kathleen

We’ve been thinking about how to add an additional two night stay in northern England to our itinerary. We’ll have six nights in Scotland and three nights in York. We plan on traveling from Edinburgh to London. Would it work to take the train from Edinburgh to Berwick-Upon-Tweed, stay two nights, then train to York, then on to London? What we’d like to do in Berwick is visit the town on the first day, and take the bus to Holy Island on the second day. We’d then continue by train from Berwick to Durham on the way to York. Additionally, since we’d be passing through Durham, is it possible to stop for a few hours to see the Cathedral? Is there a place in the Durham train station to store luggage for a few hours? Thanks.

flanneruk

Yes of course you may stop at intermediate stations. But you can't book an Edinburgh-London ticket at the lowest prices, get off the train and use that ticket for a different route. Most discounted fares are for specific journeys only (eg: the 1206 departure on July 3 from Edinburgh to London)

To get the lowest prices, you must pre-book each leg (called an Advance fare). For many journeys, the difference between the inflexible Advance fare and the cheapest, reasonably flexible, walk-up fare (called Off Peak, and useable after nine-ish on weekdays and all day at weekends) is trivial. For your York-London segment it's not trivial and you must prebook this.

For the bits between Edinburgh and York, run dummy routes for each segment on dates about 11 weeks away on nationalrail.co.uk. This will show what the difference between Advance and Offpeak is, and whether offpeak works for your planned journey times.

There's no left luggage facility at Durham station. In some medium-sized towns, private enterprise has stepped in to provide a facility somewhere in the town for leaving luggage. A spot of googling might throw up such an operation here if no-one else has any ideas.

Are you familiar with the tide complications in day visits to Holy Island by bus? The winter bus timetable is at https://www.lindisfarne.org.uk/gener...12-To-1504.pdf

kathleen

Thanks. I'll do the point to point fares and check advance prices. Maybe it's not a feasible plan, after all.

I was aware of the tide complications and took that into consideration by setting aside the entire day for visiting Holy Island for that reason. The Perryman's bus schedule and the tide chart from the Northumberland County Council are both very specific, so I thought I had that covered. Maybe not.

I'll leave off the short stop in Durham since that would further complicate the journey.

historytraveler

By choosing advanced fares and selecting the cheapest departures ( fares can vary greatly depending on the train/ departure time ) you shouldn't have a problem. Point to point tickets from Edinburgh to Betwick Upon Tweed, York and then on to London shouldn't cost too much more than one ticket from EDB to London. Anytime fares are the most expensive but with a bit of planning not really necessary.

I agree that Durham without luggage storage is probably not worth the hassle although it is my favorite cathedral.

kathleen

Thanks historytraveler, I'm continuing to work on this segment of the trip. When I think I have moved it further along, I'll probably ask more specific questions. Durham is out.