ok i know you all hate noisy children on trains...

[Concordia]

But i am travelling for four hours on a train with DS aged 4 and DD only just 2 soon. DS has asked if there will be play area!!
we will have stuff to carry from our five days away so won't have that much room to bring toys etc, although will obviously pack some.
any ideas on how i can avoid incurring the wrath of other passengers?
btw we only have one reserved seat as to get a seat for children you have to pay for them but can't get a friends and family railcard until the child is 5.
we will also have to travel from marylebone to kings cross - any ideas from londoners on how to do this - i think my ticket includes tube but pushchair on tube with 4yo as well?
i could walk but not sure 4yo will be able to walk this distance and cross all the roads in 50 mins. how much will a taxi cost? could i walk to baker street and catch a bus and would that be included in my ticket?
sorry for long post -getting very anxious. thanks for your help and reassurance!

Taxi - about £10 is your best bet.

Take colouring pencils, paper and sticker books. Throw them away when finished (the paper I mean). Take a picnic so they can eat for half an hour. Take anything they can use on the journey and dispose of in a separate bag - I tend to print cbeebies sheets, get a pack of four wax crayons in primary colours each and something like a sticker book which when they have finished can be discretely chucked in the station bin.

Count cows/sheep/cross faced commuters.

Marylebone is a decent station to disembark but do wait till everyone else is gone, and you have to walk past bike racks which provide endless fascination for toddlers.

You'll be fine though. Do not begrudge them chocolate buttons in the name of good parenting in this case :)

Well Marylebone to Kings Cross is dead easy - the 205 bus goes from outside Marylebone Station straight to Kings Cross (15-30mins depending on the time of day). I would say too far for a 4 year old to walk unless you have a good hour + to spare and again depending on time of day, I would reckon about £8 on a cab.

I've not done train with LOs but have done similar flight times and would advise plenty of snacks, a DVD or two & some colouring. I assume it's not just you & your two children???? IMO there's no way you could have 2 of them on your lap for any length of time without seriously pissing off her person next to you!!

HTH
LCN

i usually buy dd4 a ticket when using friends and family card, as she isnt yet 2. save us money.

cab between stations would be easiest if you have two children, luggage and time limit.

colouring

stories on ipod

storybooks

feed hourly

take babywipes

thanks everyone.

food and cbeebies sheets sound good. actually i'm not too worried about the 4yo, who will probably sit and colour, eat and chat, it's DD who is 24 months and in full toddler mode. i think her usual activities of jumping on the spot and pushing her dollies around might be a bit curtailed. ouch!
yes it is just me and two DCs! but they do have a few unreserved seats on trains so i suspect we will probably hope to find two or three of those together and ignore my reserved seat(unless there happens to be an unreseverd one next to it)
might splash out on a cab to minimise stress. it will be very exciting for the DCs who will have only seen a black cab before on TV!

oh yes storybooks and babywipes...

Take a small car, a train and a small doll for the two year old. Make up stories about the doll.

yay. we survived! (and so did the other passengers)
we got a table with four seats around it.
DS was fine, DD a bit harder work, got tireder and by the end of the longest (2h45 min) train kept saying 'come on' and trying to walk off down the train
but on the whole it was ok, actually quite fun
thanks for all your tips.
the cbeebies sheets, our mini bob the builder vehicles and a very large packet of biscuits worked well with chocolate buttons when it got really tough.

Double check about the friends and family railcard for future travel - you can get them before the child is 5. You do have to pay for a ticket for the child (which is counter intuitive, as normally the child would be free) but you then get 1/3 of your ticket, thus saving you money in the long run.
Glad journey went okay.

Try and keep 2yr old awake before you go on the train in the hope she might sleep for a few hrs. The rocking motion of the train always worked well getting ds off

do you have an ipod? We put timmy time/peppa pig etc on ours and got some cheap headphones for DD (2.6) and she watches them on the ipod when we're going on journeys, works a treat!

Am doing a 4 hour train journey with DD1 and DD2 (4 months) next week, that will be fun...