Cheap way of getting from Glasgow to Cambridge?

[tornado]

Does anyone have any advice on this? Completely flexible on times and days of travel.

My initial thought was to plan around the Lumo services from Edinburgh to Stevenage, with ScotRail+Thameslink at the ends, but the return fare was £650.99 (joke, but not far off).

By the way, this is for a friend who is a student and therefore on limited income (he uses trains infrequently and doesn't have a railcard yet). I suspect the economic solution will be Easyjet to Stansted + Greater Anglia. So much for the government's climate change progress!

 

[Hadders]

£670 is the first class Anytime Return which is not appropriate given Lumo is standard class only.

Where did you see those prices?

 

[30907]

Just using the forum's site and looking 2 months ahead, one way fares are around the £50 mark. Even travelling in 2 days time they are below £70.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

An age appropriate railcard would likely almost pay for itself for this particular journey, even with the cheapest available ticket(s).

 

[Fawkes Cat]

An age appropriate railcard would likely almost pay for itself for this particular journey, even with the cheapest available ticket(s).

this is for a friend who is a student

Assuming them to be a full time student, they should be entitled to buy a Railcard regardless of age.

 

[paul1609]

I think the absolute cheapest way will be Flixbus from Buchanan St with 1 transfer at London Finchley Road. Fares from £22.

 

[tornado]

Thanks for the replies. Looking a couple of weeks from now, I am seeing prices £80-£120 return with railcard (yes it pays for itself).

Still not exactly cheap for a student. Was hoping for some kind of special deal on a particular routing.

It seems Lumo's launching promise to be the Ryanair of the rails in terms of cheap fares has gone out the window now. I see nothing to separate it from LNER these days.

 

[Spaceship323]

Lumo's cheap if you just use their trains end to end and pay well in advance. it's extra connections at each end where they seem to hike the price up. For example I have a ticket (bought before Christmas) for London to Edinburgh in March for £19.50

 

[Farigiraf]

If your friend is willing to take the scenic route, I've seen tickets for Glasgow - Cambridge via the Settle & Carlisle line for under £35, with a split at Hellifield. Much longer than fast up the East Coast, but more likely to get a good value ticket

 

[lnerazuma]

£30 avanti superfare get you straight to London without a Railcard needed, onwards journey to Cambridge budget options could consider Flixbus or Greater Anglia Tottenham Hale to Cambridge advance ticket from £7.5

 

[tornado]

For example I have a ticket (bought before Christmas) for London to Edinburgh in March for £19.50

Planning things a few weeks in advance is how most people I know run their lives. We shouldn't have to stretch that to months to get decent ticket prices.

If your friend is willing to take the scenic route, I've seen tickets for Glasgow - Cambridge via the Settle & Carlisle line for under £35, with a split at Hellifield. Much longer than fast up the East Coast, but more likely to get a good value ticket

Yes, that does indeed get the price down to £60 return with a railcard. A good price. It is very very long with many stops though.

 

[alistairlees]

Caledonian Sleeper has seats from Glasgow to London with a 16-25 from £35.95 in February for a few days, and in March for almost every day. Of course, he will need to pay from London to Cambridge; but that can be done for as little as £5.30 (for an Advance ticket) on appropriately-timed trains from Liverpool Street, leaving just the cost to get from Euston to Liverpool Street.

 

[tornado]

£30 avanti superfare get you straight to London without a Railcard needed, onwards journey to Cambridge budget options could consider Flixbus or Greater Anglia Tottenham Hale to Cambridge advance ticket from £7.5

Yes, actually this seems very promising. Fast and not too arduous. Also easy enough to walk across from Euston to St Pancras and take the Thameslink.

Only problem is Superfare times are only known 24 hours in advance, and London-Cambridge GA or TL normal fares are pricey.

 

[lnerazuma]

Yes, actually this seems very promising. Fast and not too arduous. Also easy enough to walk across from Euston to St Pancras and take the Thameslink.

Only problem is Superfare times are only known 24 hours in advance, and London-Cambridge GA or TL normal fares are pricey.

Also worth to mention GA got more reasonably priced super off peak ticket during the weekend so this might be your consideration factor when to make the journey too

 

[tornado]

Ok, thanks for all the diverse responses. This was the final solution:

2 x Superfare to Euston - £60
Walk to Kings Cross - free
Off-peak return to Cambridge - £31 with a railcard my friend already had (remember Superfare times aren't known until 24 hours before so advance tickets not really possible)

Total - £91. Not too bad.

