How can I get to Manchester, let me count the ways

[lnr]

As discussed on Facebook and irc already.

Criteria: Cambridge to Manchester by train, arrive around 18:00 on Thursday 7th June. It turns out to be harder than you'd think.

• Cambridge-London(Kings Cross to Euston)-Manchester
• Cambridge-Ely-Manchester
• Cambridge-Birmingham-Manchester
• Cambridge-Peterborough-York-Manchester
• Cambridge-Ely-Peterborough-Leeds-Manchester
• Cambridge-Peterborough-Grantham-Wakefield-Huddersfield-Manchester
• Cambridge-Nuneaton-Stafford-Manchester

Via London is around 3.5 hours, and pretty simple, but very expensive at peak times (over £360!). Ely or Birmingham are the most straightforward, but take 4.5 hours. The other routes are all somewhere in between, but *how* many changes? And somehow I can't bring myself to go via York.

I think I'm *probably* going to go for the London route, and just aim to arrive an hour earlier so as to avoid the peak fare, but it took quite a lot of looking to make sure!

Comments

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

I think I used to go via Brum and took a good book ;)

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Cheapest by a mile is the 1312 Cambridge-Ely-Pboro-Leeds-Manc train - £38 on Raileasy and there may be extra discounts. But still, 4 1/2 hours. Why is Cambridge so awkward to reach by rail if you don't live in London or Hertfordshire?

[lnr]

It's not worth getting specific-train advance fares in this case - as I don't know exactly what train I'll be returning on on Sunday - I'll be getting an off-peak return (at roughly 75 or 95 quid depending on which route I take). I certainly can't justify the anytime return price through London though.

And one major difficulty in this case is actually that there are so *many* ways to do it it's hard to actually *find* all of them.

[3c66b.livejournal.com]

I do Baldock -> Manchester quiite often, and try to avoid London where I can; the thing I prefer to do is to get the trans-Pennine express from Doncaster. I see there is a 4-hour trip from Cambridge that does that, leaving at 14:00: Cambridge -> Peterborough -> Doncaster -> Manchester at 18:02. For some reason, you have to really twist the arm of the rail travel websites to get them to offer this...

[lnr]

Hmm, now that's not bad at all in terms of timing, and only two changes. Tempting. And I didn't find it. Gah.

Several people have asked if I tried searching for via Ely or via Peterborough - and that does often help when looking for trains - but in this case nearly *all* the non-London ones go through both, so it doesn't help much at all.

[mhoulden.livejournal.com]

Cambridge -> Ely is £4.10 and there are loads of them. Direct trains run from Ely to Manchester Piccadilly every hour at about 53 minutes past the hour and arrive a bit more than 3 and a half hours later. If you don't mind getting there at 16.36 the single advance purchase fare from Ely to Manchester is £19. If you went for that you could go for something like this:
Dep Cambridge @ 12.12
Arr Ely @ 12.26
Dep Ely @ 12.53
Arr Manchester Piccadilly @ 16.36
Total travelling time roughly 4 hours 20 minutes

You would need to buy 2 separate tickets and make sure you don't miss the connection, but this way would cost £23.10.

Other trains with a single change at Ely are £65.50 for an anytime single from Cambridge, or the one that burkesworks mentions with several changes for £38. If you went for the London route it might be worth checking the cost of a single from Cambridge into London and then another single to Manchester. Just for example, a single from Cambridge to London leaving at 13.15 and arriving at Kings Cross at 14.04 is £21.20, and a single from Euston to Piccadilly leaving at 14.40 and arriving at 16.50 is £32.50 (after that it goes up a lot). Kings Cross is close enough to Euston that that should be plenty of time (you can walk it in about 10 - 15 minutes) but you may want to allow extra time just in case. Total cost that way is £53.70 plus tube fare.

[lnr]

The return via London arriving 17:07 is £93.20 - so those singles wouldn't actually save me anything by that route. I do need to get back on the following Sunday too :)

The return by the other routes is under £75, so many of those other options don't save me much either - not enough to be worth the risk of missing a connection which you take when you buy split tickets. Plus 12:12 is too early really, I'm working that morning.

Despite the cost I usually prefer the flexibility of an off-peak return, especially since I'm not sure what time I'll come back on the Sunday - the anytime return prices really are eye-watering though.

Cheers for the suggestions though.

[samholloway.livejournal.com]

There's another not-silly option : take the X5 coach (which is quite posh these days, wi-fi and everything) to Milton Keynes (2 hours) then the train direct to Manchester (1hr38). (Or if you can get a lift for this section then you can bank on doing it in under 90 minutes; most of the route is dual-carriageway now. The coach loses time because it has to go through Bedford and make sundry additional stops.)

Living in Ely, I'd just get the slow but direct train to Manchester. It trundles around but it's pretty much the straight-line route and is quite pretty in places.

Although worth noting that East Midlands trains (who run that route) are currently undergoing a series of rolling strikes and so it'll depend on exactly what the situation is when you want to travel.

[lnr]

That one actually occurred to me - I used to get that coach between Oxford and Cambridge quite a lot - but to be honest didn't sound like much fun :)

I'll see some of the other people going on Friday, and will see what their plans are. Might even be a car-sharing opportunity.

[samholloway.livejournal.com]

I was a regular on the X5 twixt Cambridge and MK when I was a student (as I had friends in the land of many roundabouts). In those days it was a plain coach and it wasn't too pleasant. But I see from the publicity now that it's a super-deluxe beast with wi-fi and smiling happy faces etc. Still, two hours from Cam to MK (and me not living in Cam anymore!) means I'm unlikely to be giving it a whirl again soon.