"Christopher Barker" wrote in message
...
On a Sunday afternoon in late July my wife and I will be departing from
St. Pancras station in London via Eurostar. Prior to this we will be
using a rental car for a few days, based in Cookham, Berks. We have
not yet booked the car, but before we do so I'd like to ask the group's
advice on the best place to drop it off so that we can then easily get
to St. Pancras with as few rail/taxi/bus transfers as possible.

We would rather not have to drive into London with it, but have driven
in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Rome, Milan and Naples during rush hour
without disaster, (though not without frustration,) so could pull it
off on a summer Sunday afternoon if a better alternative is not
forthcoming. (However, is St. Pancras within the congestion fee zone?)
The main problem seems to be that all of the stations on the Cookham
side of London connect into Paddington, Marylebone, or Euston, so we'd
need to then make it through the Underground system with luggage.

The fact that one of our party (father) needs to be dropped at Heathrow
at 6:30 AM the same day may also figure into our plans, though a taxi
from Cookham to Heathrow for them is an alternative. (This raises the
possibility of simply dropping the car at Heathrow as we let them off,
and taking the Underground from Heathrow to St. Pancras, which looks
like it involves a single line (Piccadilly?) and hence no transfers.
Is this correct?)

Thanks in advance,

Chris (in California)

Unless you can find a rental office actually at St Pancras (or Kings X which
is right next door) almost anything else will involve some traipsing.
You'd think that Eurostar or National Rail or EMT would say something about
car rental at St Pancras but they don't (as far as I can see).

Taking the Piccadilly all the way from Heathrow is a bit slow and the
baggage provision is poor but it is a one train ride with no changes. The
car rental offices at Heathrow are away from the terminals so drop the car,
take the rental car bus o the terminal, get the train.

If you take the train from Cookham it's a simple, cross platform (no stairs)
change at Maidenhead and then straight to Paddington. From there a taxi
wouldn't be too expensive. The underground depends a bit which platform
you arrive on at Paddington. On a Sunday I'd expect the train to come ino
the main trainshed in which case just walk to the front of the train, across
the circulating area (known as "the lawn" although you'll not see any grass)
down the short escalator and then it's a flat route to the Circle Line
platform. You can buy a through ticket from Cookham to "Zone 1" so you
don't need a separate ticket for the underground.

If however it arrives out at 14/15(?) just go up the stairs, turn left and
down to the adjacent platform which is another underground station on the
Hammersmith and City line and get the train from there to St Pancras.

A further possibility would be to get onto the underground network at
somewhere like Uxbridge or even Amersham. From there the Met runs to St
Pancras. http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk might help.