strowger

I am due to arrive at LHR on a long-haul flight on Saturday. I then need to get back to Yorkshire.

I have a connection onwards to DUB which I had been planning to abandon (I understand the risks and implications of this) in favour of a train from Kings Cross.

However, there are rail strikes on Saturday on both East Coast (out of Kings Cross) and West Coast (out of Euston) routes.

There are no flights from LHR to either MAN or LBA at useful times that day.

So I could:

1 - Try to get on one of the very small number of very crowded trains out of Kings Cross that will run.
2 - Try to get to Sheffield out of St Pancras and then use local trains (not on strike but no seat reservations available, likely extremely crowded also).
3 - Take my LHR-DUB connection then Ryanair DUB-MAN.

What would you do?

travellingwigbury

Possibly not the most ideal solution, but have you looked at going by coach, either National Express or Megabus?

Jon MilnerMatthews

I'll take door number three please Monty.

richiejv

+1 for the third option. I've had the "pleasure" of the West Coast service recently on a weekend. It's pretty shambolic even without the strikes. Can't speak for the East Coast option but I'd assume the strikes will hit them very hard. Unless the DUB-MAN option is extremely expensive, I'd go for that.

KARFA

Are you out by a week? If you mean this Saturday (11th) there aren't any strikes. The next strikes are on 18th and 20th August.

masped

Sorry KARFA, but it might be you getting confused! This Saturday is the 13th, not the 11th, and there are definitely rail strikes planned, by Aslef. That's in addition to the RMT strikes on 18th and 20th and the TfL strike on 19th.

KARFA

Ah, yes it is. I hadn't spotted the strike for this Saturday. My apologies.

stevebintley

I'd go for option 3 too, especially having witnessed what the few remaining trains have been like in the recent strikes. If you're heading to Yorkshire why don't you take Ryanair from DUB into LBA? Or is 15:15 a poor timing?

Off topic, but I need to get from central London to LHR on the 19th - I usually take the Piccadilly but I'm assuming the Heathrow Express won't be impacted?

volar

I'd go for the Sheffield option if if's significantly quicker than flying. Provided you get to St Pancras early enough and position yourself as close to the ticket barriers as possible ready to move as soon as boarding starts, you should get a seat. Or take a seat in first class and pay the �12 weekend upgrade fee which includes coffee and biscuits. I'm a regular on this route and think that EMR is generally awful, but I'd still do it if there was a big time saving. I can't speak for the local trains once you get to Sheffield.

Misco60

This sums up everything that's wrong with Britain's overcrowded, chaotic rail system.

Unless you can get a seat reservation on a train that is certain to run, I'd forget about the rail option. Take your flight to Dublin and Ryanair from there.

fluffymitten

Looks like is impacted
https://www.heathrowexpress.com/time...e-disruption#/

The Elizabeth and Piccadilly lines should be ok - they will be affected by the strike on the 20th I think

EDIT: sorry, I missed the date you're travelling. As there's strikes on 18th and 20th, I would expect there to be some disruption but the service ought to be running

LancashireFlyer

For anyone opting to take Avanti for domestic travels to MAN/GLC/EDI it's worth noting that from Sunday 14th August until further notice they will run a massively reduced timetable due to the current industrial relations issues � staff taking strike action, not willing to work overtime and then getting blamed for not wanting to work overtime!

Basically only 4 departures an hour out of Euston. Birmingham/Manchester/Liverpool/Glasgow with every two hours to Edinburgh.

https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/tr...ney/timetables

deep_south

Grand Central Kings Cross to York might be an option? They should still be running some kind of service...​​​

Curly

It looks like the Elizabeth Line is closed as well, not showing in the TFL planner. Although Heathrow Express is (which is not running on Saturday)

Confused, definitely!

(We are seeing Coldplay at Wembley on Friday evening and then also need to get back to Yorkshire by lunchtime on Saturday, we have gambled on Fly(may)be to LBA to replace LNER!)

The final LNER timetable for Saturday should be available tomorrow (9th), so far looks like one late afternoon train North

Ldnn1

Elizabeth Line is running to Heathrow every 15 mins this Sat. You can check times on the National Rail journey planner.