One for the railway heads

[RapidAssistant]

Aye, it's the only one that makes just a single stop - think it's booked at something like 4hrs 9mins, so about half an hour quicker than the usual ones.

Spending each of the next two weekends doing that trip, although at least one is a cheap first class ticket so can overcome any malodorous nuisance with the free booze...

The only trouble with first class now is that the riff-raff have cottoned on to the cheap Advance fares and weekend upgrades as well.....so you still get malodorous nuisances of another sort in there occasionally.....not that I'm a snob, you understand!

[RDR]

Went down and up to London, last week on a Class 390 Pendilino.
Been on them before but first time for a while.
05:40 down ran to time.
16:30 back up ran late, about 25 minutes due to signalling problems at Watford and then being stuck behind slower trains, due to being out of its path after the delay.
Comfortable journey but made me think about two things.
It's a nice train but why have they never managed to get rid of the smell from the toilets?
I always thought express trains got priority, so why did it end up stuck behind local stopping services?

I haven't been on a Pongolino for over 4 years now. As I live on the eastern side of the country these days I've little incentive to use Virgin anymore, plus their fares have rocketed. Do the toilets still stink??? Jeez!! The problem was apparently that the aircon ducts were dangerously close to the vents from the toilet tanks.

Usually, you are right - the strategy is to cause the minimum amount of disruption, so faster services will get routed around a stopper - funnily enough I was on an East Coast HST on Thursday night down to London and we were held up at Grantham by "line problems" - we were held for 45 minutes whilst faster non-stop services behind us all overtook us. I guess as Alycidon says above it can be influenced by the available train paths, and what has to be in what position when at a later time. So it could be some obscure operational reason why you were kept behind the stopping service, but probably it was still to minimise the overall disruption to the timetable.

Not sure that their prices have rocketed. Certainly you couldn't get a cheap fare for the 05:40 even trying to book the maximum amount of time ahead. I suspect that being the first train of the day which gets you into central London for mid morning, makes it very popular and they have no difficulty selling tickets for it.
However, I did get a cheap, 1st class ticket for the return at 16:30 and given that comes with your dinner and unlimited tea/coffee was quite a good deal.

More often, recently being going to Manchester on Trans-Pennine X Press, have to say the class 390 was far superior to their 175s despite the smell. Simply, they were not a long distance train, nor do TPE have any interest in long distance travellers being more interested in the cattle truck service they run between Lancaster, Preston and Manchester.
Remains to be seen if the new 185s on that route are an improvement, but I can't see the companies attitude being very different.

[gap74]

I think I've blagged cheap tickets for the 5.40am before - sometimes the advance fares don't actually go on sale until much nearer the departure date than the guideline 12 weeks - I'm going down next weekend and the advance tickets only went on sale for that a few weeks ago because they were waiting on confirmation of engineering works.

There is actually an earlier train at 4.28am or something like that. I usually travel down on an open, off-peak return (130 quid - horrendous!) and the 4.28am is the only train down that I'm not allowed to use. On the way back, the only restriction is that I have to travel after something like 9.30am.

FTPE have slowly started introducing class 350 electric trains to replace the diesel 185s, but they're specced pretty much the same - like you say, more commuter trains than long distance. They are longer I think, 4 coaches compared to 3? Timetable changes this weekend, think they go via Wigan now rather than Bolton.

[RapidAssistant]

Maybe you are right, RDR - whenever I've tried to book Virgin, I've hit the 12 week window as soon as reservations opened, and yet the lowest Glasgow-Euston fare as you say - leaving at silly-o-clock is still often £59 one way. At that point I've usually just given up and went to East Coast instead, as usually the lowest £18.50 one is nearly always available if you book as soon as reservations open.

Yeah I could chance it and hang on for a bit to see if the Virgin fares come down, but I'm not prepared to take the risk that I end up having to pay £100s, so I end up driving or flying. I'll just suffer the extra hour it takes to go down the ECML thank you very much.

Having said all that - I resent having to plan my life 12 weeks in advance in order to get sensibly priced rail travel these days. Even allowing for RPI, the £70-ish off-peak return fare you paid 10-12 years ago from Glasgow to London compared to the £130-odd you pay now is an awful lot of inflation....!!

[Scotty100]

A friend of mine was recently quoted £870 for a first class open return from Edinburgh to York.
Two months ago she flew to Brisbane, Australia for £820 return with Emirate Airlines

[Godsgift]

A friend of mine was recently quoted £870 for a first class open return from Edinburgh to York.
Two months ago she flew to Brisbane, Australia for £820 return with Emirate Airlines

Ah but does Brisbane have a pretty castle?

