To think I can get from Cardiff to Hammersmith in 3 hours???

[mosschops30]

On a friday night?????

DH thinks I am bonkers!!!!

Travelling with a friend to see a show but she cant leave until 4pm, so that gives us about 3 hours to get there.
It will be straight down the M4 and onto Hammersmith.
How bad will it be??

Hammersmith is very easy from the M4 - it's right there, as you come into the London area. Couldn't really have picked a better destination from the M4 actually.

Not in terms of traffic, I hasten to add; but in geographical terms it's just as you leave the M4.

We used to live 10 mins walk from the Apollo (which I guess is where you're going) and tbh you'll be lucky to make it in that time, especially of an evening. However, as someone said, depending on what it is the main attraction of the show is unlikely to be on until 7.30 anyway. You just need to check that they'll let you in once it's started.

You might be better off driving to somewhere like Osterley, parking and then jumping on the Piccadilly Line.

shit, tuis not looking good is it!

Parking somewhere else isnt really an option because I would have to leave my car there overnight or after the show get the tube back to there to pick car up to drive back to hotel.

Might look at train prices again, but just cant justify spending that money really

When is it?
If you check the national rail website here you could potentially get the tickets at a reasonable price, especially if you are returning the following day.

will have a look, thanks for that. Site is down at the moment but will check later

We're only 35 miles from London and it takes us between one and one and a half hours to get into the centre on Friday evenings.

Not a chance. You might be able to do Cardiff to Heathrow in that time but after Heathrow it is usually pretty messy.

Tis £42 rtn with the trainline (was £84 on the national rail website )

Think will have to phone friend and see if she can get out of work early.
Any idea how likely they are to let a TA go early on a friday {sad]

hmm never thought of that what a good idea, then we would both be there in time, I could take the luggage in the car and she would just pay one way single fare
kind of takes the fun away of a girly night but definately solves a lot of the problems

£24 for a single fare at 16.00. Gets her in at just after 6pm

I have done it. You can totally do it, however:
Make sure you fill up, go for one almighty bathroom break before take-off and consume no fluids during the journey.
As long as your friend really can be sitting in the car with you at bang on 4pm I don't see why it's impossible. I do that journey quite regularly and while I agree that it can be a bit stop and start after the M25 turn off going Eastbound, it's usually mobile even if it's slow. Hammersmith basically is the A4 so you don't have to negotiate too many other roads once you're off the M4.

If it was an early Sunday evening, however, I'd say forget it. 5 hours more like!!

oh ladyrabbit youve totally confused me now
When did you last do the journey into London that way?
I did think that going in to London on a friday pm would be better than trying to get out on a friday pm.

Will put all suggestions to friend and see what she thinks

I once did Cardiff to Reading in 1hr 15 on a Friday. Not big and not clever. I don't drive like an arsehole anymore.

LOL at it not being busy trying to get into London on a Friday night. My experience has been the exact opposite and it only takes for one person to screw up on the H'smith roundabout and the whole area locks up tight. I have spent almost 2 hours getting from just outside Fullers Brewery to Fulham because of that stupid bloody roundabout.

morloth raises a good point - why not go hell for leather to heathrow and then jump on the tube?

mosschops30 I simply cannot condone driving over the national speed limit now can I? But erm, how should I put it, one could, in theory, nip along at a nice (and still safe) speed for as long as possible and get to Junction 4 (Heathrow) with 45 minutes to spare, which should be enough to get into Hammersmith even with some traffic. As a contingency, you could get on the tube at either Heathrow or Hatton Cross and make Hammersmith in time as well, like Morloth advises.

The last time I did the journey on a Friday evening was just before Christmas. I did it a few weeks' ago, but on a Sunday evening and NEVER AGAIN.

If you do decide to drive it, can I just from personal experience and huge expense recommend driving the Swindon county council stretch of the M4 at no more than 68mph. They are absolute buggers on that bit of the motorway.

mid day you'd be fine but on a friday night its too risky and it gets clogged, I'd allow 3.5 hours to be safe

mosschops30 just to be clear, when I mean 'the journey' I mean from the town centre of Cardiff - I don't know if you will use a different junction.

Not a chance!

There are average speed cameras on a large chunk of the M4 around Newbury, so you'll have to stick to the speed limit
And there are roadworks near Windsor with a speed restriction of 50mph and average cameras (or at least there were just before Christmas... Are they still there?)

Then after Heathrow, the M4 goes from 3 lanes down to 2, which means stationary traffic for a couple of miles.

I used to work near Heathrow and commute to Hammersmith and my journey home could take up to an hour and a half, especially if Chelsea were playing at home, there was a bit thing at Earls Court/Twickenham/Olympia, or there was any sort of accident

If it starts raining, people tend to instantly forget how to drive and that would add an extra half an hour onto the journey

As an alternative to leaving the car in Hatton Cross (where parking would be quite expensive) you could leave it in Slough, where there is a massive car park next to the station and you can get a train ticket and tube ticket combined for about a tenner, and then be in paddington in about 20 mins, then another 20 mins to get from Paddington to Hammersmith

sparechange deffo not possible to leave car somewhere random and get train in, would have to either take luggage with us or leave it in the car then get train back to car after show then drive to hotel.

Think my options are:

• to persuade friend to leave earlier
• to travel down alone earlier check in hotel and park car etc then friend gets train at 4pm and I meet her at Paddington
• drive like buggery safely and responsibly and hope we can make it for 7pm

ladyrabbit I get on after the A48 (live north cardiff) so miss out all of town, which should give me an extra 20 mins or so woo hoo

The tunnels at Newport are likely to be slow - but you need to know that the average speed cameras between cardiff and newport are not working - so need need to reduce your speed for that section!

those tunnels are far worse in the opposite direction, not normally so bad getting out of wales.
Thanks for the speed camera tip how do you know that? Im not sure why theyve changed it to 50mph down there now all the roadworks are finished, is it an accident blackspot?