Does anyone know a nice place to holiday thats easy to get to by train

WestonDave

One slight snag with Swanage is that you can't actually get there by train! The closest you can get is Wareham until possibly 2013 when the steam railway gets running powers into Wareham to reconnect. Might be one to keep for next years holiday!

FatAndy

caffinated_geek wrote: »

Sorry I forgot to mention I'm in birmingham. The advice has been great so far.

If you're happy book in advance and travel at anti-social hours you may be able to get from Birmingham to Llandudno and back very cheaply. If you search through the journey planner on the National Rail website at present a return ticket is normally £55.00 however there are special rates at selected times.

For example if you leave Birmingham New Street for Llandudno Junction at 05:30 next Tuesday you can get a single for £7.00 (and as a bonus you'd get a full days holiday!). There's a train from Llandudno Junction back to New Street next Thursday evening at 20:38 which is also £7.00 so you could do the return for £14.00 plus the cost of a return from the Junction to Llandudno (for some reason this is currently showing on NR as costing £60 but I think it's actually something like £2.60 or £2.70).

There are some slightly less anti-social times which are still reasonably priced, e.g. a single from Birmingham to the Junction next Tuesday at 09:24 would be £12.00 and a single back on Thursday at 12:25 would also be £12.00.

It seems it's just a case of spending a bit of time searching through the NR site to find times and prices that suit.

The other thing I noticed is that the cheaper fares all seem to be on the direct service (I think it's the Birmingham-Holyhead train) so it's straight through. The more expensive fares all involve changes at Crewe and/or Chester.

http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/timesandfares/Birmingham/LLJ/240412/1252/arr/260412/1551/arr

kayl

Any similar suggestions for a holiday by train accessible from Glasgow?

WestonDave

From Glasgow - not so sure about beaches, but somewhere like Fort William would have a fair bit of interest around. We had a week up there in a place called Corpach which is just outside Fort William. It has its own station on the line to Mallaig. There are quite a few places along that line that are worth a look - at Corpach you can follow the canal which joins Fort William across to Loch Ness (can't remember the name) which is a nice walk. Glenfinnan by train gives you some interesting walks - you can get up behind the viaduct used for filming the train/flying car scenes in Harry Potter. I'm sure various other stops on the line have things worth visiting. If you are up in the summer season the Jacobite steam train service operates from Fort William to Mallaig - but its not necessarily cheap and you'll need to book in advance as its usually full on the day. The train journey itself up to FW is very scenic - assuming its not thick fog and blowing a gale!

Or head the other way by train up to Inverness - its a long time since I was up there so couldn't tell you what is around other than Loch Ness!

Beyond that you could consider places down the west coast of England - lake district is possible - change at Oxenholme for stations to Windermere including Kendall - again once around that area there is plenty to do - boat trips on the lake, walks nearby etc