Oh, and for comparison, flights:

Easyjet Glasgow to Stansted: £28-£35, so £56-£70 return.
Glasgow Airport bus return: £17 (although you could probably do it for £7 with slower buses)
Stansted-Cambridge off-peak return: £13
Total: £76-100.

So the train is just about competitive.

 

[tornado]

Just to update on this - my friend ending up going by plane (from Edinburgh) with Ryanair, probably incentivised by the £16 flights.

Costs - bus+plane+train = £28+£33+£13=£75.

Time: 1hr+1.5hrs+1.5hrs+0.5hrs=4.5 hrs, vs 4.5hrs+1hr=5.5 hrs for the train.

So he saved £15 and 1 hour compared to the train-only solution.

I guess most people only see cheap flights, and forget all the extra bits involved in their journey.

 

[paul1609]

Just to update on this - my friend ending up going by plane with Ryanair, probably incentivised by the £16 flights.

Costs - bus+plane+train = £28+£33+£13=£75.

Time: 1hr+1.5hrs+1.5hrs+0.5hrs=4.5 hrs, vs 4.5hrs+1hr=5.5 hrs for the train.

So he saved £15 and 1 hour compared to the train-only solution.

I guess most people only see cheap flights, and forget all the extra bits involved in their journey.

To be honest if you are talking real rail journeytimes you will struggle to get from Glasgow Central/ Queen Street to Cambridge in less than 6.5 hours more likely is pushing 7 hours. So its likley 2 to 2.5 hours quicker by air.

 

[tornado]

4.5 hrs to London, 10 mins walk to Kings Cross, and then 48 mins to Cambridge (every 30 mins).

That gives me 5.5-6 hrs.

Also, none of that is "lost time". No annoying buses stuck in traffic, no waiting at airports, no queeing for planes, no squeezing into seats with no legroom, no noisy jet engines, no people selling you lottery scratchcards. No discarding liquids and sharp objects.

I'm always baffled why so many people have this kind of knee-jerk "let's book a flight" when travelling across the UK.

 

[paul1609]

4.5 hrs to London, 10 mins walk to Kings Cross, and then 48 mins to Cambridge (every 30 mins).

That gives me 5.5-6 hrs.

Also, none of that is "lost time". No annoying buses stuck in traffic, no waiting at airports, no queeing for planes, no squeezing into seats with no legroom, no noisy jet engines, no people selling you lottery scratchcards. No discarding liquids and sharp objects.

I'm always baffled why so many people have this kind of knee-jerk "let's book a flight" when travelling across the UK.

Im not advocating flights, Im being realistic about rail journeytimes.
Personally I wouldnt go via London but if you do the Glasgow trains generally arrive at Euston at XX12, the first fast Cambridge train you can physically catch is the XX 42 so youre looking at wheels turning at Glasgow Central to Wheels stopping at Cambridge of 5hrs 5X mins depending on how many stops you make in the north-west.
This is below the minimum connectiontime in London, if you want to observe that the next fast train is XX12 so add 30 mins.
The cheap way to get to Glasgow Airport from Glasgow City centre is to get the train to Paisley Gilmor St (£4.60) and walk its 1.5 miles (takes me just over 30 mins) or theres a bus 727.

 

[Hadders]

4.5 hrs to London, 10 mins walk to Kings Cross, and then 48 mins to Cambridge (every 30 mins).

That gives me 5.5-6 hrs.

Also, none of that is "lost time". No annoying buses stuck in traffic, no waiting at airports, no queeing for planes, no squeezing into seats with no legroom, no noisy jet engines, no people selling you lottery scratchcards. No discarding liquids and sharp objects.

I'm always baffled why so many people have this kind of knee-jerk "let's book a flight" when travelling across the UK.

I'm an advocate of train travel (just last week I made a journey from Glasgow to Stevenage) but with rail you often get:

Euston scrum
Seats with no window view
Poor timekeeping
Cancellations for a variety of reasons including more trains needing repair, lack of staff and industrial action
Staff trying to say your Off-Peak ticket isn't valid to travel in the 'evening peak' from London
Often more expensive

 

[tornado]

Personally I wouldnt go via London

What would be your preferred route?

I did find some alternative routes that were more or less the same length but involved multiple changes, and >10 stops. Personally a journey with loads of stops I find quite fatiguing.

 

[AndrewE]

What would be your preferred route?

I did find some alternative routes that were more or less the same length but involved multiple changes, and >10 stops. Personally a journey with loads of stops I find quite fatiguing.

Well - in the UK especially - if you are going from somewhere [not London] to somewhere else [not London] you are going to have a lot of stops on almost any journey, especially if none of the legs was on an express to London.

