Talk to me about your commute in / into London

[JennyDBP]

We are considering a move from zone 2 somewhere further out in order to buy a house. We have a budget of approx £900k and would like a 3 bedroom house with a nice garden. We need to commute into west/ central London, ideally an hour door to door.

We have one nursery aged DC so need to think about schools. A lot of the places we look at seems like people drive to stations. Does anyone do this, would it be a massive PITA?

DH's main concern is what the commute is going to be like, I want a more chilled pace of life with easy access to london.

If anyone has any lived knowledge or recommendations we would be very appreciative!

Which mainline station?

We could make pretty much anything work but ideally Euston, Charing Cross, Paddington, Marylebone.

I'm freelance so don't have a fixed office but am usually working in soho or Shepherd's Bush.

This always puts me off relocating outside of London - driving to / parking at a station is not for me.

I travel into Euston for work and it's around 30 mins direct train and an easy commute, trains come frequently and I can always get a seat
I live walking distance to the train station to walk but there is free parking by the station I come from anyway!
900k where I live would get you a really lovely house.

I have a longish (1.5-2 hours) daily commute into London. I walk 15 mins to the station then mainline train then tube. It’s tiring. If I didn’t get a seat for the 40 mins on the mainline train I would be looking for another job. I tend to get seats on the tube too because of timings and the stations involved.

I live in Buckinghamshire (village in outskirts of High Wycombe) and drive in to Hammersmith 3 x per week, takes around 1 hr 15 most days, less on way back

It was flipping awful and I’m so so so glad I now WFH !

If you are relying on parking at a station check what time all the spaces are gone by. Pre-Covid my local station car park was full by 7am & no on street parking options closer than a ten minute brisk walk away. I ended up cycling to the station

I don’t commute anymore as of last year but I used to walk 15 minutes to station and then 35-45 minute train to kings cross and a 20 minute walk the other end. I can see having a car at the station is helpful when you need to pick up a child by car.

Broadly speaking, you get less options outside the TFL zones. Personally I found it horrendous.

The trains are, realistically, no quieter or less busy. But they are less reliable and much more expensive.

We did Cambridge, which technically should have been OK because I was going into Kings Cross. But it was actually horrible and really stressful. The trains were decrepit, packed and unreliable, and there was always a massive leg-it session both morning and evening to get onto the train to get a seat. In theory it should have been an hour door to door. Most days, if it was less than two I counted myself lucky. I almost had a nervous breakdown and I am not being facetious there.

Car parking at stations, especially commuter stations into London, is always a total bunfight in the mornings. Too many cars and not enough spaces. Queue to get in, queue to get out often as well. Some places are better or worse than others but I don't think it's ever an easy ride.

Outside the TFL zones, you also get fewer travel options if there's a problem. Even in Cambridge a city with two separate train lines into two different London terminals the panic and stress that a cancelled or short train would cause was enormous. Whereas when we lived in zone 2 there were eight trains an hour, plus buses, plus tubes within a walk. You always had flexibility if one route in got snarled up or there was a problem.

And quite honestly in terms of pace of life, you don't get any significant changes in that unless you move out of the south east of England entirely.

Zone 1. 30 min door to desk commute. 25 min on a good morning.

No waiting around for trains at a set time, or last trains, or train strikes. No car, parking, petrol. I love the freedom of just getting up and going when I feel like because there'll be a tube in 3 min as soon as I get to the station in either direction of the commute.

I'll never leave. Even with DC in a flat, I'll always compromise on space for location.

But good luck OP!

The trouble is, a lot of train stations are either in the middle of nowhere, or in the dodgy bit of town. I used to commute from Bletchley, got an early train and had absolutely no trouble parking. Found the commute easy to be honest, 10 min drive, park easily, relax and listen to a book for the 45 minute journey. Then the London end not as pleasant but that’s London anyway!

You could get a house in somewhere like Harrow or even Pinner / Northwood and be on the Tube?

Leighton Buzzard? 30 mins into Euston 900k is a decent budget. £500k or less for a three bed walking distance to station?

Hallowell Road, Northwood, Middlesex, HA6
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-120621953.html

What's your definition of a 'nice garden'? Does that mean it has to be big?

Well i'm in z3 & would generally allow 45/50 mins door to door for parts of z1. I have friends who live in the hone counties that can do it an hour door to door but lots of people will just tell you they can be in X in 30 mins which isn't particularly helpful unless you live on the platform.

@BIWI doesn't have to be oh - we don't have one now so a medium sized pleasant bit of outside space would be a huge improvement.

Making sure you are likely to get a seat on the train at the times you travel was a key consideration for me.

@Onceuponapotato that's what I've realised about a lot of commuter towns - the stations aren't in the parts where you'd like to live or the housing stock within walking distance of the stations is extremely expensive.

And are you up for doing work on the property or does it need to be 'perfect' from the get go?

as lot of my friends only have 1 person commuting into London so the other person drops them to the station

Personally I quite like my commute into Waterloo then on to Canary Wharf. I use it to
a) study a language (vocab learning, doing homework),
b) catch up on life admin
c) subscribe to Future Learn and I've done a few courses
d) just sit and reflect and think
It's a nice break between work/home.

I’m in the centre of a Surrey commuter town. My journey is 5 mins walk to the station, 40 min train then either a 20 min walk or a 20 min tube journey (well, 5 min tube journey but it’s basically the same once you factor in getting down into the station, onto the tube and then the reverse at the other end).

We can afford a nice house here, rather than a flat, and bearing in mind we both only do the commute 2 days a week since covid it’s doable. But I’d agree you don’t get a wildly different quality of life just by moving 15 miles outside the M25.

Can’t speak from experience about parking at a station - OH can’t drive due to epilepsy so we always made our search conditional on being walking distance to the station.

I would be checking the station parking.
What time does the car park fill up by and how much does it cost a day. All the local stations with car parks charge by the day - £5.90 here in zone 4.

We're in Hayes, Kent. 8 min walk to Hayes Station then train to Cannon Street. Door to desk 50 minutes. Alternatively, 10 min bus ride to Bromley South, then fast train to Victoria which takes 17 mins.