Early Journey Manchester - London

[Deerfold]

I've been experiencing the fun of advance tickets when all your plans go badly wrong - I had a trip to Manchester planned but the venue I had planned to visit there went bankrupt this week so is unlikely to be up to much. In brief so I'm not wasting my money on tickets I've changed my Southbound ticket so on the 25th I'm getting a train from Manchester to London at 0533 as I need to be at Heathrow as soon after 0900 as I can. I was pleasantly surprised that there was a train so early on a Sunday. It was only after changing my booking that I realised that on most Sundays the first train is about 0800.

The only reason I can think of for this train is for people going down to the Marathon which means I'm likely to be sleeping off a hangover whilst surrounded by ultra-fit people getting ready for a run. I can't find anything about it on the Virgin website - does anyone know if this is why it's just running on this day?

 

[pemma]

It almost certainly is an extra service because of the London Marathon. It's not via a non-standard route or calling pattern hence the 2hr 53 journey time.

The calling pattern is Stockport, Crewe, Rugby, Milton Keynes Central and London Euston.

The usual calling patterns are:
Stockport, Stoke, Milton Keynes, Euston
Stockport, Wilmslow, Crewe, Euston
Stockport, Macclesfield, Stoke, Euston

 

[scrapy]

Yes it's a special 'Marathon service' as part of Virgins sponsorship of the marathon. Posters advertising it up at Piccadilly and Stockport.

 

[Deerfold]

Odd I couldn't find anything on their website about it. Do you think it will be busy? Seemed to be very cheap advance fares on it, but I suspect those doing the marathon may want some flexibility on their return journey...

I'll be in 1st as there was only a fiver difference on the service I was orginally going to get.