Hi
Reading various postings on here I notice that many visitors travel by train (Virgin or GNER service) to Edinburgh from York or London. I have just found out that this service is going to be severely affected by 'engineering work' on the stretch from Newcastle to Edinburgh over the next few weekends. Work starts late Friday night and ends early Monday morning. A detour takes you right across England to Carlisle and then back east to Edinburgh - very scenic but greatly increasing your journey time, and could mess up connections.
www.nationalrail.co.uk gives more details.

Useful warning, Morgana, but I think you are exaggerating the impact. <<A detour takes you right across England to Carlisle>> turns out to be a distance of about 60 miles. << very scenic but greatly increasing your journey time>> adds about an hour and a quarter to the journey time. For the vast majority of train travelers to Edinburgh, this looks to me to be a minor inconvenience. Although for some travelers from London, it may alter the train vs. budget airline equation.

I hope the impact isn't too 'exaggerated' - but the advance warning signs I have been reading all over York station specifically state there will be 'severe disruption' whilst this work is going ahead at the weekends.

Just my opinion but, as someone who has traveled that rail line frequently, adding another hour to an hour and a quarter to an already 4-5 hour ride DOES impact the trip! Although I'd never do a roundtrip in one day, many people on this board ask if it's "doable." I'd say that adding 2-1/2 hours to the trip makes it NOT doable.

I also think this makes looking into the plane a worthwhile investigation.

Thanks for the "heads up," Morgana.

The revised schedules are on www.nationalrail.co.uk. If you try London-Edinburgh on Saturday 4 September, for example, the journey time is around 4.5 hours, but if you try for the following Saturday, it takes over six hours, with a change of train at Newcastle. If you plan to make the journey, it's obviously better to try to travel on a day when services are normal, by avoiding these weekends.