why is the national rail website insisting that the only way i can get from london to penrith on the 24th is on ONE train, leaving at 4pmish and getting in at half fucking eleven at night?! this is the west coast mainline ffs! what on earth is going on?! can anyone point me to a better website, or train timetables for the west coast mainline? the virgin website is being equally shit.
see, googling 'london penrith trains' brings up the keswick town website which gives me the train timetable for direct trains!! is it BEYOND national rail's competence to do the same?! http://www.dokeswick.com/travel/travel_traintimes.htm edit: seems my choice is between an 8.10am one and a 12.10 one (direct). edit again: nope, their site gives just a selection of times. so i gotta try and get the full timetables to check other times. is this supposed to be this damn hard?! what was wrong with the old nat-rail website? i mean, obviously it was a bit shonky but it's better than this new version!
have a biscuit... oh....oh dear....they've all gone hahaha.....hahahahahahahaha........hahahahahahahahahaha <continues to cackle for a few minutes>
Nope, I had this problem a few weeks back as well. All the sites tried or reccomended used exactly the same software & gave the same result - No trains on the day I wanted to travel. The answer seems to be that you need to know the times of the trains you want to ask about, before you enquire. If you know that, all will be fine.
& why has the bloody online timetable search page been moved, but they haven't bothered to put a bloody re-direct page on there - i thought it was just a crap connection or summat for two days.
right, well, having now found a timetable, it transpires that virgin trains are halting all trains at preston from the 24th fucking CUNTS!!!!!!!!!!!!! right. well. <fumes> it's the fucking rail replacement bus, or finding another route to penrith. anyone got any creative ideas?!
only other vaguely not mad way is to newcastle - carlisle - penrith oddly, i find i get better results when searching the German timetable thingy - http://www.bahn.co.uk/-S:PtVORd:d59SbdNNoUtw19NNNZlM/db_uk/view/info/index.shtml
great. penrith is 'only' on the west coast fucking mainline. no other train services available edit: right, there's a bus from carlisle to keswick. but are there train services euston-carlisle? edit again: only if i change twice according to nat rail edit: nope, sorry, change once (it was counting the 'change' from euston to kings x ) at leeds. so the best i've got so far is - train to leeds; change to another train to carlisle; bus. OR - train to preston; rail replacement bus. does anyone know whether rail replacement buses are to be avoided? are they, as i suspect, twice as slow as they say they'll be, hideously overcrowded, and generally shitty?
Don't go that day? Seriously. I wouldn't if I had to get a replacement bus - it'll take hours and hours.
not possible when i've booked a week off work AND booked a self-catering flat in keswick. i thought that, since penrith is on the west coast mainline, it should be a fairly easy journey. how wrong i was. fucking CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111 man i am so fuckign pissed off now. edit: jd - see answer above.
http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/qu...seqnr=2&ident=4e.01185415.1126692634&OK#focus or you can go via newcastle - or sheffield!! you lucky lucky thing. replacement service won't necessarilly be too bad -it's out of 'season' so even tho its a saturday, they wont be utterly evil.
do you mean rail replacement, or the actual stagecoach coach? it reckons the rail replacement bus takes two and a half hours. i dunno if there's a stagecoach bus. will check ... thing is, i'm very loath to use it, but there's just no other way i can see of getting there. i've even tried starting from leeds (i could stay with my sister overnight) but because the cunts have stopped all trains at preston, everything gets me stuck there with no other option but to use the damn bus edit: according to that site belboid posted (ta!) the bus is half an hour carlisle to penrith.
Generally: yes; yes, yes and yes. Though I nearly passed out once when a train was actually held for a few minutes to allow people on the bus to catch the train that it was scheduled to meet. Do NOT catch any train which means you'll be trying to enter or leave Preston in the rush hour on a bus. I did that once and it took a whole fucking hour to get from the city limits to the train station.
right. if i were to go stay with my sister for a night, i could get a train from leeds to carlisle on the saturday (24th) at 10.49, arriving carlisle 13.28. the next bus i can get from carlisle to keswick is at 16.25, getting into keswick 17.35. so - other than the 3 hours stuck in carlisle! - that's do-able. question is, is it worth it simply to avoid having to get the bus from preston? anyone? views? edit: aha. there are actually more trains from leeds than the new nat rail site is showing me i fucking hate them. anyway ... i could stay with my sister, hang out with her on saturday morning, then get the train from leeds at 12.49 getting to carlisle at 15.29. that could work. edit again: OR, i could cunningly bypass my sister and get a train from london to leeds on saturday morning. that would mean a train at 9.15 getting in at 12.02, then get the train from leeds at 12.49, get to carlisle 3 hours later, then get the bus. what a fucking palaver. public transport in this country is a fucking state. this is the kind of thing that pushes people into buying a car ffs. edit: nope, i can't even do that, it involves changing at doncaster. what a fucking mission!
right. start over. london to newcastle (train) - dep. 9.15, arr. 12.46 newcastle to carlisle (train) - dep. 13.24, arr. 14.43 carlisle to keswick (bus) - dep. 16.25, arr. 17.35 man i'm going to need a fucking holiday after this. fucking cunts.
OR - london to leeds (train) - dep. 9.55, arr. 12.36 leeds to carlisle (train) - dep. 12.49, arr. 15.29 carlisle to keswick (bus) - dep. 16.25, arr. 17.35 edit: only problem with that is that if the london train runs late i'll miss the connection in leeds.
Leeds are at home that day, as are Newcastle. BUT here's another alternative - going to Langwathby, which is near Penrith http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/qu...seqnr=1&ident=9b.02885912.1126696942&OK#focus
yeah, cheers, i was just looking at that. i'd need to check out how much taxis would be but it's looking like the best thing to do is go from london to leeds on the friday nite, stay over with my sister (which we've been meaning to do anyway as Photo is supposed to be taking a look at her computer, which is crap!) then get a train to langwathby or appleby and have a taxi booked to convey us from there to keswick. (there aren't any buses afaik) the en route back we can stay with my sister again on the saturday nite, and return to london on the sunday. it makes sense cos once we've got our arses to leeds it should be fairly pain-free. still a fucking pain in the arse all this hassle tho - damn virgin trains
oooh no, apparently the 888 bus goes from langwathby to keswick... <goes to find timetables> edit: 11.50 and 12.20 from langwathby only. which would put paid to spending the morning with my sister.
fair point, that's a possibility. if we've stayed overnight with my sister we'll be more teed up for a mission than if we'd just fallen off a train service from london! anyway, have emailed my sister to see if we can stay with her. looks like that's the favoured strategy at the mo. edit: there's a bus service from langwathby train station to penrith at 2.50 on saturdays, we could aim for that. then get the x4/x5 service penrith-keswick at 3.25, which gets us in at 4.05. that's rather cheering. edit again: tho it means a nearly 2hr wait at langwathby ... edit: hmmm that could actually be pleasant tho, apparently langwathby station is the original Brief Encounter station! http://www.visitcumbria.com/carlset/langstn.htm and we could go to eden ostrich world! - http://www.visitcumbria.com/pen/ostrich.htm <cheers up slightly>
uhh, fraid not - that's Carnforth: 'Brief Encounter is not the tearoom featured in the Trevor Howard/Celia Johnson film, that is at Carnforth, in Lancashire. ' http://www.briefencounterlangwathby.co.uk/history.htm It is near the lovely Long Meg & Her Daughters tho! http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/77
