My experience with British train from Bath to York

I do find it surprising that you didn't realise that you would need to change stations in London if taking that route. A rather simpler route would have been to take a train from Bath to Bristol Temple Meads station in about 15 minutes and change to a direct train to York. There is also an alternative route changing at Reading which would also not have involved changing stations. The route via London is usually the quickest but as you found more inconvenient with the need to change stations.

Did you think all trains to all destinations begin and end at Paddington?

For context there are 334 railway stations in London. These include 14 major railway termini. You may well have to arrive at one termini and then go to another one for your connection, like changing airports.

But you didn’t need to go to London at all.

I do the Paddington to King’s Cross transfer regularly as I have to travel from Cornwall to York. I prefer it to the cross country route via Bristol. The transfer is an easy 20 minutes.

Did you buy the tickets in advance? I did this trip 2 years ago and bought my ticket from the LNER website to get the advance purchase price. The email they sent listed the stations and clearly specified London Paddington and London Kings Cross on successive lines.

I don't remember being particularly rushed. But having never been there before I found King Cross station a little perplexing since I arrived at the tube station portion and then had to figure out where the train lines were. All part of the adventure in travel!

Hi, J@p28al, thanks for sharing your experience here. That's good to know, although I'm sorry that it was not ideal for you. But hopefully that will help a later traveler who has questions about taking the train from Bath to York.

Next time, you might want to come here to the forum early and post your train route and get some advice. We have a number of UK residents and frequent travelers who are more than happy to share their time and expertise and know the train system very well. I've been to the UK four different times and I still come here with questions, especially about the trains. 😊

For example, you could ask the question, "I am traveling from Bath to York by train. What is the most efficient and easiest train to take?" Hopefully you would get a number of responses from some of the folks here letting you know that you do not have to go through London to get from Bath to York.

Another option is to use Google Maps just to get a starting reference. For example, when I went to Google Maps just now and keyed in York as my destination and Bath as my starting point and asked for directions using public transportation, Google showed me that there are a number of train routes that go through London, but it also showed me a CrossCountry route that goes from Bath to York without stopping in London.

Once you have that, you could come here and ask for more details on it, or just go to the CrossCountry website and look for more information about that route. And as Johnnew52 mentioned above, you could have taken a train to Bristol and then a direct route to York from there. So there are lots of options. 😊

I dont understand why the station change using the Underground came as a surprise to you. When looking online, the journey details that outlined this (including which Underground lines to take) were available at each step in the booking process if you started on the National Rail site. And there was no need to feel rushed, since you had about 45 minutes for a Tube ride that likely takes 15-20 minutes.

Mardeees suggestion to come here before booking tickets on an unfamiliar rail system would likely avoid unecessary anxiety. I'd also recommend spending some time familiarizing yourself with the information on The Man in Seat 61 website.

A rather simpler route would have been to take a train from Bath to Bristol Temple Meads station in about 15 minutes and change to a direct train to York.

So this raises the question - would any of the railroad portals offer this as a viable itinerary, or do you have to know enough to game the system?