Left home at 5.30am on Thursday and got picked at 10.30am at Poulton - so with changes & waiting times, about the same as if I had driven. I did have the luxury of a first class ride on Virgin trains. In first class you get tea & coffee for free plus free use of the wireless internet and they have power points so you can plug in the laptop. So this 2 hours from London to Preston was much better than driving - I could actually get some work done.
Virgin have a funny pricing policy - when I booked my tickets, the first class ticket was only £4 more than standard, and for the return trip, first class was cheaper than standard - go figure!
All up in the 2 days of train trips I had a total of 12 train tickets (not to mention the Oyster card trips on the Underground) and 1 Oyster card receipt.
All up a good trip - but tiring.
