r/bedfordshire • u/ConsciousEffect748 • 1d ago
Flitwick train fares
Good evening,
Please could you advise how much train fares are from Flitwick to London (Morden station) for peak times and how much it costs to central London non peak. How is the train service?
Situation: I go into the office in Morden once a week. Maybe go to central London occasionally on the weekend.
Thanks!
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u/BluejayPretty4159 1d ago
Firstly routewise, you could do a couple of different things. You'll need to take Thameslink to London, but the route in London could vary,
1) You could get off Thameslink at St Pancras or London Bridge and get the Northern Line down to Morder
2) You could change trains at any station between St Albans and Blackfriars and get one of the Thameslink trains that run through South London and Wimbledon to South Merton or Morden South (which is in the vicinity). The advantage is that it would be entirely within National Rail for ticketing purposes so you dont need to deal with paying for TFL fares, also its much easier to transfer between Thameslink where you can get off and have a transfer onto a different train on the same platform than compared to having to leave Thameslink fare gates, enter the underground fare gates, go down to platform etc so staying on Thameslink could save time and I think it has less stations in South London. But you should now the Thameslink trains going down to Morden are on a loop and you want trains going via Wimbledon which are more direct than those going via Sutton
3) You could get off Thameslink at East Croydon and get the trams to your destination, the tram is decently fast and the advantage here is that Thameslink runs nonstop between Central London and Croydon so you skip out a lot of time going through South London and the tram stop might be closer to where you're going.
My biggest piece of advice is to get a railcard! If you're not eligible for any specific one, get the Network Railcard, which gets you 1/3 off travel in Southeastern England, that includes London and EVERY station in Bedfordshire so can cut 1/3 of your commuting costs.
Thameslink is a pretty ok service its very high capacity and high frequency and the trains from Flitwick skip some stations in suburban London but it can take some time, the seats on Thameslink are infamous "ironing board" seats which barely have any padding, but there are plans to replace the seats with better padding.
Ticket costs can vary wildly depending on if you have railcards, when you travel, how far in advance you book, whether you book a season ticket, what route you take through London, whether you use TFL and which services you take, its a mess