Just thought I’d have a look to see if it was feasible to get the train up to Fort William this year from exeter. Yes, if you want to pay somewhere in the region of £700 for two people. I could be slightly wrong on this as it wouldn’t process my request (I wanted to know the full price just for the story telling aspect) but it’s thereabouts.

So, the government would rather we took the bus and train to get places and not clog up the roads, it’s also bad to fly…well I don’t know about you lot but £350 to get to Scotland is friggin’ ridiculous.

Won’t be going to the world cup this year either then!

under £200 each on the trainline

That sounds like you might be looking at the first class sleeper option by mistake

I have just done a quick check Liverpool to Fort William return and I got it for £98.30

Its also usually cheaper to buy 2 singles.

You might also be able to get it cheaper by breaking the journey – exeter to Glasgow / glasgow to fort william or similar. Somewhere there is a website that works this out for you or by going via London

Train ticket pricing is a nightmare tho

Only train available when we can go is the sleeper. The return back down country would take about 18hrs with 4 changes without the sleeper!

The main problem is that the World Cup at FW always takes place in term time for England so can’t take any extra days off to travel during the week…bummer!

train ticket pricing is an ar5e – not many other industries could get away with being so deliberately complicated. dont see why it cant be done the same as easyjet and the like.

Might be cheaper to fly to Inverness and rent a car

Try megatrain.com – if you book early enough you may get a train to Glasgow for a quid.

For 500 notes I’ll pick you up and chauffeur you around for the weekend.! 😉

£700.! you could pass your test (if you haven’t already) buy a car and drive up.

good lord.

train ticket pricing is an ar5e – not many other industries could get away with being so deliberately complicated. dont see why it cant be done the same as easyjet and the like.

I think you’ve picked one of the few examples of pricing more obscure than the trains there to compare- all airline pricing strategies with the exception of ‘ all seats, one price’ are sheer hell to define.
I agree with point though, but thought rail pricing had recently been dramatically simpliifed?

I used to travel Bridgwater (somerset) to Newcastle quite a lot. It worked out cheaper and quicker to fly. Only works though if you’ve got an airport at both ends !

The standard anytime fare from Glasgow – Fort William is about £42 but you can get that even cheaper if you pick certain dates. The Exeter – Glasgow leg must be extortionate!

I’d buy a car for about £200 and insure it (depending on age, for about £300 (for a year) cancel after a month and get rest of money back, insurance probably cost you around £60ish then…

Or keep it for a year, then buy a new car and get £2000 😆

Yeah but you can’t sleep whilst driving a car either.

1 sleeps – 1 drives

£700!

Wow!

I’ll personally drive you there for £450.

In fact, you fly to Glasgow airport and I’ll do the driving for you from there to Fort Bill and back for a lot less……

Taking the piss.

Most people I know, down here in London, have never been to Scotland. It’s simply too spensive, when compared to other destinations. I can be in most of Western Yerp, in less time, and for less cost. Some friends of mine were planning their summer hols. They quite fancied the idea of a trip to the Scottish Highlands, or Egypt. 2 weeks in Egypt was a lot cheaper than one week in the Highlands. The rail fare alone to Scotland was over two thirds the cost of the entire trip to Egypt.

Rail fare is bloody mental. No wonder people go abroad.

yes rudeboy, but that is why the highlands (west and north) are the last wilderness in “Yerp”

PS pay for my family’s accomodation and I might pick you up at that price.

Scottish Highlands or Egypt? Yes I can see the similarities 😉

I think you are comparing package holidays so I can see why Scotland wouldn’t ‘make sense’ to your friends in that context. Granted we dont have miles of cheapo concrete and glass hotels to put them up in – thankfully..

The fact is many hundreds of thousands of folk from deepest Englandshire make the annual pilgrimage to the Highlands and many wouldn’t consider going anywhere else. More than one way to skin a cat…

Kip, tried fly and Blag? Must be some folks from Edinburgh and the Weege on here who are going up Friday, back Sunday that may be able to fit you in….

just did inverness return from peterborough for £160 for 2 people. I think you’ll find you are just trying to book too late. I worked at the world champs a couple of years ago and got the sleeper for £180 return plus £60 car parking at the station (I was there for 8 days). you could try getting the regular train to crewe and then getting the sleeper?

think you are comparing package holidays so I can see why Scotland wouldn’t ‘make sense’ to your friends in that context. Granted we dont have miles of cheapo concrete and glass hotels to put them up in – thankfully..

You don’t have enough pyramids though.

And those bleeding bagpipes? Say no more.

Trains seems cheapest option for me, somerset to Aberdeen.

train 11hrs from £20 single fare
coach 18hr £65
easy jet return £75 but need transfers to from each airport.

so for me train is best and cheapest

Part of the problem with rail in the UK is the decades of chronic underinvestment after the last war, allied to our incredibly risk averse society which expects zero incident travel. Added to the totally fragmented infrastructure setup this means that improvements which require multi organisational input take years to set up and are also at the whim of our short-termist political masters.
This means that we don’t have the capacity to take all the people who do wish to travel by rail, the only way to restrict demand is to push the ticket price up to dissuade use of the system.
Not having our rail system effectively destroyed during the war didn’t help either as the rest of Europe rebuilt their rail infrastructure whilst we retained our Victorian/Edwardian infrastructure.

aP is bang on, trains would be far better id the germans had made it over the channel 😀

we also hung onto steam power for far FAR too long which didn’t help with the slow improvement of the infrastructure

I think you are comparing package holidays so I can see why Scotland wouldn’t ‘make sense’ to your friends in that context. Granted we dont have miles of cheapo concrete and glass hotels to put them up in – thankfully..

