On May 6, 6:40*am, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 01:18:33 on
Wed, 6 May 2009, Tony Polson remarked:

First, the car park is small, and is invariably wedged (and beyond) by
mid morning. *Second, the trains are very slow - there are an awful lot
of stops between Hillingdon and central London.

I used to park at Ickenham - the next station up the line - having
arrived via the M40. As an end-to-end time it's not bad compared to
driving. The next place up the A40 it's worth using is the Hyde Park
car-park (not far from the A40 if you use the shortcuts near Paddington
Station, rather than Edgware Rd). But it'll still be half an hour from
there to Westminster, and the parking fees are quite high.

City of Westminster council refer to it as the Marble Arch/ Park Lane
car park, as it has two entrances. Their webpage on it is here -
prices are, as you say, pricey:
http://www.westminster.gov.uk/carparks/marble_arch.cfm

Depends where in Westminster one is headed, but it could be a pleasant
walk through Green Park and St James' Park (and poss a bit quicker
than half-hour). The other options would be to head to Bond Street or
maybe Green Park for the Jubilee line into Westminster, or take a
frequent 148 bus from Park Lane which goes via Victoria along Victoria
Street to Parliament Square where it then heads across the river.

Regarding getting off the A40 (the Westway) - there's ways of doing it
and ways of not doing it, additionally these ways differ according to
whether or not the congestion charge is in force / whether or not you
want to avoid the CC zone.

Regardless of this however if you're coming west along the A40 and
want to head south to Marble Arch / Park Lane and beyond, one should
pretty much always take the so-called "Paddington slip" off the A40
(which IIRC is signposted "Ring Road South"). Once you're off the road
here it's a question of whether you continue direct along Westbourne
Terrace to Lancaster Gate (though the CC zone) or otherwise travel via
Edgware Road, which is a 'free road' that cuts through the CC zone, as
is Park Lane and the whole of the Inner Ring Road.

Continuing along the A40 will mean you end up on the Marylebone Road,
which has limited opportunities for turning right into (though they do
exist, but I can't remember where), and these right turns will lead
you into the CC zone. It's not possible to get off the A40 on to the
top of Edgware Road directly - you will instead be conveyed on the
Marylebone Flyover (properly called the Harrow Rd Flyover) over the
top of Edgware Road and onto Marylebone Road.

This helpful PDF from TfL outlines all the various permutations for
getting on and off the A40 avoiding the CC zone:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/roadusers/...AccessMaps.pdf

Of course this will all be largely irrelevant from some time in 2010
onward when the western extension of the Congestion Charging zone is
scrapped (though the central area CC zone south of Marylebone Rd will
remain) - a retrograde step IMO (coming from a somewhat retrograde
Mayor) but that's another discussion - point being that in the mean
time, if you want to come off the A40 and park at the Marble Arch/
Park Lane car park (or indeed just drive to points south) then there's
absolutely no need to pay the £8 congestion charge for the privilege
of driving little over a mile in the CC zone when you can avoid it
quite easily.

I guess I should be saying that one could avoid adding to the
congestion and pollution and could also save oneself the hassle of
driving into central London by doing 'The Right Thing' and making use
of a public transport option.

On Wed, 6 May 2009 05:29:04 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T put finger to
keyboard and typed:

I guess I should be saying that one could avoid adding to the
congestion and pollution and could also save oneself the hassle of
driving into central London by doing 'The Right Thing' and making use
of a public transport option.

I am planning to do "the right thing" as you put it, and use a public
transport system. It's just that, unlike most times when I visit
London, I will be starting from a location that is not served by rail.
Hence the thread title being "park and train".

Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

On May 6, 3:58*pm, Mark Goodge
wrote:

On Wed, 6 May 2009 05:29:04 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T put finger to
keyboard and typed:

I guess I should be saying that one could avoid adding to the
congestion and pollution and could also save oneself the hassle of
driving into central London by doing 'The Right Thing' and making use
of a public transport option.

I am planning to do "the right thing" as you put it, and use a public
transport system. It's just that, unlike most times when I visit
London, I will be starting from a location that is not served by rail.
Hence the thread title being "park and train".


Please don't get the idea I was trying to be preachy, I really wasn't!
Hence the phrase 'The Right Thing' being capitalised and in inverted
commas! (And the impersonal use of "one instead of "you" was very
deliberate too.)

Indeed during past discussions on these two newsgroups I've actively
countered the common notion that London is some sort of impassable
mass which is impossible to drive through. Which does somewhat bring
me into conflict with my other self, the public transport proponent!
I'll readily admit to a degree of hypocrisy here.

Anyway I trust the various suggestions have been useful, I hope you've
ignored my "obvious" yet fairly rubbish suggestion of Hillingdon, and
wonder if you might update us with whatever choice you make in the end
and tell us how well it worked.

On Wed, 6 May 2009 08:24:28 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T put finger to
keyboard and typed:

Anyway I trust the various suggestions have been useful, I hope you've
ignored my "obvious" yet fairly rubbish suggestion of Hillingdon, and
wonder if you might update us with whatever choice you make in the end
and tell us how well it worked.

