Avanti West Coast and Stagecoach have launched an integrated rail and bus ticket that allows visitors to travel by rail and bus in Cumbria and the Lake District using just a single ticket.
With the new initiative, Avanti West Coast has added Keswick as a destination to railway journey planners and comes as Stagecoach has doubled the frequency of services between Penrith and Keswick to every 30 minutes.
Tourist board, Cumbria Tourism, has worked with Avanti West Coast and Stagecoach on a “Go Car Free” campaign to make it easy for visitors to enjoy a more sustainable holiday in the heart of the Lakes without a car.
The initiative also supports Cumbria Tourism’s Go Car Free campaign for greener journeys.
By creating Keswick as a virtual railway station, travellers can view the timings of train and bus departures and book a single fully integrated ticket for their entire journey.
The tickets are available for travel on Avanti West Coast services to Penrith (gateway to the North Lakes) and Stagecoach X4 and X5 bus services to Keswick.
Stagecoach X4 and X5 bus services to Keswick depart from outside Penrith railway station, and travellers with an integrated ticket need pay only an additional £2 on top of the cost of their train fare.
The introduction of the new integrated tickets follows the provision of an electric bike (e-bike) hire service with free delivery and collection at Penrith.
Integrated train and bus tickets can be booked up to 12 weeks before travelling on weekdays, and up to eight weeks for weekends at www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk.
Transport for the North is currently looking at a project to reconnect Penrith with Keswick.
We’re proud to serve the gateway to the Lakes and play our part in enabling visitors to reach this beautiful part of the world more easily.
By bringing together rail and bus travel, entire journeys can now be completed with just one ticket – supporting Cumbria Tourism’s car free campaign. Whether you’re visiting the Lakes for the day or a weekend away, the integrated ticket means you have everything you need for your journey before you board, so it’s even easier to make greener travel choices.
We hope it will inspire more people to ditch the car and take the train and bus before exploring the region’s beautiful scenery on foot or public transport.
Sarah Copley, Executive Director of Commercial at Avanti West Coast
We are delighted that Avanti West Coast along with Stagecoach have created this integrated ticket. Keswick is such a great and popular town to visit, so for visitors to be able to seamlessly book tickets that transfer them from their point of origin right into the heart of the town sits perfectly alongside our Destination Management Plan Vision for Cumbria to become Britain’s most sustainable rural destination.
Providing easy car-free connections not only supports this vision but also facilitates even more relaxing, enjoyable, inclusive and welcoming ways to visit and enjoy great Cumbrian experiences and hospitality.
Gill Haigh, Managing Director at Cumbria Tourism
We are delighted to be working in partnership on this joint ticketing initiative. It is a real step change in helping people to visit this beautiful part of the world in a sustainable way and makes travelling by bus and train easier than it has been before.
Tom Waterhouse, Managing Director for Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire,
Responses
This is actually a really good idea. This could be used for pre-Beeching stations and new communities to test viability of re-opening and opening of re-need and new branch lines and stops on existing infrastructure.
Instead of a ‘virtual’ railway station, how about re-opening the railway line and the station at Keswick?
Don’t hold your breath for that to happen with any future Labour government though, as they would rather waste public money on HS3 which has already been kicked into touch.
Do you also know that you can get Stagecoach 555 bus from Lancaster to Keswick and if you have senior bus pass it’s free.
The main problem is the reliability of Ananti trains on the WCML and public lack of faith in reliability of rail services generally, particularly on Sunday.Do we really think an incoming Government, of any political colour, is going to sort out the staffing on Sunday/ rest day working problems?
There’s absolutely no reason not to reopen the line from Penrith to Keswick. Track beds are in place as are bridges.
The bay platform is still there at penrith as is Keswick Station.
Traffic is horrendous during the season between penrith and Keswick.
Yet the county council have no interest in reopening.
This line should never have closed.
It’s a crime that it remains closed
I agree with Mark. We keep hearing the moans about traffic and parking problems in the Lake District and elsewhere, year after year. But reopening railways is always ‘too difficult’ or ‘too expensive’. Not if you view them as an investment in the future, they’re not! Give people a rail alternative and they will use it; this has been proven, over and over again.
Quite right. Be good to resurrect Lakeside station too to encourage car free exploring of the Lakes.
Completely agree, Mark. If anyone needs an example of what can be achieved, they only need to look at The Northumberland Line, which is a similar length.
The big difference between Penrith—Keswick and the Northumberland Line is that the Northumberland Line already existed as a railway, it just needed to be upgraded from freight to passenger standard and have new stations built. A North Lakes Line would need to be built from scratch, and while much of the original alignment remains clear not all of it does. This would make it many times more expensive to reopen, and it’s unlikely that it would get anywhere near the same level of ridership.
I don’t get the bit where it says ‘travellers with an integrated ticket need only pay an additional £2’. That’s the cost of all single bus journeys in the uk at the moment. So you’re buying an ‘integrated’ ticket and then paying the £2 anyway? Or is this just badly written?