travel from London to Manchester
 

I will need to travel from London to Manchester in November - probable dates are 14th -18th. Suggestions please for most reasonable way to travel - plane/train/bus/car hire.
My journey will be starting in Feltham & ending in Sale so this could be taken into account as well. I could be picked up in the Manchester area to reach Sale

Probably didn't make clear that this is a return trip

www.nationalrail.co.uk has all the various rail fares - and do not just show up as that can mean paying hundreds of bucks, literally, more than nabbing some of the deep discounted fares online 0- but must act far in advance as they are sold in limited numbers. Train IMO is the best - fastest and most comfortable.

Since your starting point is near Heathrow airport, and an hour or so from the departure train station in London, you may also want to consider flying. BMI flies the route from LHR to MAN, www.flybmi.com

Sale is not far from MAN and Feltham is semi-convenient to LHR. I'd maybe fly, but it will take you about 40 mins to get to Heathrow.

But if you want to take the train, it will take 4 hours from Feltham to Sale: Train to Vauxhall, tube to Euston, train to Manchester, Metrolink to Sale.

Whichever way you travel, the journey from your Feltham hotel to the plane/train and from your Manchester area arrival point to Sale will most definitely take a great deal longer, and very possibly cost more, than the intercity journey.

There are several buses an hour from most of Feltham to LHR terminal 1 (for bmi)or 5 (for BA) flights (details at http://www.heathrowairport.com/asset.../Bus_Table.pdf), whereas however you do it, getting to Euston station is a serious slog, involving several changes. And for your picker-upper in Sale, Manchester airport's going to be easier to get to and back from than Piccadilly or Stockport (ask your contact which is easier) stations.

Only you can calculate the relative costs for the time and day you need, by going to the BA and bmi sites, as well as the Virgin railway site, and calculating them on the assumption you book now.

But it's ALWAYS faster, more comfortable and less trouble to fly from Feltham to Sale than to go into London, get the train, take it to the Manchester area, then have some poor sod slog round to Stockport or into town.

<<Feltham is semi-convenient to LHR>> The bus takes anything from 15 to 30 mins depending on which terminal at LHR, taxi will take even less time.

In any case if going by train be SURE to book an advanced discounted ticket online well before the day of the train (if arriving by air leave in a few extra hours in case planes are late) - full fare can be really high - I was recently on a train London to Manchester, using a BritRail Pass and they announced on the PA for folks with discounted (and train-specific) tickets to be sure they were on the right train because if they were not the full fare would be charged and it was something like $200 one way! Online discounts can be a fraction of that -www.nationalrail.co.uk for details - if wanting fuyll fare to hop any train anytime you'll pay an arm and a leg and actually there are Brit England railpasses that would be much cheaper than a round-trip full fare ticket, if ticket prices are as high as they were when i recently took that London to Manchester train.

Flying makes sense for folks arriving at Heathrow or within a stone's throw of it like at Feltham.

By train, an off-peak return from London Euston to Manchester is £70 and does not need to be booked in advance. The ticket is not resticted to a specific train, but cannot be used at peak times of the day. Trains normally leave every 20 minutes and take about two hours and ten minutes.

Thanks everyone - I will look at the sites suggested. My main problem is not wanting to book too far in advance as I am fitting it with seeing a daughter in London who is job hunting & so doesn't know when she will be working/not working - I might only be able to book 2-3 weeks out from the journey.