London/Bath/Edinburgh

You can go back to London but you don't have to. You can go from Bath to Bristol to Edinburgh bypassing London completely.

Use this website:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk

for schedules. Buy direct from the operating train company rather then a third party seller. It's a little early to book tickets in late November.

Going via Bristol also lessens the number of changes down to one. And Bristol is only about 20 minutes by train to Bath.

Frank II thank you for taking the time to respond. I looked at the map and went to the national rail site. I chose Bath and Edinburgh and could not get the 2 places to connect. I said I didn't have the correct information entered. I don't want to but tickets now, but rather get an idea of how long the trip takes and a cost range.

There is an hourly Cross Country train from Bristol to Edinburgh via Birmingham New Street.

Although more train cars are finally arriving the route suffers from heavy overcrowding and is very expensive.

It is always cheaper and at least as fast to route via London.

To get Bristol to Edinburgh cheaper it has to be split into multiple tickets. It is in fact often faster and certainly cheaper to change at Birmingham and take an Avanti West Coast train through the Lake District to Edinburgh.

Looking at 6 weeks time a through ticket via Bristol is £223,60 (journey about 7:15), via London as low as £93 (journey 7 hours).

Change on the via Bristol at Birmingham onto Avanti and the £223 becomes as low as £74 (with more splits it should be cheaper than that). On Cross Country book it as 3 tickets (Bath to Bristol, Bristol to Birmingham, Birmingham to Edinburgh) the £223 becomes about £171.

Is there a reason why you don’t want to fly? We were in UK last month, stayed in Bath and decided to fly from Bristol to Edinburgh. We Ubered from Bath to Bristol and then flew EasyJet. It was so easy and a bit faster and cheaper than the train.

Try using thetrainline.com

Going via London is quicker. You’ll see on some of the (highly expensive) fares that it’s cheaper to split the journey into two parts and buy separate tickets for the 2 legs of the journey even though it’s the same train, and you can just stay in your seat!

This is crazy and an artefact of the stupid way the national train system was privatised. It’s quite legal, however.

If you buy tickets here or elsewhere on line check for any restrictions regarding travel time and/or the name of the train operator although I think the latter won’t be a problem from Bath to Edinburgh.

trainline is a third party seller, nothing wrong with them but you will pay their fee and in the event of a delay it is easier to get a refund if you book through the operator.
Go www.nationalrail.co.uk once you've chosen the options on offer, you will be directed to the actual operator. If your train is delayed there is a sliding scale for refunds, you may even get a free journey for a delay that may not be of concern for you. Tickets called "Advance" will be the cheapest and on sale around 8-12 weeks before travel date, but you are restricted to your chosen train, unless there is a cancellation or missed transfer due to a late train.
If you buy a railcard for £30, it will give you a third off the prices as well. No need to have one when booking, just tick that you have one and buy one on arrival. You'll need a photo on your phone. If there are two of you, two together railcard is still £30 but covers the two owners when travelling together.

Flying is a good option. Personally I avoid the cross country trains like the plague and going via London seems very tortuous when there’s an easy flight available.

We are reluctant to fly something like Easyjet because we don't want to deal with luggage fees/weight limits. We are traveling from the US and will have standard US carry on luggage. Because rail travel is not really a thing here, we find the idea of taking a train quite novel and lovely. We took the train from Paris to Barcelona and really enjoyed it. I will look into both though. If we fly a non-budget airline it shouldn't be a problem.

With EasyJet we just paid the fee to check in our carry on suitcase. They’re very strict about what you can carry on so this just made our life easier. I hope you can find a train that suits you though.

When the extra train cars arrive, and the cascade has now started (from Avanti, whose brand new trains are now in revenue service) it will make Cross Country a much better experience as their big problem has always been short trains.
With more capacity advance fares should become more common than now.

In terms of the train being a "lovely experience" the shorter route via London is definitely worth looking at. And worth seeing if you can get good value 1st class fares. Railcards also give 1/3 off 1st class. Especially in November, deep off season, you may well find those cheap 1st class fares.
You would be surprised how affordable that can be with a careful.choice of trains and booking well ahead.
Then you get a bit pampered on the journey, including lounge access as well. At Paddington that lounge is Queen Victoria's royal waiting room.