(Which would be a topic for another thread: Most stations called at on a UK train journey between 2 points using standard ticket routing!)

 

[Hadders]

What would be your preferred route?

I did find some alternative routes that were more or less the same length but involved multiple changes, and >10 stops. Personally a journey with loads of stops I find quite fatiguing.

Depending on connection times Glasgow - Edinburgh - Stevenage (via Lumo) - Cambridge could be a contender for a fast journey time and fewer stops.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Depending on connection times Glasgow - Edinburgh - Stevenage (via Lumo) - Cambridge could be a contender for a fast journey time and fewer stops.

Does a change at Peterborough, rather than Stevenage, help any?

 

[Hadders]

Does a change at Peterborough, rather than Stevenage, help any?

Lumo run Newcastle to Stevenage non-stop.

 

[paul1609]

What would be your preferred route?

I did find some alternative routes that were more or less the same length but involved multiple changes, and >10 stops. Personally a journey with loads of stops I find quite fatiguing.

Id most certainly go via Edinburgh, if your origin brings you in or through Queen Street its an absolute no brainer. Then Peterborough/Stevenage even Kings Cross as suits your schedule. Even with an extra change somewhere along the ECML to find a train stopping at Stevenage etc. its better than via Euston.
I think with the minimum connection time between Euston/Kings Cross many of the journey planners will suggest a ECML route anyway?

 

[tornado]

Just did a quick search for a mid-week journey using Scotrail+Lumo+Thameslink in 3 weeks time:

£110 with a railcard. 6hrs. 2 changes. 15 stops.

So via Edinburgh is worse than the Avanti+GN solution I proposed to my friend:

£90 with a railcard. 5.5-6 hrs. 1 change. 8 stops.

 

[robbeech]

Your definition of worse might be different to someone else’s though which is the point being made I guess.

*It’s unofficially a bit quicker. (It isn’t if you follow minimum cross London transfer times)
*It’s cheaper, by £20.
*It’s less changes.
*However, it involves 2 London terminal stations which are generally quite busy
*It involves a walk between them which isn’t suitable for everyone.

So which is better really does depend on what you’re trying to achieve, I don’t see there’s a right and wrong here.

If you’re trying to wear out a pair of shoes it would be “better” to walk it.

 

[Hadders]

As it happens I travelled from Stevenage to Glasgow last week.

Outbound I took the 06:10 Lumo from SVG and made an unofficial 7 minute connection at Edinburgh, arriving at Glasgow Queen Street at 11:07 so a 4h57 overall journey.

Coming back I took the 11:36 from Glasgow Central to Euston with some nimble footwork via the Victoria Line and Finsbury Park saw me arrive SVG at 16:58. Journey time 5h22.

An alternative for me would have been to fly from Luton which I suspect would’ve been faster overall but probably cost neutral once car parking at Luton and transfers from the airport to the city centre are included.

 

[paul1609]

As it happens I travelled from Stevenage to Glasgow last week.

Outbound I took the 06:10 Lumo from SVG and made an unofficial 7 minute connection at Edinburgh, arriving at Glasgow Queen Street at 11:07 so a 4h57 overall journey.

Coming back I took the 11:36 from Glasgow Central to Euston with some nimble footwork via the Victoria Line and Finsbury Park saw me arrive SVG at 16:58. Journey time 5h22.

An alternative for me would have been to fly from Luton which I suspect would’ve been faster overall but probably cost neutral once car parking at Luton and transfers from the airport to the city centre are included.

If your going from Stevenage direct to Glasgow City Centre I doubt you can beat the train tbh.
I haven't checked recently but there did used to be one really good Lumo connection off a Brighton Thameslink train at Stevenage which bypassed the London minimum connection and as a result was over an hour quicker than anything LNER or AWC offered.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Feb 2025 ==

Just did a quick search for a mid-week journey using Scotrail+Lumo+Thameslink in 3 weeks time:

£110 with a railcard. 6hrs. 2 changes. 15 stops.

So via Edinburgh is worse than the Avanti+GN solution I proposed to my friend:

£90 with a railcard. 5.5-6 hrs. 1 change. 8 stops.

I think you are doing something wrong.
A Glasgow QS/Central to Stevenage Super Off Peak Single route not via London Railcard discounted is £61.90 the cheapest advance is £26.90.
Stevenage to Cambridge is £10.55
For the reasons I've pointed out the quickest you can physically do via Euston is a couple of mins under 6 hours if you observe the min connection it is a couple of mins under 6 h 30.