Pain in the public transport

[HarveyCamm]

I recklessly bought tickets to the MCN London bike show in Feb, thinking it'd be a nice day out with my daughters, it's turning into a travel nightmare.

Plan A - 1 daughter at Uni in Kent, she could travel by train into London, Me and other daughter travel by train from Grantham to London (east coast main line) , simple - meet in London for lunch and go to the show. Oh no plan A - shot to pieces - East coast mainline is shut after St Neots that weekend for engineering, alternative is 3 changes and some buses in Bedford, also Kent Uni is on reading week when the show is on so she's coming home, now 3 to travel from Grantham so we can't bike down and make use of free bike parking at Excel arena.

Plan B - Travel on train to Nottingham and jump on another train to St Pancras (Midland Mainline), approx £250 for trains to go via Nottingham (open returns) compared to £170 for the following week

Plan C - limited parking at Excel arena (2000 cars), not bookable, £25 for the day, thankfully it's outside of congestion zone and the car is ULEZ compliant, aprox 250 miles of diesel - at least I can share the driving with the youngest.

I reckon Plan C wins if we can get parked - anyone know of other easy parking in that area of t'smoke? I've just had a quick look and there's a place next door that's bookable for £10 more points for Plan C

[Toe]

Only other suggestion I can think of is driving to an underground station north of London then getting the tube the rest of the way.
Doesn't really solve anything apart from having to drive quite so far into London.
https://tfl.gov.uk/maps/track/tube

[mark vb]

I've parked just south of Excel (Evelyn Rd if I recall correctly) in the past, but not for several years now. It's a residential area and on-street parking was free at that time.... whether or not it's still free I don't know but it could be worth checking. It was several minutes from Excel and entailed walking over the footbridge which spans the old dock waters. Otherwise, you could possibly hire someone's driveway in the locality for a few hours through Justpark.com or similar.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

The last few times I've tried to visit London, I ended up wishing I hadn't bothered.

GWR did manage to get me there (albeit half an hour late from Reading) last time, but I got home as soon as I could. Frankly, it's a sh!thole.

[HarveyCamm]

Better to travel hopefully... I'm hoping the show's worth it

I've now booked parking at the Hilton next to the Excel for £10, I've driven in Paris, how bad can London be? hahahaha

[Scott_rider]

Better to travel hopefully... I'm hoping the show's worth it

I've now booked parking at the Hilton next to the Excel for £10, I've driven in Paris, how bad can London be? hahahaha

If you don't want to drive down through North and East London then my view would be to get to Junction 27 of the M25, then head south on the M11, then south again on the A406 (North Circular), then south again on the A1020 which takes you to the Excel. It's pretty much a straight route down from the M25 and whilst it looks as if you're heading too far east to go south (if that makes sense) its not a bad option. I used to do it everyday for years when I was working near City Airport...instead of battling through Walthamstow and Stratford and Newham etc...

...it's worth checking in advance for delays and roadworks because they are all major roads.

[Magnusson]

Maybe drive half the way, park in a nice place, and take the train rest of the way?
Theoretically you might drive ca 150 miles and get the rest in 1 or 2 trains.

Excel is just one stop from the London city airport. They might have affordable parking for the day.

[HarveyCamm]

Private transport 1 - Public transport 0

Well that was a breeze to get to , somebody must've told Londoners I was coming, the roads were just about empty on Saturday lunch - A1, M11, A406 & A1020 - Waze sat nav took us in just as Scott_Rider said. The parking at the Doubletree Hilton 500m from the Exel was a breeze too although the bike parking looked fabulous, I think they'd given over an entire hall of the centre to parking the bikes - there was a large fortune parked up & nicely under cover.

The show was a blast with all the usual exhibitors except Honda, the drag strip through the middle of the show caught everyone's ears and attention.

Nice to see Alun & the ABR crew spreading the good word from their stand

Cheers all

[Scott_rider]

Private transport 1 - Public transport 0

Well that was a breeze to get to , somebody must've told Londoners I was coming, the roads were just about empty on Saturday lunch - A1, M11, A406 & A1020 - Waze sat nav took us in just as Scott_Rider said.

Cheers all

Nice one .

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

The shape of things to come