On 25/02/2012 01:01, Graham Nye wrote:
On 24/02/2012 19:05, Chris Read wrote:

If I arrive at London Bridge (National Rail) at 07.14 next Wednesday,
how would you rate my chances of getting to Paddington, by cab, for
the 07.45 departure to Cardiff?

I will need to pick up my ticket from a machine at Paddington, unless
I can do that in my four minute connection at Lewes.

Can't you buy tickets for the entire journey at your initial station?
Buying a through ticket should also get you your Tube ticket (shows an
extra + on your ticket) so you won't have to buy that separately.
(At an extortionate £4 each way - Boris doesn't like non-Oystered
non-Londoners passing through his territory.) You could pick your
tickets up in advance to save hassle on the day. (You could also order
them on-line, although you are then committed to which station you
have to collect them from.)



Are you? I've just ordered some tickets on-line and the blurb says:
"Tickets will be available to collect from a self-service ticket machine
at one of 900 UK stations 2 hours after booking."

Certainly in the past, when following a spate of vandalism to the ticket
machines at my then local station it disappeared from the list for
collecting from when booking on-line, I just quoted the next station
down the line and then, having booked the tickets collected them from my
then - no longer shown - home station.


If you can make Lewes 36' earlier you could catch the 05:29 into
London Victoria. That would give you a shorter, single journey on
the Circle line to Paddington, and plenty of time to make it in.

For those favouring the avoid London option note that:
1) the Redhill to Reading service is slow (lots of stops),
2) Sussex trains bypass Redhill, so extra changes are needed to
get there (e.g. Brighton or Gatwick).




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