Travelling Glasgow-York-Salisbury-London...phew!
 

Hello,

Hoping for a little advice on transportation. For most of our Sept/Oct trip in the UK we are catching trains and I was able to get some great cheap fares by booking early. However this leg is problematic in that I can't find reasonable fares for these legs. Is it going to be cheaper for us to hire a car between Glasgow and Salisbury?

Many thanks!! Ness

Usually, it doesn't make sense to get cross-country trains from Northern England to Salisbury. It's almost always quicker and cheaper to go to London, then get a train to Salisbury (and, if you're booking in advance, to do that bit via the Megatrain booking engine, than which nothing on earth is cheaper). It's also almost always a lot cheaper and quicker by train than by car.

For a single York-London ticket, if the normal booking sites aren't to your liking, you might investigate the Grand Central Railways site. York-London is one of the very few intercity rail journeys in Britain where's there's true competition between different operators taking the same route with the same number of stops.

I think pricing is only to 17, September. Perhaps wait a week or so?

get a trian from galsgow down to brimingham then one to reading then one to saisbury..maybe that will workout cheaper

It might be worth looking at Flybe.com to see the price of a flight from Glasgow to Southampton. At the moment the early flights at the beginning of October are around £5 + taxes (so about £30 a person). From Southampton Airport there are regular trains to Salisbury taking about 50 minutes.

I don't see how either the train to B'ham/Reading or flying to S'hampton could work for the OP -- since I assume they want to see York.

Flanner is no doubt right that the best way from York to Salisbury is via London.

(Now - if you actually have no interest in York - then flying to Southampton makes a lot of sense.)

whoops - my error - I had disregarded that you wanted to do York on the way.

Thanks all - some great food for thought. Flying makes sense but yes, we were keen to see a couple of places along the way. I will try again wth the train advance bookings and see what I can come up with. Thanks so much!

You might try Crosscountry Trains www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk

We took a direct train to/from Oxford/York recently, and I believe the train originated in Reading. You can get a train from Reading to Salisbury. The trip from Oxford to York ( train continues to Edinburgh) took about 3 1/2 hours and would involve one change between York and Salisbury at Reading. I think there is also a train from Salisbury to York via Bristol with a change at Bristol. Of course, you can also get a direct train from Glasgow to York.