Need Help Figuring Train Travel from London to Edinburgh

Michelle,

I'll leave it to the others to recommend the quickest way to get from LHR to King's Cross. This is the website you'll need for train information.....

https://www.virgintrainseastcoast.com/

Some of the trains are direct, and some have a change in York. While it's possible to save money with advance purchase rail tickets, that's not usually recommended by most here as if your flight is late and you miss your pre-booked train, your tickets may be worthless.

Another option would be to use one of the budget airlines from London to Edinburgh. easyJet currently has flights listed from Gatwick, Luton and Stansted for about £35.99 PP (plus a few fees), but that means you'd have to get from LHR to whichever London airport your next flight leaves from. If using that option you'd need to build in a "cushion" of time in case your overseas flight was late. If you miss the budget flight, again your tickets or worthless.

The last time we did it, it was cheaper to fly EasyJet. You play your cards right and have a little advance notice, and you can fly from Gatwick to Edinburgh for 25 pounds. And it's a LOT quicker. You'll have to do a bus transfer from Heathrow to Gatwick which costs about 20 pounds, but that's not a big deal. You will have to look at schedules, sometimes the time spent waiting for the plane is more than the time spent on the train.

You can take the "Piccadilly" Line from Heathrow to Kings Cross. It should take about an hour.

From there, get the train from Kings Cross to Edinburgh Waverly (I did this last week.) There are trains almost every half hour and no change in necessary. Virgin East Coast runs most of the trains and you can buy tickets directly from their website.

As stated, the downside is that you don't really know what time your plane will land and the cheap tickets can't be changed.

Every train will have a different price depending on how many tickets are sold.

Customs will take you no time at Heathrow. Immigration, on the other hand, can take forever. Three weeks ago it took 40 minutes and that was the Fastrack lane. The regular lines were more than an hour.

Another suggestion would be to spend the night in London, and then catch an early morning train to Edinburgh. I recently stayed at the Premier Inn St. Pancras which is less than a five minute walk to KIng's Cross. It's directly across the street from the British Library. There is also a Premier Inn King's Cross but I preferred the location of the one near St. Pancras.

Thanks for all the great information. My flight is scheduled to arrive at 8:35am. Do you think booking a train for 12:00/12:30 pm would be enough time to get luggage, go through customs/immigration, and take the line to kings cross station?

A few years back, we had almost the same dilemma - though we were going to York. We arrived from SF to LHR at 7 am and got through getting luggage and customs by 9:00 am. We had decided to take the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station, then the tube to Kings Cross. Arrived around 10 am. We had also purchased tickets for the noonish train to York and had plenty of time to enjoy breakfast, visit the HP 9 3/4 platform and store, and then do lunch. Not sure what the cost is to pre-book your ticket and then retrieve it from the ticket machine, but if you are all nervous about flight delays and such, I'd plan to spend the night in London near King's Cross and take an early train out in the am.