As mentioned, Scotland does not in any way have thousands of years of history, anywhere near the level of historic locations and structures, or the cultural significance.

And it rains a lot.

yes rudeboy, but that is why the highlands (west and north) are the last wilderness in “Yerp”

Bollocks. Ever been to Scandanavia? There are places there, where even a mobile ‘phone won’t work. And there are things like bears and wolves running about. Scotland is hardly an ‘untouched wilderness’, ffs.

Anyway. I’m not here to slag off Scotland; indeed, I’d love to go up there (in summer). I’m just saying, that it’s not appealed as a holiday destination, to many from the South, as we have cheaper and perhaps more exciting options available to us. For example, I can get to Barcelona, for about £40-50 return. Add on travel to and from an airport like Stanstead, which is only about £20 or so, return, and it’s easy to see why someone like me would rather go for the cheaper and more convenient option.

aP outlines the problem with rail travel in this country. Lack of investment, together with that clever Dr. Beeching, has meant that rail travel is nowhere near as good and as convenient as it could be. All those disused lines that Julia Bradbury toddles about on are testament to this fact.

We could do with pumping loads of money into rail networks, get them back up to steam, asit were. Sadly, the car-obsessed society we live in, coupled with the greed for oil/money/power, means it ain’t gonna happen.

What we need, are monorails…

igm – Member
yes rudeboy, but that is why the highlands (west and north) are the last wilderness in “Yerp

It isn’t a wilderness, it’s an area deliberately depopulated by genocidal policies and land clearances, and it was turned into a playground so that wealthy southern gentry could come up and shoot peasants. That may also have something to do with the fares – there’s plenty willing to pay them.

RudeBoy – Member
As mentioned, Scotland does not in any way have thousands of years of history, anywhere near the level of historic locations and structures, or the cultural significance.
And it rains a lot.

eh? I agree about the rain though 🙂

I think rude boy is a bit delusional in this particular case… Barcelona is nowhere as nice and charge of history as scotland and neither is egypt, you just need to know where to look?

And as for is mobile phone not having signal, IIRC this shite hole called the london underground wont get you any signal either 😉

But as for the train fair I do concur… They are horribly expensive and a complete nightmare…
I am meant to link aviemore to southampton this summer, but I think I4ll just fly to be honest, cheaper and easier.

I think rude boy is a bit delusional in this particular case.

You been out too long in the sun?

Crazy man.

Plenty of History in Barcelona, and indeed Spain. With all the trade etc in the Mediterranean, and the enormous movement of peoples throughout the Iberian peninsula, from Africa and all over Yerp, I’d argue that Spain has a very rich and colourful history indeed. And it’s people are praps genetically more diverse, due to it’s location.

Scotland, whilst undoubtedly fascinating and beautiful, cannot boast as deep and great a history as Spain, and certainly not Egypt. Come on. Far less peoples have moved and settled in Scotland, and there are far less historic structures and examples of past civilisations, as in Spain.

Spain and Egypt do have the luxury of more appealing weather. This is an undeniable fact.

Mobile ‘phones? I dare say there are some valleys and remote peaks in Scotland, where a signal is not available. I somehow doubt this is comparable to places like northern Scandinavia, and Russia! Places that are praps just a tad more ‘remote’ than anywhere in the UK.

And I’ve recently seen people using mobiles on the underground. New technology being trialled makes this possible on some of the shallower lines, apparently. Whatever, some people seem to get a signal on some parts. And I dare say this will be possible over more of the network, as technology improves.

Why do you bother, Juan? You know I will always win…

RB – they’re not implementing the mobile phone network on the tube.

Get single journey tickets…I went to North Allerton from Stirling last week – £34 with 2 trail changes…but if I’d got it as a single journey would have been £85!!! So I priced the tickets between the stops I had to change…much cheaper and they were all reserved and the last one was first class from Newcastle (although admittedly nothing too fancy).

Mobile ‘phones? I dare say there are some valleys and remote peaks in Scotland, where a signal is not available.

There’s thousand of square miles up here where you can’t get a mobile phone signal.

Just got stung £9 return from Nottingham to Sheffield… bloody awful 🙄

Spain and Egypt do have the luxury of more appealing weather.

So you cant even handle a few drop of rains…
Do I have to remind you why the hadrian’s wall use to be up for?

People in scotland where moving big rock down salisbury way before anyone else…

Never book trains on T’internet, you never get the best prices. Always always ring up and book.

Rudeboy, you’re the only person I know that could start an argument if you were locked in a room by yourself.

I spent ages on this, best thing to do is try loads of routes, I live in Burnley, coming back Glasgow to Preston was £194.00, yet Glasgow to Burnley was £12.00 and you have to change at Preston, It has cost me £44.00 return, going thurs am and coming back monday. Has anyoone had there tickets delivered for the event yet?