Also not flying is doing your bit for the environment. And you see a lot more from the train than in the air.

PS- Just looking at first class Advance railcard fares-

For a September date Bath Spa to London Paddington £39.90, for travel in 2 hours time £61.35 'Advance ' fare.

London Kings Cross to Edinburgh £106.85 (under £45 in Standard class), London Euston to Edinburgh on the direct Avanti trains every 2 hours (which run via Birmingham) £73.90. In Standard class Avanti London to Edinburgh, booked well ahead, is as low as £23.

On Avanti you can travel in Standard Premium (1st class seats without the lounge access and food and drink on board) for £40.25 Euston to Edinburgh, or £23 in Standard class.

That is pretty affordable.

You will just have to pay to take the bags you have on EasyJet. It’s not that you can’t take them, it just costs money above the standard very low fare.

I understand that you’d like to take the train but just to put the other option to you. If anyone I know in Bristol is going to Scotland they always fly or drive.

I'm not trying to persuade you either way.

I flew Easyjet last Wednesday. My fare included a larger carry on, hold bag, speedy boarding (first to board) and reserved seat. I flew Berlin to Edinburgh and my fare was 168 Euros. (About 142 GBP).

The "larger" carry on can be up to 22 x 17.7 x 9.8 inches which is bigger than you are probably taking. It can weight up to 33 pounds.

The personal item can be up to 17.7 x 14 x 8 inches.

If you go by train, become aware of Delay Repay. While each train company is slightly different, basically, if your train is delayed more than 30 minutes--15 for some train companies--you get compensated. I've given you a link to Cross Country's Delay Repay page.

If you buy your ticket online or via an app, the delay repay is simple. You usually get an email within a few hours of your trip, click on a link embedded in the email, and the compensation is automatically refunded to your payment method. If you buy a paper ticket you either have to fill out an online form or send in a form via snail mail for compensation. I've had quite a few delay repays over the past few years and I purchase via an app. The refund usually shows up on my credit card statments in 2-3 days.

Filling out an online form takes no time at all. It tales less than 5 minutes- I do it all the time. Just did two on Sunday night.

When I opt for cash compensation (as opposed to free tickets) the payment has been known to arrive within 24 hours, even with the online form. You have to do it manually when on flexible tickets and travelling on a train other than the one booked. Free tickets takes longer due to the vagaries of the postal system. I am set up for automatic delay repay on the Avanti website but never actually buy through Avanti.

A strange premise to start on, before tickets have even been purchased that you will be delayed. Statistically that may be true, but equally may not happen. On an ultra long term mean (average) I get delayed by 1 minute for every 9.76 miles travelled but that tends to come in lumps of bad delays, rather than on every journey.

I had another few minutes to look at the fares this afternoon while waiting for an afternoon train. If you book close to 12 weeks out Bath to Paddington on a railcard can be as low as £15.30 on usefully timed morning trains. So going GWR and Avanti can be under £40 for the complete 509 mile journey in standard class. So 1/4 of the price of routing on Cross Country via Bristol.

It's important that people who buy train tickets know there is such a thing as delay repay.

I'm also not surprised that a payment to a UK credit card from a UK train company is faster than payment to a US/Canadian credit card. The US/Canadian card takes longer to process as the currency needs to get converted--pounds to dollars--and that can cause a delay.

According to the latest figures for Jan-March 2024, the latest figures I could get.....UK trains in total arrived on time or early 68.3% of the time. However, if you look at individual train companies the four worst were Avanti (44.5%), Cross Country (50.2%), TPE (52.1%) and East Midlands (54.1%) The number in parenthesis is the on time or early percentage for that rail company.

These delays may not have been long enough for compensation, but having the knowledge of the rules is always beneficial.

https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/jwfpdpty/performance-stats-release-jan-mar-2024.pdf