Information about Winster in the Derbyshire Dales
for residents and visitors
Information about Winster in the Derbyshire Dales
for residents and visitors
Chesterfield has more trains that get you to London more quickly; Matlock saves driving (and parking if you can find a space on a side-street) and many types of ticket are usefully cheaper. Take your choice!
The last train back from London that connects with a Matlock train is the 2025 from St Pancras. If you miss this, you can catch the 2055 from St Pancras and catch a late bus (Route 6.1) from Derby that gets into Matlock around midnight. (Check details before you count on this!)
Turn-up-and-go tickets are now termed Off-Peak for the more expensive variant, or Super-Off-Peak for the cheaper variant. But slowly, over the years, the "super" period has shrunk, and you now need to buy the more expensive variant if you want to be in London before noon on a weekday.
Note that there is no possibilty of travelling "off-peak" before the morning peak. Some might consider that 0455 or 0517 from Derby would be "off-peak" (and I suspect they are far from crowded). But on the railways there is no "off-peak" before the morning peak. The pricing of tickets has less to do with managing capacity and rather more to do with exploiting a captive market.
Prices and availability from 23 May 2010:
| MATLOCK | CHESTERFIELD | ||||
| OFF-PEAK | £74 | £84 | |||
| Dep | Arr | Dep | Arr | ||
| Earliest Morning Train TO London | 07.36 | 10.05 | 07.45 | 10.19 | |
| Latest Afternoon Train BACK from London | 15.55 | 18.24 | 15.55 | 17.46 | |
| Earliest Evening Train BACK from London | 20.25 | 22.50 | 19.55 | 21.53 | |
| MATLOCK | CHESTERFIELD | ||||
| SUPER OFF-PEAK | £54.30 | £60 | |||
| Dep | Arr | Dep | Arr | ||
| Earliest Morning Train TO London | 09.36 | 12.06 | 09.39 | 11.34 | |
| Latest Afternoon Train BACK from London | 14.55 | 17.24 | 14.55 | 16.46 | |
| Earliest Evening Train BACK from London | 20.25 | 22.50 | 19.55 | 21.53 | |
If you are stuck buying full-priced tickets (eg for a full working day in London), it is often cheaper to break your trip into several parts, and to buy separate tickets for each. You are allowed to do this as long as your train stops at each station where your tickets start and end. For Chesterfield-London, most trains stop at Leicester and you can save about £10 return by booking separately for Chesterfield-Leicester and Leicester-London.
If your trains in both directions stop at Leicester AND Bedford, you can save more - but this is likely to mean a considerably slower journey
If you really HAVE to get to London early on a weekday, and want the cheapest possible ticket, then it looks as if you might manage to save a reasonable amount of money by travelling via Birmingham and Bletchley, with separate tickets to Bletchley and from Bletchley to London. But it is a long way round, and so likely to be a slow journey!
These can be much cheaper, as long as you can commit to a specific train in each direction. Availability is generally limited to trains that you could use with OffPeak or Super-Off-Peak tickets, and the nearer you get to the day of travel, the thinner the choice (and the higher the fare you will pay). These tickets SHOULD be on sale twelve weeks ahead, and whilst that generally holds true for weekdays, the rule is often broken at weekends - the tickets aren't put on sale until the plans for Engineering Works are known, and this is often only a week or two. The worst I've seen was in May 09, when Advance tickets were on sale for only 4 of the 24 weekend days for which they should have been.
To buy Advance tickets, use the East Midlands Trains website.
If you want a real travel bargain, you can travel for as little as £2 or so each way between Sheffield, Chesterfield, or Derby (not Matlock) and London, with a Megatrain deal. As you'd expect, availability is limited to less popular trains, but if you can get organised enough to book ahead - and work within their restrictions, this can be a brilliant deal.