Hi guys!
Me and my 14 yrs old son are going to uk for 3 weeks. My son has some kind of train festival in Derby on August 1st so I'm having difficulties at planning our trip because we need to start from the middle. We've only spent a week in London two years ago and that's all we know of travelling in uk. But we would love to experience London more and York, we love castles, coast and history but what else can we include that makes the trip easy? We will travel by train. I'm open to any ideas!
Some kind of train festival???!?!? It's the Greatest Gathering, part of the national Railway 200 celebrations (200 years of "modern" railways) - and it originally sold out within a couple of days of tickets going on sale. If you haven't got them you have one slim chance, a few more tickets will be sold online from 09:00 UK time on Friday 27th June - and they will be gone by the time half of USA reaches 09:00!! https://www.thegreatestgathering.co.uk/
York is a very good idea because it usually has 2 (rather average) trains each hour from Derby, book in advance for best fares, tickets can be collected from Derby station if you don't want them in your mobile phone. York also has the National Railway Museum (sorry but the 200th anniversary only happens once!) and is within an easy trip to their annex called "Locomotion" at Shildon. And it's a very cheap and scenic double decker bus ride across the North Yorkshire moors to Whitby (coast and an old abbey that looks a bit like a castle and is where Dracula began...) using Coastliner route 840, £3 (yes THREE) each way for adults, pay driver. Except your son will want to make half the journey in at least one direction of the North Yorkshire Moors museum railway (which will have steam train if there are no drought/fire risk restrictions).
https://www.transdevbus.co.uk/coastliner/services/840843/840/ and also search Youtube for Coastliner 840
https://www.railwaymuseum.org.uk/ FREE entry but reserve in advance because it will get busy
https://www.locomotion.org.uk/home also FREE, change trains at Darlington for Shildon.
Trains from York to London are frequent (4 or 5 each hour weekdays) but again book in advance for best fares. Takes a little over 2 hours at 125mph.
Some of the UK Train websites have info on locations, which can be helpful (Northern does). York is great (2 hours train ride from Derby) and exploring the coast from there could be nice. We loved Whitby, with a great old center of town and links to Dracula and the Brontes (best as a day trip though).
We have also spent a ton of time in Liverpool as our daughter lives there. Very vibrant with great museums; plus if you are a Beatles fan-obviously a lot of that. The coast near Liverpool is interesting especially Crosby Beach (Andrew Gormley sculptures there are pretty amazing). Day trips from Liverpool can include Manchester with two great unique museums (Manchester Art Gallery and People's History Museum) and Chester; the zoo, Cathedral, castle, city walls, cute old town etc. Chester is pretty cute and it can be reversed to stay in Chester and day trip up to Liverpool or Manchester. Chester, Crosby and Liverpool are on the Merseyrail which is a local light rain/trail and very easy to use to go between these three towns.
You could fly into Manchester. Then take the hourly train from Manchester Airport to Crewe, changing there for the hourly train to Derby.
Just over half an hour to change trains.
Almost always it is a simple cross platform change.
If you fly into Heathrow it is the Piccadilly line tube to Kings Cross St Pancras, then East Midlands trains from St Pancras to Derby (a Sheffield bound train).
An easy journey from Derby there is also the Crich Tramway Museum and the preserved Peak Rail steam train at Matlock.
There is also the preserved Ecclesbourne Valley Railway very close.
From Derby you can continue to York as above, but it would be a crying shame not to visit the Peak District while you are in the immediate area with the Trans Peak hourly bus running from Derby to Buxton via Bakewell.
From Bakewell it is an easy bus connection to Chatsworth House.
Haha sorry Steve, I didn't mean to downplay the event. My son has a great passion for trains and other public transport, he knew by the end of last year that tickets for this event would sell out immediately, so I bought them for us back in February when they went on sale! I am really grateful for your tips!
Thank you very much to others for the ideas as well, I will definitely take these into consideration when planning the trip. I was also thinking about flying from Helsinki to Manchester and then continuing from there .. Thought of including Edinburgh in this at first but I will include it in to our next one.
Love Great Britain and especially the countryside and its history.
York is wonderful, suggest 3 days there. Recommend the York Minster Hotel, that is located near the north gate of the old city.
There is parking for cars if you rent a car and rooms are spacious. Nearby Castle Howard is a good visit if you head south down to the Yorkshire Moors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_York_Moors
Don't miss the National Railway Museum near the train station or the Minster (cathedral).
Some of our favorite places outside of London are Canterbury, Cambridge, Oxford, Bath, Stratford upon Avon, the Cotswolds, Winchester, Salisbury, Windsor Castle, and into Wales, you find many castles on the border in England and in Wales.
Both South and North Wales are great, Cardiff, Tenby, St. David in the South and Conwy in the North.
Flying to Manchester is definately a better idea than London (unless you can get flights to London Luton)
Do you have a hotel in Derby? It will be overrun that weekend and to be honest there is nothing else to be in Derby for. A creative mind would look at places like Matlock, which just happens to have it's own steam railway (subject to fire risk rukes!) see https://www.peakrail.co.uk/ as well as local trains into Derby. And it has a regular bus through great scenery from Buxton, which also has a direct bus service from - Manchester Airport! The two buses are run by the same company who will sell you a network day ticket for just £6. See https://www.highpeakbuses.com/ and look for routes 199 and TP3