FWIW, I used Beaconsfield. It met all the requirements: Easy access
from the M40, a frequent service and plenty of parking. The only fly
in the ointment was the fact that the card terminal didn't seem to
like my credit card, despite it having plenty of available credit, so
I had to go and get some cash from a nearby ATM before I could travel.

I had seriously considered using one of the Cotswold Line stations
(such as Moreton-in-Marsh) as that would have been convenient for my
starting point, but in the end I was glad I didn't. I ended up staying
in London far longer than expected, mainly due to the fact that the
meeting was shifted to a new location and I took the opportunity to
stay behind afterwards for a bit of sightseeing - which wouldn't have
been possible if I'd needed to catch a specific train on an infrequent
schedule in order to get back at a reasonable time. The service
to/from Beaconsfield, by contrast, is frequent enough to be pretty
much turn-up-and-go all day, so I could just set off when I felt like
it rather than trying to match my movements to a timetable.

Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

Mark Goodge wrote:

On Wed, 6 May 2009 08:24:28 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T put finger to
keyboard and typed:

Anyway I trust the various suggestions have been useful, I hope you've
ignored my "obvious" yet fairly rubbish suggestion of Hillingdon, and
wonder if you might update us with whatever choice you make in the end
and tell us how well it worked.

FWIW, I used Beaconsfield. It met all the requirements: Easy access
from the M40, a frequent service and plenty of parking. The only fly
in the ointment was the fact that the card terminal didn't seem to
like my credit card, despite it having plenty of available credit, so
I had to go and get some cash from a nearby ATM before I could travel.

I had seriously considered using one of the Cotswold Line stations
(such as Moreton-in-Marsh) as that would have been convenient for my
starting point, but in the end I was glad I didn't. I ended up staying
in London far longer than expected, mainly due to the fact that the
meeting was shifted to a new location and I took the opportunity to
stay behind afterwards for a bit of sightseeing - which wouldn't have
been possible if I'd needed to catch a specific train on an infrequent
schedule in order to get back at a reasonable time. The service
to/from Beaconsfield, by contrast, is frequent enough to be pretty
much turn-up-and-go all day, so I could just set off when I felt like
it rather than trying to match my movements to a timetable.


You're welcome. ;-)

On May 6, 10:58*am, Mark Goodge
wrote:
I am planning to do "the right thing" as you put it, and use a public
transport system. It's just that, unlike most times when I visit
London, I will be starting from a location that is not served by rail.
Hence the thread title being "park and train".

Have you considered Warwick Parkway? Less driving, more sitting being
productive on a train. Decent-sized car park, and trains are roughly
half-hourly to Marylebone (whence, of course, you can either take the
Bakerloo one stop and change cross-platform to the Jubilee, or just
walk five minutes to Baker Street and pick up the Jubbly there)

That's assuming, of course, that you're coming from far enough north
in Worcestershire that you'll be going past Warwick on the M40
anyway...

On Wed, 6 May 2009 10:29:32 -0700 (PDT), Alistair Bell put finger to
keyboard and typed:

On May 6, 10:58*am, Mark Goodge
wrote:
I am planning to do "the right thing" as you put it, and use a public
transport system. It's just that, unlike most times when I visit
London, I will be starting from a location that is not served by rail.
Hence the thread title being "park and train".

Have you considered Warwick Parkway? Less driving, more sitting being
productive on a train. Decent-sized car park, and trains are roughly
half-hourly to Marylebone (whence, of course, you can either take the
Bakerloo one stop and change cross-platform to the Jubilee, or just
walk five minutes to Baker Street and pick up the Jubbly there)

That's assuming, of course, that you're coming from far enough north
in Worcestershire that you'll be going past Warwick on the M40
anyway...

No; I'll be probably starting on the edge of the Cotswolds in
south-east Worcestershire. I did consider somewhere like
Moreton-in-Marsh or Evesham (I'll probably be close enough to one or
other of those for it to be reasonably convenient), but the trains on
that line are slow and infrequent and I've heard too many stories of
poor reliability. So I'm not particularly inclined to trust them,
given that my travel time is likely to be somewhat inflexible.

Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

In message
, at
05:29:04 on Wed, 6 May 2009, Mizter T remarked:
if you're coming west along the A40 and
want to head south to Marble Arch / Park Lane and beyond, one should
pretty much always take the so-called "Paddington slip" off the A40
(which IIRC is signposted "Ring Road South"). Once you're off the road
here it's a question of whether you continue direct along Westbourne
Terrace to Lancaster Gate (though the CC zone) or otherwise travel via
Edgware Road, which is a 'free road' that cuts through the CC zone, as
is Park Lane and the whole of the Inner Ring Road.

I'd forgotten about the congestion zone - shows how often I drive in
London (must be about seven years since I drove inside the zone, and
five years since I've driven inside the M25).
--
Roland Perry