Trains to London

[Onacuctustree]

I live on a mainline to London.
I want to book a train for the week after next.
There is nothing.
Apps I have tried,the Trainline, Avanti..
What is going on?
Is it because of strikes,so trains might be there if I just show up?
Or are they full?
Shouldn't it be quite easy to get a train to the capital city with 2 weeks advance notice?

@MaffsMover or you could travel to Leeds then take the scenic Settle - Carlisle railway to Carlisle. Not sure why google map didn't throw up that option.

@MrsFezziwig she said mainline and Avanti and to London so I assumed it was the west coast mainline due to it being a major national issue and I didn't think they ran another mainline but am prepared to be corrected on that!

Thanks guys. Yes, some options. The extra time those would take make them difficult but useful in an emergency. I could get from London to Paris faster and easier than I could get to the NW. You're not unreasonable OP.

And it’s not that this option isn’t working at the moment. It’s not been working since the summer.

And then there will be engineering works in Half term, every weekend in November and again during the Christmas holidays. HOW is that allowed to happen? I know that’s not Avanti’s fault but it’s still ridiculous.

It’s utter shite from Manchester. I’ve decided to drive instead this weekend.

Well to be fair, depending on where in Cumbria you need to get to, Paris is closer to London.

Plus it has a much better train line.

Avanti is part-owned by the Italian Government - why not give them a call?

Why the hell do we have a train line run by a company part-owned by another country’s government? That sounds bizarre!

You’ve a point but I don’t want to be fair Barbara! In 1980 I thought I’d have a hover car. It’s now 2022 and I might need to get a canal barge via Birmingham to cross the country.

Still some good prices for advance seats Leeds to London over half term op.

Me & DS going there & back for £56 with a family & friends rail card so may well be worth coming to Leeds depending on where you live obvs xx

In principle, I usually support strikers, but the railways are on their way to putting themselves out of business. You can no longer rely on there being any trains; you have to look at alternative transport and the longer that continues, the more people will get used not considering the train as a serious option.

The trains aren’t shit because the staff occasionally strike. The trains are shit because it’s a terrible business model, privatised to funnel profits towards shareholders, continually reliant on the goodwill of staff that the companies have screwed over, and the attitude from Avanti etc to anyone that wants to travel on the train network is ‘fuck you’

It's nothing to do with the EU. Blame Thatcher and her selling off all of the family silver. See also Utilities. My electricity is provided by a French company.

I've ended up booking to go by coach instead of train!

Train companies make on average 2p profit per £1 spent on tickets, hardly the great money making machine people think they are. Since privatisation, passenger numbers have doubled, freight carried by rail has gone up by 80% and the safety record is far better now as well. Avanti is partly owned by Trenitalia who also run services in France, Spain and Switzerland

Return tickets from London to Carlisle in half term week are from £90 return using split ticketting