Do “Through train” enthusiasts exist?

[Kite159]

Hmm...what would the cheapest ticket be for that journey?

It was when the High Speed service was in the timetable as a "St Pancras to St Pancras" service, going via Dover & Ramsgate. These days the service has been split in Thanet so such a cheap ticket isn't available under the direct train rule

 

[Tester]

I did it on a day return from St Pancras to Stratford for £5.40.

Ha! - silly me for forgetting that possibility!

 

[vic-rijrode]

Two years ago I travelled on TPE from Newcastle to Liverpool and back for £10 each way - special deal!

 

[A S Leib]

I wonder how many people have done the full length of routes like Munich – Leipzig via Frankfurt; not cheaper, unlike (at times) nighttime services, and certainly not quicker, so only the novelty factor would lead somebody to do that.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Thought I'd return to the thread to add that, partly inspired by this thread, I have added Brighton to Southampton to my list although didn't have time to go out of my way to connect from the full length of Cambridge to Brighton at Brighton.

I will soon have completed Swansea to Shrewsbury via HoW (the Trainsplit-suggested easier connection from Paddington was at Llanelli but I forced a change at Swansea).

I've also booked the full length of Waterloo to Weymouth connecting to Weymouth to Gloucester as a diversion en route to Birmingham.

And I don't know when, how or why, but I've also resolved to do the once daily TfW 158s from Birmingham International to Manchester Piccadilly via Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Chester and Warrington!

East Croydon to Watford and Gatwick to Reading remain on the list for a future unnecessary routing diversion.

 

[BeeBus]

An interesting train was the 'York Mail' over the Standege route. At the beginning of the 1960s it ran over the Central Wales line to Swansea Victoria, but when the latter station closed in 1964 it was truncated to Shrewsbury for a short while (speaking from memory here) before being extended to Aberystwyth. It would still then have been an interesting through journey but the train towards York would dump you there at a very anti-social time (around 0300 I suspect). I used it quite a few times just from Leeds to Stalybridge and once as far as Crewe. Quite often it had two Type 4 diesels from York to Stalybridge as it also had a Manchester portion, but at other times the second loco would be waiting at Stalybridge.

It's quite some time since it ran, though, and was truncated to Shrewsbury again before it finished. The other problem, leaving aside that it hasn't run for some time, is that most of the journey would be in the dark.

 

[Mainline421]

A while ago, at different times, I've seriously considered doing Bristol Temple Meads to Stansted Airport and Brighton to Great Malvern, but they’d probably get boring in reality. Did manage to fit Aberdeen to Penzance into an All Line Rover though

 

[Techniquest]

I did London Euston to Glasgow Central in one journey recently, which had been on the list to do for ages. It was a good journey, especially as it had been ages since I last travelled through the Lake District. However I was also glad when we finally arrived in Glasgow, it felt like a long journey by the end which wasn’t helped by being very keen to get out and explore Glasgow!

That seemed to satisfy my through train desires for the time being, it’ll be a good while before I do that sort of thing again!