Becoming a rail commuter

[mtbc]

Having been made redundant from my fully remote job, I am starting a new job that has me on-site in Edinburgh twice per week. In looking into how to make this a cost-effective habit, first I thought of railcards but there don't seem to be any that apply. Fortunately, there are flexi ticket bundles that are useful for people taking a few trips within a longer period, which seem to be the best option.

Among the flexible tickets, the two obvious kinds appear to be from ScotRail which would cost me around £22 per day and allow me to travel on all the relevant trains, and from CrossCountry which for around £15 per day allow me to travel on only their trains which are the minority, only a couple of plausible ones each day either way. We need to save money where we can but the latter option has me arriving back into Glasgow at 21.22 at the earliest.

I didn't discover the cheaper option until after I had bought the other, at least for the initial period. After I learn more about the peak-time trains and the culture in the office, I can look into limiting which trains I may take. Perhaps a couple of longer workdays each week will make sense.

Having transcribed the timetable into LibreOffice Calc and tried some sorts, it seems to me that Central Station has those couple of useful CrossCountry trains which take at least an hour, plus some ScotRail services that take rather longer still. Queen Street station is further from me on foot, easy by subway though, and offers only ScotRail services that run frequently and take less than an hour but are anecdotally rather busy.

Comments

[thewayne]

I'm glad you have a new gig! Hope it works out well.

[andrewducker]

£10/day return on the 900 bus between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Or £200/4 weeks.

Takes 83 minutes, leaves about every 15 minutes. https://www.citylink.co.uk/timetables-service-updates/glasgow-edinburgh/

[mtbc]

This is true and worth noting, thank you. On the longer side but could well be worth it.

[andrewducker]

I suspect also depends on whether the route goes anywhere near your office.

[mtbc]

Interesting question. The bus station's a bit further but perhaps there's a useful prior stop.

[mtbc]

There isn't, it turns out. (The office is near George Heriot's School.) May partly depend on how easy it is to work from the bus versus the trains from Central.

[emperor]

Congrats on the new job - I hope it's good :)

[mtbc]

Thank you! Early days but at least the people and office are nice and it's an established, growing company with a decent product.