickets
Patrick Barkham
@patrick_barkham
Six journeys, six tricks
Tactics

Content: Unfortunately, they were wrong; most, but not all, Newcastle-bound trains stop at Peterborough. You feel bitter and twisted as you squeeze into your train seat and swing down the stained beige table. That woman in the next row: she looks suspiciously smug. You've just forked out £219 to travel from Manchester to London, an 8.4% rise on last week's price. Has she? Or did she forage on a secret website when the moon was full and, with Venus in the ascendant, dig out a spectacularly cheap fare? Everyone has been hit by the latest increases in already high ticket prices. " We have the most expensive railway in Europe, and unless ministers act to enforce affordable fares, we will have a system that will soon be the preserve of the middle classes," says Gerry Doherty, general secretary of TSSA, the transport union.