Alternatives to Loch Lomond on way back from Oban to London (via Glasgow or Edinburgh)

Settle and Carlisle railway !

And again, the Settle and Carlisle railway..
Have a night in Carlisle break the journey its an interesting historic town with an astonishing book shop n cafe across from the Cathedral.

How is the Settle Carlisle railway on the way between Oban and Glasgow?

{Webmaster edit: The following is reposted from the other thread (now fixed, but removed to prevent duplication).}

If you are looking for alternatives and small towns- why not go south on the A816 from Oban to Lochgilphead and then on down to Tarbert (Loch Fyne).
On the way there is Kilmartin Glen to visit, possibly the Slate Islands (Easdale and Luing via the "Bridge over the Atlantic") and you might be interested in seeing the Crinan Canal (at either or both of the Crinan and Ardrishaig ends).

I would overnight in Tarbert, as it is to me the nicest alternative. But you could take a late afternoon ferry over to Portavadie for Dunoon (as below) and start from Dunoon the next morning. If doing that, I might look for an overnight in Tighnabruaich rather than Dunoon.

Next morning (from Tarbert) take the ferry over to Portavadie (Cowal), drive over to Dunoon via Tighnabruaich, then the Western ferries route from Hunters Quay (Dunoon) to Gourock for the A8/M8 to Glasgow.

Addy, for the future I suggest you go into your profile settings and choose to receive an email when a reply to your question is posted. That way you always have the comments you want to keep and perhaps utilize.

PS- At the Ardrishaig end of the Canal you may see the old Clyde Puffer VIC32 if lucky. But it's a rather nice little lochside village. You may well see a big timber boat at the village quay.

At Tarbert there are quite a few B and B's but the Stonefield Castle hotel may be good for a last night, depending on budget.

Reposting Allan's comment from the other thread:

We just did a drive by of Loch Lomond on our way back from Oban/Mull to Glasgow so I can't offer an opinion of it as an overnight stop. We loved Glasgow and spent 3 night there which included a day trip to Stirling Castle which may have been our favourite day of the trip. In my opinion, a night in Stirling with time to see the castle is well worth it. We wandered the castle for about 6 hours.

Thank you all for your replies on this post! Looks like the other post was deleted & this was reinstated. Still trying to figure out the last day/overnight stop. I like the options some of you have provided so something to think about! We now have booked our return tickets (to London) from Glasgow so ideally want to stop somewhere between Oban & Glasgow or Glasgow itself.
Isn31c- your suggestion sounds very good & tempting but after mapping the journey on google it seems to involve quite a bit of driving & hopping on to multiple ferries etc. Am I right? Ideally we want to leave Isle of Mull on the mid morning ferry to Oban & then drive for no more than 2-2.5 hours to a place where we'd like to spend the night before leaving back for London from Glasgow the next day. Train back to London would be around 3 pm.

Well, Oban to Tarbert, allow 2 hours, should be a bit less.

Next morning you are straight onto Ferry 1, which is quite a sheltered crossing.

Then about 45 minutes across to Dunoon for Ferry 2. Western Ferries sail in just about any weather.

If you are dropping the car at GLA airport for the bus to Central, I used to reckon on 30 minutes from my hotel- the Spinnaker, at Gourock to work at Renfrew Ferry, south side.
I admit I wasn't dawdling, but that's the sort of time frame for the drive. The airport is not that far further on.

Just a thought anyway.

Loch Lomond was a major disappointment for me. Perhaps all those years of singing that song had my expectations just too high. If you live in an area with lakes, you will simply wonder what all the fuss was about.