Train to Edinburgh via York

I may not have been clear. Get the car in London, drive to the Cotswolds and Lake District, then swing over to York to drop off the car. Either way sounds good, this just would be my preference.

Larry
If you stick to your plan, on the way down from lake district, I would suggest visiting Chester (half day will do it), nice walls, Roman Ruins, and the "rows" insdde the walls. We stuck to the extreme West driving through areas of "half timbered" and "black and white" houses, (Weobley, Eardisland) as far as Ledbury and then swung to the Cotswolds. Another interesting sight is Blists Hill recreated village in Iron Gorge. One of my favorite sites- a little further south in Wye valley is the ruins of Tintern Abbey- an awe inspiring place. I would be torn between that and extra time in Cotswolds York is definitely worth 2 nights

Larry, There are some train experts who will I'm sure have the answers to the train question. This sounds like a nice trip to me. On the way south from Edinburgh, you might want to budget some time to see the Border Abbey's. And if anyone in your group is a Sir Walter Scott fan, Abbotsford is a nice tour and is also in the Borders. You also, will drive right past Hadrian's Wall and it and one of the forts is really worth looking at. The Borders area - both England and Scotland - is an interesting area. It was pretty lawless area until the Union of the Crowns and even then there were issues. The family names from the borders include Johnston, Maxwell, Armstrong, Bell, Graem and more. There's a great book, The Steel Bonnets, by George MacDonald Fraser that tells the story. Pam

I too think that it sounds like a real nice trip! Don't know about the rail option, but my gut tells me that it is two separate tickets. One suggestion about the order of things. Why not get the car at Heathrow, do your countryside drive, and then drop off in York. Train to Edinburgh, then train back to London. No railpass. When we did this in 2007, I bought the tickets off the British railway website. If you need the info, you can PM me and I'll look it up. Back then, it was 14 pounds round-trip from London to Edinburgh.

I think that they need the car for the Lake District and Cotswold. Public transit, while possible, is not ideal for those areas. The more I think about it, I agree that it's likely two tickets. But, I'm hoping that Tim or one of the other rail experts will chime in. ; ) Pam

You will need to buy separate tickets. If you book London Kings Cross-York and York-Edinburgh Waverley well in advance at www.eastcoast.co.uk, you can get discount fare tickets for less than £20 for each leg. The discount fares are posted about 60 days in advance. The tickets will be for specific departure dates and times and are non-refundable and non-exchangeable.

I left Edinburgh early in the morning on the train to York, stopped for around 6-8 hours, then had another ticket for York to London. It was two tickets, and both of them were in the 10-20 pound range.

If you use the cheapest tickets it will be one ways booked on a specific train at a specific train EDIT: time . No changes, no refunds, no getting off, miss your train lose your money. If you pay a bunch more and get an super off peak you can with some penalties get a refund before the day of travel, and you can be flexible with your train as long as outbound travel is completed on the day of the ticket. No outbound stopovers. The return has to be completed within a month, and on many versions stopovers on the return trip are permitted as long as they are in the straight order of travel without diverting (no going backwards or sideways) from the route and completing the journey within a month. Every different type of ticket has a different set of restrictions on time of use, refunds, changes, stopovers, validity, and other conditions. The book is so thick it is no wonder that a few errors creep in from time to time. Bottom line, more £££, more freedom. Less £, more restrictions. If you travel First Class (££££££) many fewer restrictions.

Private Eye recently ran a great cartoon showing some hapless fellow looking for fares in a set of big, thick books titled "UK Railway Tickets Explained, Volumes 1-4". All so true.