London To Edinburgh!

Train, buy your ticket in advance at www.lner.co.uk or use the low cost competitor Lumo, www.lumo.co.uk

You can also travel from London Euston on Avanti West Coast.

The big difference between Lumo and LNER is that Lumo have a handful of departures per day, LNER have a train every 30 minutes. Avanti West Coast run every two hours.

To answer your question there is a National Express day bus and two night buses- but they take 10 hours by day, 9 hours by night. Flixbus and Megabus also operate the route with similar journey times.

There are also other airlines, including British Airways on the route- but there is no time advantage to flying, city centre to city centre when you include airport rigmarole, as well as the environmental costs of flying.

There are many, many trains taking less than 5 hours for the entire trip.

Thank you all . Now comes three questions, which one do you recommend LNER, LUMO or Avanti (reliability, ease of use cost/benefit)? Is first class ticket worth the extra money? Finally which station in Edinburgh should I be aiming for? Any input would be greatly appreciated!
LT

Not yet mentioned is the Caledonian sleeper, which goes overnight on the same route from Euston station as the Avanti service.

Which to recommend - do you want cheapest, fastest, most elegant, through particular regions or cities or towns, best food???

Thanks for your reply Nigel. As I mentioned earlier I want your recommendations. Not the cheapest but the best price for the experience!

I took the "normal?" train to Edinburgh, and the Caledonia back. Going up was nice and if you sit on the right (East) side of the train, you get some really nice views of the coast. Taking the sleeper back was nice, but in my opinion, it is too short for a sleeper. You board quite late, so you have to bide your time in the city until your train leaves and after you have checked out of wherever you stayed. Then you are not on the train long enough to really enjoy the ride, a meal and sleep.

Thank you Pharmerphil, much appreciated your input!

This You Tuber compares LUMO v second class LNER.
This You Tuber reviews the Avanti service on the Pendolino type of train. This one is going from London (Euston) to Glasgow. The Edinburgh route is similar.

You could go one way via the west route and the other via the east route. If using the east route, note that York is well worth a stop over for 1 night. LUMO trains do not stop at York but LNER do.

On the Cal Sleeper, and I am not sure why this is not better known, you are entitled to use the 1st class LNER lounge at Edinburgh from 2000 until boarding time. You don't have to hang around in the city.
Then you don't have to disembark until 0730, so if the train arrives early you don't have to be straight off.
This morning the train arrived at Euston 47 minutes early at 0613 (the public timetable shows a 0715 scheduled arrival, but it is actually due at 0700)- but you could stay on board until 0730- seated passengers had to get off on arrival.

When you do disembark at Euston you are allowed to use the Sleeper Lounge on Platform 1 (your arrival platform) until as late as 10.30am for eats, drinks, wifi and a shower.

The same kind of thing applies to all major sleeper departure stations in Scotland.

As regards the day train my last choice would be Lumo- their lack of frequency, their short 5 car trains and the fact that they are always full, also you have to pre-order any food on board- they are the budget carrier of the east coast (and often not that much cheaper than LNER either).

Whether first class is worth it is always a subjective question. Unless you can get a killer deal (as rare as hen's teeth) my answer is no. But others may validly vary.

LNER vs Avanti. Hands up I am a west coast lad so I am biased. But for me Avanti are better than LNER in on board ambience, in quality and comfort of the seats (I am not a fan of the seats on the Class 800 series trains on LNER or GWR), and are on the whole far less crowded than LNER- especially if you get an 11 car set with it's 2 1/2 unreserved cars. Sure Avanti take an hour longer and are less frequent, but given the straight option at the same fare and same departure time I would always choose Avanti.

Also Avanti are very often cheaper than LNER- sometimes starkly so.

On Avanti for £30 extra you can also upgrade to Premium Standard- a first class car without food or lounge access pre and post trip.

It may be unique to me but the east coast wifi plays havoc with my tablet. That is true on all east coast operators- LNER, TPE, GC etc- it appears to be something to do with the electrification when the train is accelerating hard and is odd.

The other West Coast option, on the other hours to the direct Edinburgh trains, is to take an Avanti Glasgow bound train as far as Lancaster or Carlisle, then a same platform change on to a Manchester to Edinburgh Trans Pennine train [TPE]. That way the journey time is not much different to the East Coast.

TPE have re-introduced first class catering (including hot food), and often have very good 1st class prices. That is a rare example where 1st class is "worth it" if you can get a good ticket price.

Wow, thank you isn31c. That is certainly a desirable option!