Glasgow-Nottingham routing advice (fare agnostic)

[typical]

Hope this is the right forum for this. I'll be using an Eurail First pass for this journey, so can pretty much choose my route.

Want to leave Glasgow around 7-8am on Saturday, aiming to reach Nottingham before 2.30pm.

Routes I've found so far are:
Down to Crewe on the WCML with Avanti (direct or changing at Carlisle), then a 1 hour 45 jaunt on EMR
Over to Edinburgh, down the ECML with LNER, then walk across Newark and the short EMR link across Notts
Down to Birmingham NS on the WCML then XC to Derby and EMR east

Did think about changing at Grantham but it's a replacement bus to Nottingham.

It's going to be a long day (I'll go on to the south coast in the evening) so I want to prioritise comfort and getting a seat. Not really got a sense of cross-country travel these days as my trips back to the UK have been north-south.

Recommendations between the above, or any routes I've overlooked, would be very welcome!

 

[alistairlees]

You might consider the 07:09 TPE service to Manchester Piccadilly 10:26, then the 10:43 EMR to Nottingham arrive 12:29.

The 08:00 Glasgow to Crewe (11:00) then the 11:10 to Nottingham arrive 12:54 is the quickest journey. But if you miss the Crewe connection it's another hour to wait...

 

[JB_B]

Hope this is the right forum for this. I'll be using an Eurail First pass for this journey, so can pretty much choose my route.

Want to leave Glasgow around 7-8am on Saturday, aiming to reach Nottingham before 2.30pm.

Routes I've found so far are:
Down to Crewe on the WCML with Avanti (direct or changing at Carlisle), then a 1 hour 45 jaunt on EMR
Over to Edinburgh, down the ECML with LNER, then walk across Newark and the short EMR link across Notts
Down to Birmingham NS on the WCML then XC to Derby and EMR east

Did think about changing at Grantham but it's a replacement bus to Nottingham.

It's going to be a long day (I'll go on to the south coast in the evening) so I want to prioritise comfort and getting a seat. Not really got a sense of cross-country travel these days as my trips back to the UK have been north-south.

Recommendations between the above, or any routes I've overlooked, would be very welcome!

Have you considered going via Appleby ( i.e. Settle-Carlisle Line) ? ( E.g. this saturday : https://fastjp.com/Results/rid/47c2b206-2675-4882-b6f4-ce1f2505371e )

 

[30907]

If you are up for a predominantly Standard class trip, Carlisle-Leeds-Nottingham (just been beaten to it!).

Check out the food offers on the various routes too.

 

[alistairlees]

Itineraries via Settle are slow. The best one would really be departing Glasgow at 06:29 and arriving 12:59 (change at Carlisle and Leeds). You could also depart at 08:00 and change at Carlisle, Leeds and Sheffield arriving at 14:29 (ten minutes slower but avoiding the bus from Grantham). There masy be a trolley on part of the Carlisle - Leeds leg (2h 35m typically) but this is not guaranteed.

 

[typical]

Is the Grantham to Nottingham line actually shut or are they just running some services on buses randomly? (Or is this a capacity addition thing?) I didn't realise trains were still running. NRE gave me a series of bus connections.

The Settle trip looks lovely but the lack of first and the slower itinerary is putting me off. The Avanti menu looks decent but that long EMR connection is scaring me.
NRE also offering me a journey changing across Warrington:
Glasgow 8:00 - Warrington BQ 10:41
Warrington C 11:19 - Nottingham 13:29
Another long EMR journey though, and like Crewe only running hourly.

Think I will choose between via Crewe and via Edinburgh and Newark/Grantham. Tempting as that Settle line scenery is. Thanks all!

 

[alistairlees]

It's only the stoppers between Grantham and Nottingham that are buses; the long-distance services are trains as usual. So that FastJP itinerary via Grantham and arriving at 14:19 will be a train.

 

[typical]

Ah good to know (though faintly bizarre). Thanks!

 

[yorkie]

For future reference, if you are wanting to avoid buses...

• If you want itineraries without fares, then use www.fastjp.com and use the advanced option to avoid buses
• If you want to buy a ticket, the forum's site has an advanced option to avoid buses

The underlying system behind the forum's site, and indeed all Trainsplit based sites, is FastJP, so for complex requirements regarding obtaining the desired itinerary, it can be worth doing an itinerary only search initially and once you have found the advanced options that generate the itinerary you want, you can then proceed to book the journey.

Trainsplit will generally offer the best combination of tickets for the journey, but if you want a through ticket (providing it's a permitted route), you can turn splits off in the advanced options.

If anyone ever finds a cheaper combination than what the forum's site finds, then please alert us, so that we can investigate, and let the relevant people know.