London to Edinburgh

[cherios]

Hello! So in September I'm going to Edinburgh to work abroad for a year! I'm very excited! The cheapest flight I could get was from Toronto to London. Now I've got it in my head that it would be cool to take a train from London to Edinburgh instead of flying. (I'll be spending a couple of days in London in between).

I started looking at prices of train tickets and they're EXPENSIVE. Like 100 pounds one way. You can fly up on BMIBaby for about 20. Of course I'll do that if I have to, but I still really want to take the train. I'm going to be super tired, and I love trains and I think it would be great to nap and look at fields for a few hours.

Does anybody have any advice on getting a good rate? Should I buy a Britrail pass? No doubt I'll be travelling, but I don't know how soon I will be. I seem to remember my Eurail pass had to be used in 2 months after validation.

I'd really appreciate any advice!

[Jules80]

hello

booking in advance is the only way i know of for getting decent train fares but it is expensive to do london edinburgh.. i generally fly it for that reason. its just a long train ride. if you're gonna sleep you might be better off getting there quick (by plane) and then sleep at the hostel or hotel? rail passes are usually only good for two months.

Jules

[MuvverRussia]

Fly it. It's quick, cheap and easy compared to taking the train. Alternatively, if you really want to save money you could take the coach - this isn't really recommended though.

Otherwise, book in advance, take off peak trains and maybe look in to getting a railcard (I guess you could use your UK address for it - should work ok). Don't really know that much about BritRail - you'd probably be better off getting a Young Persons rail card. This will give you 1/3rd off all train travel, so over a year you'll save a fair bit.

Check out www.youngpersons-railcard.co.uk/.

[commie]

i tried to get one of this cheap tickets to london a few weeks ago: you get it if you book ~3 weeks in advance, take a flight in the middle of the week and if you dont mind to arrive at 2am 80km away from london. so youre stuck at the airport because its quite sure that there is no bus or train departing to london before 7am.

[mango]

There are different tax arrangements on train fuel as from airline fuel in the UK which is one of the reasons trains are so expensive in comparison.

Trains are indeed a plesant way to travel but not if you have to pay for the tickets yourself.

Good luck with the elusive dream of a sleeper car, in my experience they are either booked out or stupidly expensive.

[liz]

I do the Edinburgh-London trip a lot (live/study in Edin, and have lots of family in London), and my suggestions for doing it cheaply would be:

Try to book the train in advance, and if possible be a little flexible about your dates of travel. Sites like www.thetrainline.com will compare prices across a bunch of train companies for you (kind of like those sites like expedia that do it for flights). I've found London-Edin tickets for like £20 each way before, but it's really luck of the draw whether there are cheap tickets left on the days you want to travel. As <MuvverRussia> said, travelling off-peak is a good saver, as is a railcard. (YPRC is only £20, so by the time you've made a couple of long trips you've saved the cost back)

*Sometimes* you can get dealies on the sleeper train (which I've never taken myself, but have heard very good things about). They have a range of tickets called 'Bargain Berths' which are way cheaper than the normal ones - cost from £19 one-way. www.firstgroup.com/scotrail/content/caledoniansleeper/index.php

As a poor student, I frequently get the overnight bus - leaves late evening, gets in the next morning, can usually kip quite well on them. Megabus is the cheapest provider, www.megabus.com , but National Express also do coaches on this route. This can be REALLY cheap, my brother got tickets for a fiver each way (£10 return) last time he went down. Obviously the bus does take considerably longer than the train (approx 9hrs rather than 4 1/2hrs) so it depends how time/cash pressed you are.

[joeshmoe]

I think you can get a bus ticket (9 hour ride) for about 12 pounds.

[cherios]

Thanks everybody! I ended up booking a flight on BMIBaby ...it was 20 pounds with the taxes. Not so bad, especially considering how much more it would have cost me to have a direct flight from Toronto to Edinburgh as oposed to London.

I'm definetly going to try out Mega bus some time though! It's pretty cheap, and I'd like being able to see the countryside and everything.

[MuvverRussia]

From experience I'd avoid Megabus with a bargepole (noisy, uncomfortable and most importantly, slow). National Express are more comfortable and are only a couple of quid more or so.