Looking for interesting Manchester-London permitted routings – any recommendations?

[stq123]

Hi everyone! I'm visiting the United Kingdom this week, travelling to Manchester but flying in/out of London. As such, I will have an off-peak return ticket from London to Manchester; while I will only be able to take the standard Avanti train to Manchester due to travelling with others, I will be travelling back by myself, enabling me to take a more interesting route. (I will be travelling back on a Saturday, if that matters with regards to timing.) Does anyone have recommendations for what that route should be, either in terms of scenery, stopovers (assuming those are allowed on the return leg of an off-peak return), or general routing craziness?

 

[plugwash]

IIRC

The normal route is the manchester branch of the west coast main line. That is via crewe or stoke, to stafford then to Euston via either nuneaton or birmingham..

Travel via the midland mainline via sheffield is also allowed.

Travel via crosscountry to reading and then the great wesnern mainline to paddington is also allowed. However right now the crosscountry route from Manchester to Reading is blocked due to a viaduct rebuild. There are limited rail replacement buses but the general advice is to avoid the area if you can.

Travel via the ECML is not normally a permitted route.

I'm not sure if travel via Birmingham and Chiltern is allowed, never looked it up but chiltern are also suffering to diverted passengers from the aforementioned viaduct issue.

 

[Watershed]

IIRC

The normal route is the manchester branch of the west coast main line. That is via crewe or stoke, to stafford then to Euston via either nuneaton or birmingham..

Travel via the midland mainline via sheffield is also allowed.

Travel via crosscountry to reading and then the great wesnern mainline to paddington is also allowed. However right now the crosscountry route from Manchester to Reading is blocked due to a viaduct rebuild. There are limited rail replacement buses but the general advice is to avoid the area if you can.

Travel via the ECML is not normally a permitted route.

I'm not sure if travel via Birmingham and Chiltern is allowed, never looked it up but chiltern are also suffering to diverted passengers from the aforementioned viaduct issue.

You summarise the situation well. Travelling via Birmingham and the Chiltern route into Marylebone is permitted, as with most tickets along the WCML.

Some parts of the Chiltern route are moderately scenic, and it's also the only route to feature locomotive hauled services, although on a Saturday there are only a handful of these (running in the morning towards London) and I doubt it would be realistic (even if possible) to catch these coming from Manchester.

The route from Manchester to Sheffield (straight through the Peak District) is very scenic, although the MML from Sheffield isn't of huge interest.

 

[stq123]

Thanks, everyone! One thing - I can’t seem to find Manchester-London via Sheffield in the national routing guide; can someone point me to what I’m missing?

(And yeah, the Chiltern route’s locomotives would be cool, but I want to spend a little bit more time that morning in Manchester anyways so probably not the best call)

One more question - are stopovers (on a standard off-peak return, any route permitted) that involve leaving the platform gates allowed? Wouldn’t mind checking out Sheffield for a couple of hours, if allowed.

 

[jfollows]

See my recent post at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/london-terminal-validity.248629/#post-6218281
PR gives you Saint Pancras via Sheffield.

BM+GC
MA
NR+BM+GC
NR+MA
NR+RM+RG
PR
RM+RG
Essentially

• WCML including via Birmingham area
• Marylebone via Birmingham
• Saint Pancras via Sheffield
• Reading and Paddington
• Warrington Central on top of the obvious three as well

 

[stq123]

Oh, thanks! Didn’t even bother looking at PR because I assumed that any one route would be reasonably direct - thanks for correcting me on that.

 

[jfollows]

One more question - are stopovers (on a standard off-peak return, any route permitted) that involve leaving the platform gates allowed? Wouldn’t mind checking out Sheffield for a couple of hours, if allowed.

"Break of journey" is the normal term used, and it's allowed on tickets unless it's specifically barred in the ticket's restriction code. An off-peak return London-Manchester has restriction code 9I (https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=EUS&dest=MAN&expert=on&flow=0&multi=0&fare=7&tkt=SVR) and no restriction on break of journey, so you can do as you propose. On this ticket you can break your journey as many times as you want in the return direction over a one month period in fact.

 

[stq123]

Thanks so much!! (And oh, it being 9I and not 91 explains why me typing in the link to see the restrictions wasn’t working, haha)