Traveling by Train – I’ll Be in Scotland Before Ye

Today we took the train from London to Edinburgh and it was absolutely delightful. It was by far the longest train trip I’ve ever taken (over five and a half hours, partly because of an hour long delay), and I just loved it.

It was nice just watching the world pass by our window.

One of our first sites was the Emirates stadium on our way out of London, which was then followed by the English countryside with farms, sheep, lakes, villages, and lighthouses along the way.

The three of us sat at a table for four the entire trip, giving us a place to put our laptops, our food, and our drinks. Such a setup made it much easier to talk with each other as well.

Here are some of the benefits of taking the train vs. flying:

• no hour long train ride to the airport
• no need to arrive at our departure point two hours early
• no security check points and all the hassle associated with it
• no luggage limits
• no restrictions on walking around the coach
• no 30 minute bus ride from the airport to the city center, basically, no stress.
• The flight from London to Edinburgh is about ninety minutes. So if you add in all of the extra time associated with flying, there is little, if any difference between the two modes of transportation in terms of how long the journey will take.

Given that, the train seems like a clear winner.

Thanks once again to the Man in Seat 61 for his great web site, which convinced us to travel by train.

We are all looking forward to our next train journey.

P.S. In honor of the fact that there is a good chance a train could get you to Scotland faster than a plane, here is the lovely song “Loch Lomond”.

You’ll take the high road
And I’ll take the low road
And I’ll be in Scotland before ye

Even though the song was written in 1841, could the writer have foreseen the advantages of traveling by rails (low roads)  versus planes (high roads)?

Hmmm…..