Rail Travel - how do I book a ticket?

[WetAugust]

This will probably sound a bit wet but I want to go to Kew (zone 3) from Bristol.

I've looked on National Express, raileasy,co,uk and national rail - and I can book tickets on al these sites BUT - what happens next. do they mail me the tickets - do i collect them?

Sorry - seems a dim question but I don't get out much

Thank you

God you really dont do you?

Just go onto trainline.com and book them and when you get to the end of the process you can choose to have them posted instead of picking them up at the station...

They send them out really quickly - often mine have arrived the next day...

If you book on thetrainline.com, they will send the tickets to you. You can choose whether you want them sent or whether you pick them up from your local station.

A tip for going from Bristol to London, make a seat reservation unless you want to stand part of the way.

And if you do choose to pick up (which I find easier) instead of having the tickets sent out, there are usually machines (may be called FastTicket or something similarly obvious!) at your starting station - thus Bristol - where you put in your reservation number (so make sure you have it with you) and the credit/debit card you booked it with (so make sure you have that too) and it prints your ticket for you.

Depending on when you want to book the tickets for, try megatrain for cheaper tickets - you get a reservation number to bring with you, as its a ticketless system. Ive travelled bristol to london for £5.50 for 2 of us and bristol to exeter for 2.50 each way!

Thank you all very much.

If they send them to me does someone have to be at home to sign for them?

Also, how many days do they take to arrive?

(I feel like my granny when she used the phone for the first time )

No they just come in the normal post and if you book them in the morning then they are normally with you the next day - very quickly anyway...

Thank you

Personally I'd get the tickets sent to you instead of collecting them from the machine. I've arrived on the day of travel to collect a ticket from one of those machines, but the machine was broken, and the queues for buying a ticket the usual way were so long I missed the train. If you do decide to get them from the machine I'd arrive very early or pick them up the previous day if you live nearby.