Thread unlocked to enable
@reduke to provide an update.
Thanks for the unlock.
I’d be interested to see how many attempts it took someone to complete that itinerary successfully!
Short answer: 1
Short-ish answer: about 40% of RTT/OTT runs were successful before this one...
6 mins between trains at Perth is well risky. Perth is a huge sprawling station
Perth was definitely the easiest connection!
So after alarms at 4am and thereafter every 15 minutes on a phone I couldn't reach from my bed I made the 05.03 with 5 minutes to spare.
The night before I watched the sleeper pull in from the sidings and definitely had a twinge of envy towards those about to board.
Sunrise came with breakfast on the way to Plymouth, followed a long (but in hindsight also very short) time later by almost on-time arrival at Paddington.
Cross London was neither leisurely nor frantic, and boarded with 10 minutes to spare onto a very packed train. Thankfully the passenger in the wrong end of the train didn't cause enough of a fuss to cause a deboarding...
Lunch was a Croque Monsieur and my second energy drink of the day to make sure I was still awake at Edinburgh. All the while spent scrolling OTT watching the 3 trains in front.
Thankfully the Leeds was the only one picking up any delays and it turned off just in time to not cause an issue. For once the Lumo didn't hold us up at all - in fact we had longer dwell at both stops due to early arrivals
Found my way into the wrong end (south end of the 5th coach from the front on a 9 car arriving into platform 9 is the option of choice for anyone still wanting to try this...) of coach H for a 1 minute early arrival at Edinburgh. I can't say exactly how long it was from RTT arrival to doors open, but it felt about two minutes.
Quick jog to be up on the footbridge before the crowd and from there it was leisurely-ish.
Most of the distance done, and only half of the time gone...
We picked up some delays on the way to Perth but the guard phoned ahead to make sure the HST would wait for us - not needed on the end.
Perth to Inverness was the best part of the trip. Comfortable seats in a proper train with a beer and a caramel wafer watching the scenery go by
Inverness to Wick for the final stretch with eyelids heavy. Tucked into "dinner" and hoped the enjoyable clickety-clack wouldn't rock me to sleep. Courtesy calls made to my emergency hotel in Tain to let them know I wouldn't be making my reservation and to let my Wick hotel know my scheduled time of arrival and I settled in for the long haul. Thankfully laptop juice lasted from when the sun went down to nearly my arrival at Wick.
So ...
Doable? Yes
Advisable? Not unless you Want to tick it off some strange list...
Likelihood of completion? 40%-ish without further timetable improvements. Without a few minutes of GWR delays and a better tube connection the 10:15 Lumo departure may have been possible in order to buy a few extra minutes of leeway at Edinburgh, but I've no idea what the loadings were like on that service - the LNER was 95% seats taken from what I saw.
Tickets were an advance from Penzance to Plymouth plus an anytime from Plymouth to Edinburgh - giving me lots of flexibility plus the greatest delay repay refund for if something went wrong. Cheap single split tickets north of Edinburgh finished it off.
Worst part? Refreshments or the lack thereof. I wish the train companies could put in some more effort here. No service north of Inverness meant I had to stock up on non-perishables the night before, and the other offerings were nothing to write home about...
Would I do it again? Ermmm... I'll let you figure that one out.
