Rail Service in England and Scotland

There were national rail strikes during one week in late June. That week, travel was severely disrupted.

More strikes are planned during the summer (dates not yet announced), so if you are intending on travelling at this time, life will be difficult. ScotRail and LNER were as affected as other lines. At other times, normal service is operating.

Rail strikes are announced in advance and some of our UK members are wonderful about posting any information about upcoming strikes here. If you keep track of the forum, you will know if any strikes have been announced.

Thanks to Nigel for always being on top of train news.

I traveled both those lines in June. My Scotrail train was canceled but I was able to catch an earlier one. My LNER train ran on time.

But then, I didn't travel on a day where there was union action.

As the union must give at least two weeks notice if there is a strike, I'd suggest planning your trip but know your options.

We were in Scotland in June, and were affected by some train issues on ScotRail (even on days when union action had not been specifically announced). We were supposed to get from Glasgow to Bridge of Orchy on a Sunday - on that Saturday afternoon, it became clear that was not going to happen so we booked a CityLink bus service for that route online and arrived with tix in hand for the excellent bus service the next day. We took a day trip from Edinburgh to Stirling on a Monday (lovely town by the way, Stirling) and our return train at 4 pm was canceled when the conductor informed us he didn't have any other staff available and could not operate the train safely without them - then the next train at 5 pm was cancelled and finally we jumped on the 6 pm which was running and got back to Edinburgh in time for dinner (we were also investigating bus options as we investigated pubs near the train station during our extra down time). Our scheduled train from Fort William to Edinburgh that week went off as planned.

I'd suggest that you stay continually informed online about rail service on your planned trips and research some alternative options (e.g., bus) in case changes pop up.

Can someone recommend websites for bus routes and schedules in England and Scotland?

I'm afraid that there are no public service bus companies in England or Scotland.

Are you asking about busses (local relatively short distance, usually serving a town and villages and vicinity) or coaches, (usually long distance, serving many towns and/or cities)

They are all private companies, some smaller, some larger, some huge, some tiny and they all have their own websites.

There are some regional or sub-regional websites which list some companies and routes and some link to the operating company of the route.

There are some bus routes operated by more than one operator.

I'm afraid that the question is too vague.

If it were trains, there is one national rail website - not so for busses.

Please be much more specific as to which routes you are interested in, and how soon. For rural routes, which days - many run less than every day.

Generally try googling something like "bus schedule town-A to town-B" and you will often get a decent answer.

Sorry I can't be much more help without specifics.