Been trying to navigate the National Rail site and am not sure how much a typical fare actually costs - the evening trip (non sleeper ) was 100 pounds, the sleeper 27 pounds and the morning trip the following day 24 pounds. It's for a trip in September so I'm not sure if there is any rhyme or reason to it?

Any suggestions from those who have taken the trip before?

Oh, I had trouble with that too a couple of years ago. I found the pricing difficult.

But we did somehow end up with good seats and it was a wonderful experience.

We rode during the day and so enjoyed the views out the windows.

each train has seats available at various fare levels - when one fare level's allotment is exhausted the price goes up to the next level. Trains at the most popular times may have few to begin with - it's supply and demand. 24 pounds i would hop on. Not sure if these sites will help with deciphering www.nationalrail.co.uk but i always spotlight them for the immense amount of info they do have - www.seat61.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com; www.ricksteves.com.

Thus a 'typical'fare can be between 15 pounds and over 100 pounds and anything in between.

Same problem when we went last year, different pricing for different times etc. We just picked the day we wanted to go and picked the cheapest price they had for the morning around the time we wanted to leave.

Try eastcoast.co.uk and pick the best price. As of now you can only book cheap tickets up to the 17th September EXCEPT for 11th & 12th September when I presume Railtrack will be wanting to dig up tracks round the country and won't be telling anyone which ones for a few weeks yet

And unless you were on the FirstScotRail website it's unlikely you were getting a berth on the Sleeper - it'll be just a seat.