Durham - Watford Return - 27th - 2nd - Industrial Action - Train or Drive?

[Egg Centric]

I will be doing Durham - Watford on 27th August and Watford - Durham on 2nd September. Haven't booked anything yet.

How great are the industrial actions planned for these days likely to be? Am currently eyeballing 13:53 Durham - Sheffield followed by 16:28 Sheffield - St Pancras + Met to Watford and on return not-yet-determined-means to Kings Cross and 15:30 Kings Cross to Durham, possibly with me adding in an artificial split to TPE somewhere (see next sentence as to why)

So here's the thing - I have a slightly strange utility curve because a decent chance of some delay repay would be absolutely fantastic (as I can expense the ticket AND get the compo) but a >4 hour delay would be annoying on the Sunday (got lots of boozing planned) and pretty catastrophic on the Saturday (as it's the eve of my 5th wedding anniversary). If I'm going to take the train, while delays will be welcome, it can't be plausibly risking an overnight stay much more than base level. Is that a significant risk?

Also how are busy the trains likely to be - from the above idea Cross Country + Midland + LNER + possibly TPE. Would be 1st. I don't mind "enforcing" my seat reservation but if it gets to people standing in the aisle that becomes impossible (and unreasonable).

I think I am talking myself out of this and just going to take the A1 but I really do prefer train + possibility of free money + ability to be hungover on the Saturday if I can...

 

[30907]

Southbound the problem is engineering works on the ECML, northbound LNER advice is to reserve, timetable published on 25th. Mid-afternoon from KGX there should be something!

 

[Egg Centric]

Thanks. Ultimately we've decided with the anniversary thing missus will join me down south after work on Thursday and then we'll head back home on Saturday a more flexible way which requires driving realistically. Still even if this hadn't have been so I think would still have driven but only cause of the unusualness of the occasion. Especially a shame to not do the MML which haven't done the northern part of yet.