Edinburgh to Manchester return over a weekend – I take it that would be off peak?

Yes.

Providing you’re not counting Friday evening as part of the weekend – off-peaks starts about 7pm on weekday evenings.

Take a look at the religion threads (they would be easier to answer with any certainty and involves less reliance on Voodoo). Look it up on National Rail Inquiries website it usually tells you which times are eligible for which prices

and you dont wear a suit.
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and you dont mind sitting in the luggage racks
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and your sister’s called Mable
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and you arrive in Edinburgh before 4am or after 10pm
etc
etc
etc

Thanks guys – good old STW! 😉

Off peak would be whenever the fewest people want to travel, which means if you want to get anywhere at any kind of reasonable time, you have to pay through the nose for the priviledge, bstards!!! 🙁

Depends on the operator and the line. Our old one used to say anything after 7am and before 10am was off peak, same again around rush hour. They then changed their minds because they werent getting enough cash in.

Well my dear jojo you pay true but at least train are just not canceled with no explanation, and hold 25 minute in a station so the pig can come in and get someone “looking weird” out of the coach…

National Express East Coast makes finding the cheapest tickets very easy. Not that there are any cheap tickets. When you’ve put your journey in click on the Find Lowest Fares box in the lower left and you’ll get a Matrix of your outbound and return options and the total price. Note that it’s not just NXEC trains neither.

Clicky

Off peak starts after 0930 in the am, not sure about evening, sorry!

Off peak starts after 0930 in the am, not sure about evening, sorry!

That’s weekdays. Off-peak is all day at weekends.

I would say that off-peak is when the most price sensitive passengers want to travel and peak is when the least price sensitive passengers want to travel. So that means anyone who needs to use the service to get to work/a business meeting, is less price sensitive and thus prices are higher. It has nothing to do with passenger numbers; the irony is that early morning suburban commuter routes tend to be extremely busy compared with inter-city routes operating at the same time.