Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder.

It's Tuesday the 16th of January and I'm going to be talking about train tickets.

No, please stay here, stay here because this could be important.

It could be the future of rail travel. Well, we shall see about that.

But let me give you the headline. LNER, the state-run train operator, which connects London with

Yorkshire, North East England and Scotland, is launching, as from the 5th of February, a completely new ticket.

And at the same time, it's scrapping the traditional off-peak ticket, which has been round forever.

So, I'm going to tell you how the new scheme will work, and then I'll tell you what I think about it,

and whether it will indeed

be coming to a station near you. So we're going into a pilot program which will take two years

and that will affect all trains between London and Newcastle, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Edinburgh.

From the 5th of February, you will be able to buy a new kind of ticket called 70min

flex.

And that allows you to effectively pay the advanced ticket price for whichever train you want to be on, let's say the 10 o'clock,

but it also allows you to travel on any train 70 minutes either side.

So that would allow you to buy a ticket for the 10 o'clock.

But then if your plans change, if you get to the station early, if your meetings running late,

you will have flexibility. You'll be able to travel anytime from 10 to 9 until 10 past 11.

And the idea is that on most journeys, certainly to Edinburgh and Newcastle, there's a couple of

trains every hour, so that would mean you travel on the train you booked,

or for that extra £20 that you pay for 70 minute flex,

you travel on two before or two afterwards.

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