[AMcWhirter]

My East Coast train yesterday afternoon arrived into Kings Cross, 9 mins late owing to ‘line congestion.’ The train manager kept passengers fully up to date with the (train) running when we were about an hour away from London.

As I’ve written before in ‘Platform’ some of main lines into and out of London are full to capacity at certain times of the day. Some of our capital’s termini are getting as busy as Heathrow.

As for the Advance ticket pricing …. well a few mins ago I checked the one-way Advance fare for London-Leeds (using the neutral Trainline display) tomorrow and several lunchtime trains were offered at £49 one-way.

If you book using the East Coast website the fare is £48 and there’s no booking fee. (Trainline charges £1.50 booking fee + a further fee if you use a credit card).

A one-way flight on BA for LHR-LBA for lunchtime tomorrow is £66. I think that’s still good value but an economy class seat and service cannot compare with what East Coast offers in first class.

[VintageKrug]

Fair comment, Alex.

But if you enjoy a meal and some ‘poo in the T5 lounges pre-flight, that does change the perspective somewhat.

If I wasn’t able to take advantage of the Gold privileges (F check in, Fast Track, First lounge, priority boarding, Row 1 free seating, 64kgs baggage allowance if I need it, plus the TPs and avios) it wouldn’t really be an option for me, either.

[canucklad]

In London next weekend for a kinda ” Lions” weekend……

Cheapest East Coast.. waverley > Kings X at time of booking… £126
VS down & BA back to EDI ……………………….£ 84

Oh and thats not in 1st!!…..As me and AOTG have probably agreed on in the past, airport locality at point of origin and destination is a key factor….

3..5 hours from work to Friday night pint in local, including a drink in the BD lounge…….if I took the train it would be closer to 6.5 hours !!

And if you PAY MORE to be flexible …you’re not guaranteed a seat!
5 hours standing from Kings X to Waverley in August is not fun !!

[Bath_VIP]

As this thread is focusing on domestic train V plane questions, can I pull people away from London to look at other domestic travel. I travel quite often on the Bristol to Newcastle route and in that case, the argument is definitely coming down in favour of plane with Easyjet. This is because Cross Country have severely restricted sales of advance fares and seem to have raised their peak & off peak fares by quite a bit in recent years. Easyjet seem to have gone in the opposite direction especially with their flexi fares.

Cross Country trains run from Edinburgh, Newcastle & Manchester to Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton & Exeter so they do face quite a bit of competition from the plane, mainly Flybe. What do others think of the plane v train arguments when considering non-London domestic routes?

[AllOverTheGaff]

VintageKrug – 18/06/2013 11:51 GMT
But if you enjoy a meal and some ‘poo in the T5 lounges pre-flight, that does change the perspective somewhat.

If you want to enjoy a meal you’d not eat in the BA T5 lounges. As the 13 pages on the below thread attest.

http://www.businesstraveller.com/discussion/topic/More-BA-T5-Lounge-Disasters

[VintageKrug]

Not really; the criticisms are largely overdone.

Having actually visited Galleries F several times since the changes, the breakfast offering has better quality ingredients than was previously the case, the cold offering during lunchtime is of better quality and more visually appealing, and the order-from-menu items are also as good as was the case previously.

Offerings are reduced in the afternoon, and that seems to be an area of contention, as does the warm offering for lunch, which isn’t up to standard, but is apparently a temporary arrangement until 1st July, according to the Lounge Manager with whom I spoke.

I haven’t sampled the evening offering yet.

We have not yet seen what BaxterStorey’s full offering will look like as they will not get access to the proper preparation kitchens until 1st July.

After that, we can make a proper judgement.

But as was stated in that thread, many people who actually fly through T5 and use the F lounge are noticing elements of improved quality; the standard was certainly very acceptable prior to the changes, and note that when pressed, many of the objections were from people who hadn’t visited recently.

Have you visited BA’s Galleries First lounge since Baxter Storey took over, AllOverTheGaff?

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Hi Bath VIP

I think yo uare right in that none London centric long distance travel is a different case and where improvements could and perhaps should be made. The Cross Country service is very slow with long layover periods at many station – often sitting for 5-10 minutes at a time. This combined with the arge number of stops that seem to be made and a Bristol to Newcastle is much better to fly if time is of the essence (but not a London to Newcastle or Edinburgh for example).

If you then have to pay high fares for standard or first then the plane is tempting. However what seems incredible is that these trains are always packed and since they launched there new timetables a few years ago with a more “clockwork” frequency and timetable has lead to huge growth – hence why refurbished HST’s came back into service so they could run longer trains. (This is a clear case where the government need to fork out and extend these trains from 4/5 carriages to 7/8 minimum (I know some run as doubles and 10 car formations). There could well be a case to get further train sets to also run services with fewer stops and thus get fast train times.

On this point if (and hopefully when) HS come to fruition it would be a shame if they did not have services that ran from say Bristol to Birmingham, then picked up the HS2 to Manchester or Leeds (hpefully extended to Newcastle) so that the regions can also benefit from these lines (or if they had real ambition extend another fork from Birmingham to Bristol/Cardiff perhaps????).

One can only dream!

[canucklad]

Back to the choo choo’s…..

Totally agree with you Bath_Vip……

If I was travelling to my Scottish office to Newcastle then the train wins hands down…..

Travel a bit further down the line to Derby and then the plane wins…..both on cost, time and comfort….

Cardiff……….Plane wins
Portsmouth…..Plane wins
Leeds…………Plane would win if we where allowed !

And that fact IMO is a total indictment of our railways……

[AMcWhirter]

Hello canucklad

I agree with you about doing Standard class on London-Edinburgh. There’s a seat shortage at busy times.

In this month’s ‘Platform’ (where i compared Little Red with East Coast) I suggested that some rail passengers might defect to Little Red seeing as it was a fresh new brand and that its fares might undercut the train (depending on tariff type, how far ahead you book and so on).

You’ve obviously secured a good deal with Little Red and BA.

Perhaps you could let us know how busy the Little Red flight was after you get back.

[canucklad]

Hi Alex….will do a flight review and will use the aft toilets, even if I don’t need to go…..at present sitting in row 2

[AllOverTheGaff]

Hi Canucklad

Thanks in advance for letting us know about your number 2.

Rgds.
AOTG.

[esselle]

Spent 30 mins in the T5 F lounge yesterday mid afternoon.

Loaves and fishes have yet to put in an appearance.

[VintageKrug]

I take it AOTG hasn’t visited Galleries F in recent weeks, then.

[AllOverTheGaff]

VintageTroll – 18/06/2013 15:42 GMT
I take it AOTG hasn’t visited Galleries F in recent weeks, then.

For matters pertaining to my own personal, regional, national, international and universal security I cannot confirm or deny where I have been in the past two weeks.

I have nevertheless indulged in a considerable amount of inappropriate fingering and have borne witness to many many many many many many complaints about the poor food being served in BA lounges at the Universe’s most crap airport – Heathrow.

Does that satisfy your trolling curiosity sufficiently?

[SimonS1]

Given a choice between East Coast trains from city centre to city centre or a BA flight from outer London to outer Leeds there is simply no contest.

A much more relaxed journey due to the lack of security, traipsing around etc and any delay is likely to be in the handful of minutes (as Alex found) rather than anything longer. Add to that the frequency of service and it’s a no brainer really.

So you can have a glass of poo at Heathrow. Cheap thrills.

[Author]

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