[RapidAssistant]

A friend of mine was recently quoted £870 for a first class open return from Edinburgh to York.
Two months ago she flew to Brisbane, Australia for £820 return with Emirate Airlines

True, but you'll always get the smartypants who will say you are comparing apples with oranges- i.e comparing an advance booked flight with a walk-on rail fare. Someone on another discussion forum had a go at me for the same thing, who if I remember correctly was trying to defend rail privatisation....but I quickly buried him with this argument:

London - Glasgow return (800 mile round trip) bought on the day £320 = 40p per mile
London - New York return (6900 mile round trip) bought on the day £1400 = 20.2p per mile

The numbers are probably different now due to inflation, but you get the picture!

[Alycidon]

If you are interested in some virtual Glasgow trainspotting try http://railcam.org.uk/ register (free) then choose your cam, the Glasgow area one is at Dalmuir, you can view in full screen. It is mainly EMUS with the occasional freight.

[RDR]

I think I've blagged cheap tickets for the 5.40am before - sometimes the advance fares don't actually go on sale until much nearer the departure date than the guideline 12 weeks - I'm going down next weekend and the advance tickets only went on sale for that a few weeks ago because they were waiting on confirmation of engineering works.

There is actually an earlier train at 4.28am or something like that. I usually travel down on an open, off-peak return (130 quid - horrendous!) and the 4.28am is the only train down that I'm not allowed to use. On the way back, the only restriction is that I have to travel after something like 9.30am.

FTPE have slowly started introducing class 350 electric trains to replace the diesel 185s, but they're specced pretty much the same - like you say, more commuter trains than long distance. They are longer I think, 4 coaches compared to 3? Timetable changes this weekend, think they go via Wigan now rather than Bolton.

Not been on the 350s yet but I agree they are much the same spec as the trains they replaces though longer, which will suit the poor folk crammed in on the 17:15 from Manchester who go to Preston/Lancaster as presumably there are more seats.

Why the government ever thought the Glasgow/Edinburgh to Manchester route was ever suitable for TPE to run I have no idea other than they might have offered a better premium return. I'm sure it was previously run by Virgin when they had x country. The 221s whilst not great were still better than anything TPE offers

[RDR]

Maybe you are right, RDR - whenever I've tried to book Virgin, I've hit the 12 week window as soon as reservations opened, and yet the lowest Glasgow-Euston fare as you say - leaving at silly-o-clock is still often £59 one way. At that point I've usually just given up and went to East Coast instead, as usually the lowest £18.50 one is nearly always available if you book as soon as reservations open.

Yeah I could chance it and hang on for a bit to see if the Virgin fares come down, but I'm not prepared to take the risk that I end up having to pay £100s, so I end up driving or flying. I'll just suffer the extra hour it takes to go down the ECML thank you very much.

Having said all that - I resent having to plan my life 12 weeks in advance in order to get sensibly priced rail travel these days. Even allowing for RPI, the £70-ish off-peak return fare you paid 10-12 years ago from Glasgow to London compared to the £130-odd you pay now is an awful lot of inflation....!!

I used to get East Coast or GNER as it was then, when they ran a good service from Motherwell. Of course they then took away a lot of the trains that stopped at Motherwell and went via Edinburgh direct to London with no changes, so that was the end of that.

[Dexter St. Clair]

Glasgow Central en route to Scotland v Nigeria

[BTJustice]

Hi chaps and chapesses, I know there are a lot of people on here that are clued up on travelling by train and I was looking for advice.

The actual travelling bit I'm pretty sure I can manage (sitting on my arse and looking out the window) but the booking tickets bit is a bloody nightmare.

I found a deal for return eurostar tickets and 4 nights hotel in Brugge for £212pp but a single to london is £134pp I only had patience to try and find one of the tickets as the other was showing a 14hour journey with 5 changes and a bus involved.

So where is best place to buy tickets and are there any tips like avoiding weekends etc?

Many thanks,

Dave.

[gap74]

What date you looking for? Cheap advance tickets only go on sale about 12 weeks in advance, search before that and you'll only find full price fares - although if it's a date when there are engineering works, the advance tickets might go on sale as little as a month in advance.

Otherwise, look at the Tickety Split app on the Money Saving Expert website. I saved 20 quid by splitting my journey on the same train into two separate tickets split at Wolverhampton

(That's another tip actually - lot of the Birmingham trains now extend to Euston - the journey from Glasgow to London takes an hour longer than the more direct routes, but the advance fares can be cheaper - as little as 21 quid single)

[BTJustice]

Sorry for not replying sooner with a thank you. I havent had a chance to get a look yet as its been too nice outside for fighting with the computer but will this week.

Im looking to travel the first or second week in August so might have missed the cheap fare window. Im completely flexible within those two weeks which is why I was wondering if there are expensive days and cheap days to travel.

Heart set on Brussels or Brugge by train now so need to sit down and try and get a deal.

Cheers again,

Dave.

[MacotheIsles]

Noticed that the ole on the Rutherglen-Whifflet line is up (using the new omnia system). Anybody know how the new electrified service will integrate into the existing timetable?