What is going on with London to Liverpool trains?

[nancy75]

I'm not sure if I'm going mad, but i am trying to book a train to go from London to Liverpool on a Saturday and come back on a Sunday & they don't seem to exist!
Every website is saying booking not open yet or times not confirmed can't buy tickets. I am looking to travel in November (probably 26/27) so it's not months in advance. trains to everywhere else seem to be running.

@nancy75 Looking at the weekend you want, there are a couple of return prices under £60 if you get on quickly!

Tried to book tickets to Manchester in September for work earlier this month. Nothing available at all and ended up driving - 5 hour journey each way. The lack of service and inability of anyone to address this is shocking. Dd is looking at universities for next year: we're in the south and now discounting anything in the north as we just don't know how easy it will be for her to get there or come home without driving.

Uni is the reason we are going and to be honest I'm thinking the same - I don't want her being so far away if it's impossible for us to get there/her to get home if she needs to.

Def try Euston to new street
And then new street to Liverpool

Avanti (in theory) run to both Liverpool and Manchester, so the service is awful to both and tickets don't go on sale until the very last minute.
Plus you then have to travel from Manchester to Liverpool on either Transpennine or Northern, who are equally terrible, so I wouldn't bother trying that.This is all a serious problem for the economy in the North West at the moment, apart from the inconvenience for everyone who lives up here.
I used to get the train to/from London so often when it was Virgin, and it was usually a good service, but Avanti are now officially the worst performing rail company in the country.

The North Wales MPs have been complaining too, as there's barely any service along the coast either.

Family used to visit by train, now drive as the service is too expensive or non-existent.

You could try West Mids train to Crewe, then Crewe to Lime St. Think that's a West Mids service as well. Travelling anywhere by train in the North West at the moment is a joke.

West Midlands trains between Birmingham and Liverpool are very good, and I'm pretty sure they do ones Marylebone to Brum

It looks like Birmingham to Liverpool is ok, the train from London that is actually going to Birmingham goes to the wrong station for the Liverpool train, I will need to look at how you get from one station to the other.

Alternatively I can fly to Manchester in an hour!

To anyone relying on this shite service you have my sympathy, it's bloody ridiculous

Re: strikes -
The general pattern of them at the moment is for Saturdays (a generalisation but relatively true, especially for those that get the support of a lot of operators). Some slightly cynical people considering this say that it means that people who strike will still get weekend rates/ overtime and not lose a lot of pay if they work the Sunday as well as striking on a Saturday. It's partly the calculation of overtime for the days when there is technically not a strike, or one that only certain operators have got on board with, that is not clear. It doesn't look to be stopping all that soon.

Plus online ticket prices of both the trains and the coach network are recalibrated, not cheaply, as soon as the tickets are eventually released.

The easiest way for me is trainline, I do milton keynes to lime Street direct or with a change at crewe. If your looking to get to edge hill uni, you need to walk 3 mins from lime Street to central and then there's a train straight to Ormskirk and its a 20 min walk or 5 min drive to the uni

Bobbin, your Crewe suggestion is a good one, depending on what the networks are up to on that weekend.

I will have a look at via Milton Keynes, thank you. Once we get there we are going to LIPA so i think it's pretty central and easy from the station (if not we'll get a cab!)

I'd do a black cab the first time so you know the route from lime Street. Also at the moment some of the trains Change at Stafford so also and option and demo get a railcard they save you a fortune. Santander do a free student one with their student accounts

Its only 6/7 minutes between New Street and Moor Street so very manageable

Sorry about the typos, dumb fat fingers

We've got railcards, we've been all over the place looking at uni's and it does save loads.

Train line is telling me to get a bus from Milton Keynes, it look like via Brum will be the best option

Thank you Pharos, I did just look that up and it looks easy enough (i was worried it would be the other side of the city!)

Ive had to give up on train travel across the north and down to London.

The prices are all over the place. I looked at coming back on Sunday night from London next month as a family and some advance tickets were x12 the price of the equivalent price to get down. Say £700 compared to £60 for advance single tickets. First class prices are hundreds of pounds (£250+) for a single person ticket with over a month to go. And all the prices are different on different websites.

Even standard journeys have become ridiculous. Earlier this year May/June I was going in to an office about 50 miles away on an adhoc basic for under £20 a day with flexibility but when I looked last week the prices were £65 a day?!? It's bonkers!

Yes that'll be the strikes ATM we only seem able to bookweekend trips a couple of weeks ahead at most.

I have a child at uni in Birmingham. Last year it was so quick and easy to run up to see them or for them to come down for the weekend. This year Avanti are a complete write-off. At least West Midlands will get you to Brum for only 45 minutes longer. Anywhere further north must be a nightmare.

The Northern/Midlands mayors need to come down to London mob handed (maybe they could share an Uber?) and bang heads together - starting with <<checks notes>> Mark Harper, and then hit the airwaves with a targeted pressure campaign backed up by Starmer and the Labour front bench.

Hi @nancy75 My nephew is at LIPA. Can't comment on the trains but he is loving it there.

The place looks amazing, it's just a shame we have to do 'round the world in 80 days' to get there!!

Yes it's an absolute nightmare, I've been putting off a trip to London for months and with no sign of things improving I've decided I'll have to drive to my DSIS's over in Leeds and go from there instead.

I have looked at trains to Manchester thinking we could get there and then get National express.
Aside from the fact there are no trains going to Manchester (but there are trains coming back) the return leg of the journey would cost considerably more by train than to go there and back flying.