Buying train tickets should be really simple. You buy a return between two stations right? Well, if you want the cheapest tickets, it is not that simple. Here is a simple and general guide to saving money on tickets.
Firstly, there is a general balance between the cheapness of the ticket and its flexibility. In other words if you want to travel at any time on any train, these tickets will cost more than if you name a train(s) and travel after the rush hour so a good general rule is to try and book ahead as much as possible. Bear in mind that depending on other factors such as engineering works, you might not be able to book all of these advance tickets (since the company might not know if your named train is going to run). Generally more than 2 weeks in advance allows you to get cheap tickets on a first come, first served basis (some trains seem to only have about 50 available).
Secondly, after privatisation, the government decided to protect certain ticket prices from being overinflated by the train operating companies and pricing everybody of the trains. These tickets such as "saver" tickets and most season tickets are tied to inflation + 1% currently and are often good value for money. However, because the train companies don't like having their prices dictated, some offer single tickets that are cheaper than half a "saver return" to entice people from the government protected tickets (and perhaps one day get rid of the protected ones?). Always check on a return if two singles are cheaper but bear in mind that again due to availability, you might be restricted to certain trains if you want the cheapest singles and usually the singles are for a single train company and might restrict the route that you are allowed to travel.
The third and most bizarre condition is related to the way in which fares are calculate that run over more than one company's rails. Although the track is owned by Network Rail, for fares, it is treated as being owned by the main operator over that line who get to say how much it costs to run over that section. This can create savings for 2 reasons. 1 is that each company charges different amounts of money for similar routes and the other is that you are allowed to travel, using standard tickets, any reasonable route between two places. For instance, if you buy a ticket from London to Glasgow, you could travel from Kings Cross, Euston or St Pancras even though the fare will be based on only one route. The clever thing to do here is to "break your journey". As long as your train stops at a station (you do not have to alight) you can buy a set of tickets to cover the whole journey rather than one return ticket. This enables you to take advantage of off-peak returns (cheap day return), saver returns (limited in distance) and journeys over cheaper lengths of track. For example, suppose you need to go from Cheltenham to Weymouth for the day but you need to leave at 9:15. You cannot buy a cheap day ticket because it is before 9:30 so generally you would end up with a saver return which is about £30. You change trains at Bristol so by getting a standard return from Cheltenham to Bristol and then a cheap day return from Bristol to Weymouth, you save about £5. Note that the train must call where you "break the journey" but you do not have to alight at that station. With a bit of investigation, you can potentially save hundreds of pounds. The ticket office must sell you these sets of tickets but they will not usually offer them to you because they say it takes too much time.
Let me leave you with an example that Barry Doe the expert recounted on the BBC web site. You want to travel first class return to Manchester so the open first return is about £220 BUT you can alternatively buy a first return from London to Falkirk (yes in Scotland and which is set by East Coast railways) which is £100 cheaper and then you opt to choose the west coast route via Manchester and get off at Manchester. Bargain.
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