plcd1 wrote:
Engineering works - at weekends and evenings there can be
construction / renewal / upgrade works which mean either sections of
line and / or stations are closed. It is important that you check the
TfL website for the dates you may be travelling. The Victoria Line,
in particular, is subject to a lot of large scale (often the whole
line) closures at weekends. This would affect the advice I provided
to you.

When the line is closed, there are usually replacement buses provided for
rail ticket holders. These are shown on the rail timetable websites. I'd
allow up to twice the rail journey time if that's the case (because they
have to visit the same stations as the train, which often aren't connected
by a fast road).

As others have indicated the earlier you book then the cheaper a
ticket will be for the train to Wigan. The Virgin Trains website can
show the discounted tickets that are available per train. Note that
cheap tickets are train specific and NOT valid for other trains.

Also worth checking the 'special offers' section of the Virgin website,
which currently has an offer of tickets on the London-Manchester route
starting at a pound - booking site is:
http://www.mobitix.thetrainline.com/...ePurchase.aspx

These are sent to your mobile phone... it might work if you have a GSM phone
in the US (but they might block non-UK mobiles, don't know), or if you're
likely to have a GSM phone operating in the UK (if you can work out some way
to register and say 'send me my tickets nearer the time')

Theo