London to Lake District (Avanti West Coast)

An off-peak single is £94 - you can get on pretty much any train with that ticket.

Book the 10.30 train so you know you have a reserved seat. If you get there earlier or later just get another train - you'll still find one unreserved seat.

The trains can not become fully booked. There are always unreserved seats. Most trains are 11 car trains so have 3 unreserved cars- C, U and G.

If you get a fairly rare 9 car train and all seats were reserved and the unreserved car, Car C, is also full by the time you board (a very unlikely event) then you can pay an extra £30 on the train to upgrade to Standard Premium- a 1st class seat without free food

If, at Euston (or ahead of time), you buy a ticket to 'Keswick Bus Station' that will include the bus fare from Penrith to Keswick. On the Avanti website (the only place you can buy a through fare to Keswick) or on the machines at Euston there are two options for Keswick- you want Keswick Bus Station- station code KWK.

The £94 ticket to Penrith/£96 to Keswick is valid on all trains that day as the concept of 'peak' does not exist to trains that far north except the first southbound of the morning at about 6am. Thus the £194 Anytime Single is a fare almost no-one should buy.

If you take the Elizabeth Line in from Heathrow to Euston it takes 42 minutes from Heathrow Central to Euston.

There is an oddity going on this morning where none of the retail systems are allowing you to buy an on the day Off Peak or Anytime Standard class single on the direct trains to the Lake District- only an anytime 1st class at about £300. It is not clear why this is. There must be an event on somewhere on the line. If you already have a pre purchased ticket (for any train) then you will be allowed to board any train.
The retail systems are allowing you to buy such a ticket on the indirect (thus slower) services via Birmingham so what is going on is not clear.

I did this on Wednesday. Not all the way to Penrith but the same train.

Elizabeth line to Tottenham Court then Northern Line to Euston. (Be aware there are steps when you get off the train at Euston and up one level.) It took a little longer than the printed 42 minutes. Give yourself at least an hour.

(I was lucky. Within a minute of arriving at the Elizabeth Line platform at Heathrow Central, a train arrived.)

My Avanti train left at 1:40 and Euston was packed. My train wasn't.

The 42 minutes was my actual time last week in the opposite direction, including a 4 minute wait for an Elizabeth Line train at Tottenham Court Road, and what felt like a very slow progress between Paddington and Ealing Broadway. And I wasn't rushing that day, when making the change at TCR, just plodding at my own pace.

Appreciate your responses.

Thus the £194 Anytime Single is a fare almost no-one should buy.

To your point, Stuart, I am perplexed why the Anytime Single is even an option to purchase.

I just thought of one additional question related to this. If, for some reason, a strike action or repairs are happening with Avanti and the Euston to Penrith (Keswick) route is down or severely delayed, what would be my best back-up route to Keswick?

To your point, Stuart, I am perplexed why the Anytime Single is even an option to purchase.

Probably because the computers can't cope with offering it only on the one train a day to which it now relates. Until fairly recently (the last 2 or 3 years) there were peak evening restrictions as far north as Carlisle, so on the 2 or 3 peak evening trains it was still Anytime Single fares. I've not looked recently but that probably still is the case for stations in Lancashire. To me it is amazing that we now have bargain Advance Fares this far north on the peak 1630 and 1730 from Euston. It takes some getting used to.

I just thought of one additional question related to this. If, for some reason, a strike action or repairs are happening with Avanti and the Euston to Penrith (Keswick) route is down or severely delayed, what would be my best back-up route to Keswick?

As your travel is on a Friday there is no scheduled engineering work.

The point of buying a through rail ticket to Keswick is that if there is a massive incident of any type on the line which results in heavy delay and you miss the last bus to Keswick, or are physically unable to reach Penrith then Avanti have to get you to Keswick. If that means they put you in a taxi from say Preston, Crewe or somewhere else even further south they have to do that, at their cost. If there was no road route open (which would be stunning) they have to pay for a hotel somewhere that night, then get you to Keswick next morning.

We will have to cope with a strike if it comes to it. With a new government, while trying to be apolitical, hopefully the strikes are behind us. In any event there will be 2 weeks notice of strikes. So time to plan.

My gut reaction is to get the daily National Express bus to Penrith. Or go up the East Coast to Newcastle, across the Tyne Valley and down to Keswick. Or for you (never for me) as a last resort a connecting flight to Newcastle then bus across to Carlisle thence to Keswick (or taxi).

Thanks for your insight, as always.