Mizter T wrote:


On May 6, 2:29*pm, Tony Polson wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

Thanks for the info, that's certainly useful to know. Coming into
central London it's obviously dependent on whether or not there's any
free seats on board but as both Oxford Tube and Oxford Espress stop
there then you'd not have to wait long before another coach came
along.

But pointless if you cannot find anywhere to park.

Of course. As I've just posted downthread, I'll happily defer to your
wisdom on this one!

I think I was simply mildly intrigued by the slight curiosity of being
able to catch one of these coach services from Hillingdon into town.
Occasionally knowing about such transport oddities might even be
useful!

And I do wonder if local residents make use of it at all - it could
actually be useful for them.


I think it was reasonably well used when the stop was at the Master
Brewer pub/motel, which was located on the north east side of the A40/
Long Lane traffic lights at Hillingdon Circus.

The road diversion devastated the Master Brewer's business. It lost
almost all of its passing trade. It was still there a couple of years
ago, boarded up, but I think it has probably been demolished.

PS I just looked on Google Street View and the site is now just a pile
of rubble.

Mizter T wrote:

Thanks for the info - I'll happily defer to your greater experience of
trying to do this. My Hillingdon suggestion evidently wasn't a very
good one then! Passing it when going along the A40, Hillingdon station
seems like an obvious candidate, but it's obviously not - that's what
comes from knowing what's out there but never having actually tried to
make use of it!


[...] I usually drive to Amersham and
take Chiltern to either Harrow-on-the-Hill or Mar-lee-bone and the
Underground from either of those. [...]

I see from the TfL website that it's not an LU car park... so I've
just checked the Chiltern DC website and voila, all the requisite info
is there (680 spaces, =A35 maximum cost for a day's parking):
I'm guessing there's always a space?

In my experience, yes, and I usually travel after the morning peak when
you would expect it to be at its fullest.

I suppose another advantage of Amersham is that the fares are cheaper,
as LU fares apply including on Chiltern Railways.

Indeed. Chiltern from Aylesbury is getting expensive:

Anytime Day Travelcard is £30.50, Off Peak Day Travelcard is £20.00.

From Amersham:

Anytime Day Travelcard is £16.20, Off Peak Day Travelcard is £9.00.

Even with the cost of parking and diesel, it's a lot cheaper.

But I have also driven a few times to
North Ealing station (Piccadilly Line) where you can usually get a space
in the car park by early afternoon. =A0I didn't suggest North Ealing
because, if you cannot find a parking space, the alternatives are not
easy if you don't know the area. =A0I used to live in Ealing, so I know it
quite well.

The magic of local knowledge!


It's definitely best to avoid Hillingdon. It was a lost opportunity; a
great idea for a park and ride but just not enough parking.

I'm also curious now as to whether Hillingdon area folks ever try and
use the Oxford Tube/Espress as a nifty 'express' night bus to get from
central London back to Hillingdon.

Perhaps 'local' passengers are only really welcome to travel from
Hillingdon into central London, rather than the other way round.

This reminds me of someone telling me about how they used to travel
into town from their home in the London suburbs back in the 70's - the
normal way was on a regular London bus route, but if they were feeling
flush then they might opt for the quicker Green Line coach instead
(regarded as a somewhat cut-above way of doing things!). I can't
really think of anywhere where this might still be possible - bus
routes are a lot shorter these days of course, and long distance
coaches don't really stop at that many places (though the Bexleyheath
coach stop on the side of the A2 does come to mind).

I used to live in Hillingdon and yes it was possible to use the Oxford
Tube/X90 as a night bus from Central London. It was around £4 I
believe (about two years ago) and it was absolutely brilliant. 20
minutes from Marble Arch compared to 90 mins or so for the N207, which
was further away from my house. Well worth the extra few quid.

I don't know if many other people used it, though. The times I used it
there never was anyone else getting off at Hillingdon.

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 uk.railway Mizter T wrote:
This reminds me of someone telling me about how they used to travel
into town from their home in the London suburbs back in the 70's - the
normal way was on a regular London bus route, but if they were feeling
flush then they might opt for the quicker Green Line coach instead

I used to do the same from my part of Cambridge (Trumpington) into the
centre. Until a year or two ago, there was only a bus every two or three
hours on a Sunday. But Cambridge-Trumpington-London is an hourly(-ish)
National Express service. So I used to catch these instead to go the 3
miles into town. At a pound each way it was cheaper than the local buses
too! Got some funny looks from the drivers though.

Theo

In article ,
Tony Polson wrote:

It's definitely best to avoid Hillingdon. It was a lost opportunity; a
great idea for a park and ride but just not enough parking.

Interesting. A few years ago we were staying with friends in Marlow and
they recommended Hillingdon as the easiest way to get into central
London. It worked for us - plenty of parking at around 10 in the
morning in the summer. I can't tell exactly but I think this was about
5 years ago - 2004 or 2005. Things must have changed.

Sam

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. ;-)