http://traintimes.org.uk/ is quicker, easier, and more useful as it shows you, for instance, that if you leave an hour later it's (much) cheaper.

... they didn't take the opportunity to revamp their god awful train search engine as well.

@ Tom: However traintimes.org.uk doesn't seem to point out that single tickets could be cheaper... so you could end up spending a lot more on a return journey if you rely on that site alone.

...qjump was always better than thetrainline, as it let you search by fare. Thetrainline now has a penchant for adding 'optional' insurance to your journey, and charging you for the privilege of paying by card.

Funny how all this gubbins doesn't happen on my corporate trainline - it's an irritating exploitation of consumers and just serves to show thetrainline as the sharks they are.

I would be really grateful if someone could explain to me the £10 admin fee for a ticket refund, when the ticket has not been issued, and you apply for the refund online (i.e. with no intervention). They must really have an atrociously inefficient backoffice.

Tried using it recently? My guess is no as it shows times and prices in a matrix, and has done for some time.

The difference between qjump and trainline (which i found out the hard way) is that while qjump was by fare, trainline was by availability. So on qjump you could see a £10 ticket, try to buy it, wait a few seconds..... oh, it's not available. Ok, try the £20 one....again, not available. £30?..... etc etc. On the trainline you would only see what was available right then.

Totally agree about the insurance thing though, that really annoys me too.

Has anyone here tried the new National Express East Coast ticket booker?

http://www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com/en/Travel-Information/

Web 2.0 to the max! Oh yeah, and it's actually rather good...

I stopped using thetrainline when they also started charging for the postage to send you your tickets. Now use the FGW site which doesn't, nor for using credit cards. However it suffers from the same problem as ttl where you have to go through about 5 screens confirming the same details for each ticket you buy (eg. yes, I still understand the terms and conditions; no, I haven't changed address since adding the previous ticket to my basket etc.) when buying more than one. Also haven't found a quick way yet of getting to the screen where you can select from your 'favourite journeys', which is easy in ttl.