Northern Rail plan to introduce New PEAK ticket prices ..... will you be affected

As non-car drivers you will be aware that we do a LOT of travelling by train.  We have a family and friends rail card and love to go for days out.

Fortunately most of our outings fall on the weekends but there are times, like this weekend (or during the school holidays).  We considered going away for a couple of night when the kids finished school tonight (meaning travelling out of Sheffield after 4pm).  Additionally if we do go on a day out in the week we tend to try and get back to Sheffield for around 5pm so enough time for tea and bed with out rushing our day out.   Today I have just spotted Northern Rails plans to ruin our days out by increasing ticket prices in South and West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Hexham-Newcastle.... so all the routes we frequently use...from the 8th September.   They say they have given plenty of notice of this including announcements on affected trains.... well I must have slept through my return journey from Manchester last week because there was NOTHING about this change - no posters, no announcements - if I'd not seen it on Twitter today I would not have been aware.  You would have expected when I booked my tickets (and I can't remember who I booked through) a month ago that some notification of the change would have been sent, but not that I can see.

Trains, Busses and Event City

Don't you hate it when a lovely day out turns into a nightmare thanks to public transport .... you know the same public transport that we are always being encouraged to use.

Readers may have seen some of my Tweets on Saturday - for you to get the bigger picture I will start from the beginning......

Saturday we had arranged to pick up our Merlin Passes from Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester.  Following this we were going to the Sealife Centre next door.  We debated staying overnight but the train fare would have doubled and there were no bargain hotel rooms so, as we only live an hour away by train from Manchester a day trip it was.

We go up, got the boys ready (it was a surprise right up until they got to the desk at Legoland) and packed a picnic/ provisions to fuel the day.

We boarded the PACKED East Midlands train to Manchester at 9.45 am, taking our place on the floor / pull down seats (it was hard to decide which was comfiest) outside the drivers cab.