How and when are advance train tickets allocated to services?
Certain websites (like www.thetrainline.com) will sell tickets for for more than 10-12 weeks in advance. They hope that people will be daft enough to think that no Advance Tickets will be allocated and buy a ticket at the full walk-on fare. If you’re travelling at a weekend – there could be engineering works and this could mean that the reservations aren’t “released” until the timings have been confirmed. Also, around Bank Holidays and at timetable changes (the next one is mid-may) the reservations are released later than normal because of the extra work involved in altering the databse. Advance tickets are allocated to services when they are released for reservations. It is rare for trains to go on sale and then Advance tickets be added later. The availabilty of Advance tickets depends upon how busy the Train Operating Company anticipates that train to be. In general, Advance tickets are only available when it is anticipated that the train will have lots of empty seats. Also, there is
