London, Jan 7, 2026, 06:41 GMT
- The Great British Rail Sale runs Jan 6-12 with up to 50% off more than 3 million journeys
- Greater Anglia listed Norwich–London one-way fares from £6, with some routes from £3
- Some passengers complained online about struggling to find the lowest advertised prices
Train operators launched the Great British Rail Sale this week, offering discounts of up to 50% on selected UK train tickets, with some one-way fares starting at £3.
The timing matters for households watching budgets after Christmas, and for operators trying to fill trains through winter and into early spring. The discounts apply to travel between Jan. 13 and March 25, covering midweek trips as well as some weekend travel. 1
Most offers focus on “Advance” tickets, which lock passengers to a specific train, and “Off-Peak” tickets, which are valid outside the busiest periods. Tickets are limited by route and operator and typically need to be bought several days in advance, National Rail said.
Greater Anglia said it was selling “thousands” of discounted fares across East Anglia, including Norwich to London Liverpool Street for £6 one-way and Southend Victoria to London Liverpool Street for £3. “There is only a limited number, and when they’re gone, they’re gone,” Martin Moran, the operator’s commercial director, said. 2
London North Eastern Railway (LNER) said it was putting 1 million discounted tickets on sale, with selected “Advance” fares including York to Newcastle from £8.35 and London to Edinburgh from £27.85. “We are delighted to be putting one million discounted tickets on sale,” LNER commercial director David Flesher said. 3
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has linked the promotion to a wider push to cut travel costs, saying the government had frozen rail fares “for the first time in 3 decades” and wanted cheaper rail travel. 4
Not everyone is convinced the bargains are easy to find. “This is a big con just as usual,” a passenger, Clifford Beeton, wrote on X, The Independent reported, while its travel correspondent said some of the lowest headline fares relied on slower routes and limited allocations. 5
Operators and the government point to past sales as evidence the discounts can spur demand, with officials citing last year’s average savings of about £8 per journey. Critics say cheaper tickets can also end up subsidising trips that would have happened anyway, especially on popular intercity routes.
