A Scottish journalist explains why she has decided to ditch expensive flights home to Edinburgh from London in favour of a budget train journey.
What’s On Writer for our sister title My London, Alexandra Bullard, regularly travels between Edinburgh and London but usually takes a flight home to cut down on the time she is travelling.
However, when train operator Lumo announced cheap journeys from London to Edinburgh, Alexandra thought she would give try out the new service.
Lumo promise that 60 per cent of the tickets on their new low-cost trains will be sold for £30.
Alexandra was heading home from work at the start of this month and decided that would be the perfect time to take the plunge.
She explains …
As a Scot living in London, travelling from home to the capital city can be rather exhausting.
Flying domestically from London to Edinburgh was often considered the easiest option in terms of cost, with a short flight time of 1 hour and 20 minutes.
However, I was getting bored with these short-lived flights where I’d be sitting for hours in the airport beforehand and spending too much money on over-priced sandwiches.
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So, when new train operator Lumo announced cheap journeys from London to Edinburgh, my air-travel weary body begged me to try.
Labelled as an ‘affordable’ and ‘green’ option for travellers, the launch of Lumo coincided perfectly with the COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow.
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The Lumo trains will sell ticket on the budget services for £30 to sixty per cent of their customers
It aims to compete with airlines on the London to Edinburgh route by offering low fares and a high-quality train service.
I decided to head home for a weekend at the start of November and immediately went onto the Lumo website to book my tickets a month in advance.
Using an 18-25 discount railcard, I managed to get one third off the price.
I was staggered to see the total cost of a return journey amount to £26.20. That’s correct: a single journey cost me only £13.10.
Already, this Lumo experience was off to a surprisingly excellent start.
Fast forward to my departure day, I was excited to finally try out something different from LNER, which I have continually used for years.
At around 15 minutes before leaving, the platform number appeared for my Lumo train service to Edinburgh.
Already I knew it was going to be a packed journey, as hundreds of passengers walked towards the same platform.
On first impressions, the carriage was very, very, very blue. Almost too blue.
The bright colour of the train stood as a stark contrast to the grey, bleak surroundings of Kings Cross, and it was clearly a sign that Lumo wanted to save the planet.
Boarding was quite chaotic as the train was completely sold out, which caused a lot of crowds gathering outside the train doors.
Once the doors opened, it was very much a scramble for your seat.
I was very lucky to have the person next to me swap to a different seat, so I had double room for a standard class seat.
Like any British commuter, I immediately logged onto the Lumo free WIFI to save on my 4G.
The train journey was incredibly less than £20 for her to get home from London
It was not initially great to begin with, as I couldn’t connect to my Spotify or even read WhatsApp messages.
But it offered passengers the chance to watch Hollywood movies and TV shows without having to download and stream, which helped pass the time nicely.
Moving onto the food, passengers can order from Lumo’s food and beverage pre-order system.
Having been cost-efficient and brought my own lunch, I only browsed online to see what options were available.
I was shocked to see that I could have ordered Marks & Spencer products right to my seat.
There were other companies such as Upper Crust and Pasty Shop also on offer.
At some point I did have to use the train toilets, which in the past has always been a nasty experience.
I annoyingly waited in a queue behind three passengers before being able to empty my bladder.
Like LNER, the toilet cubicle was spacious but nothing new or special.
It was bigger than the ones you get on EasyJet, so there’s a plus.
Alexandra poses in the toilet mirror on the train
And finally, I have to talk about the staff service.
I do not think I have encountered such positive and joyful train staff in all my life.
The conductor asked everyone how they were doing, and he even drew a smiley face on my ticket, which warmed my heart.
Despite the train being so over-crowded and packed, I managed to have quite a pleasant journey.
I arrived into Edinburgh Waverley after 4 hours and 20 minutes – and it only cost me £13.20 for the trip.
It’s safe to say that I won’t be appearing at Gatwick or Heathrow anytime soon for when I return home for Christmas.
In my opinion, it seems that EasyJet has been well and truly dethroned.
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https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/lumo-what-its-like-travel-22138412
