London Travel Forum

Hello,

My brother and his family will be driving from Brighton to London, and he wants to leave his car at a rail station outside the city and take a train into central London. Does anyone have any station suggestions that would be easy to get to on the trip up from Brighton? Also, as he has small children he was hoping for a station that would provide direct transport into the city (to avoid transferring trains mid-trip). Thanks for your help.

Dave

There must be a good reason why he wants to drive from Brighton to London - Brighton has a good rail service direct to London.

He doesn't want to leave his car in Brighton because upon leaving London he'll be driving back to Germany, and Brighton is not on the way.

Ah, right o, knew there must be a reason!!

Possibly Reigate or Crawley or Croydon. Is he taking the tunnel route, or if not, what is his port of exit?

He would be taking the tunnel route. Does that make any of the stations an obvious choice?

Not really. However, Maidstone has good links, so does Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells.

Good question !
There are of course many different answers to the question. Will the car be parked up for the day or will it be parked overnight or longer? The nearer to London you get, then the potentially more expensive is the parking charge. For returning to the car it would also be a good idea to avoid the busy commuter type trains that can get packed during the 'rush hours'. So the options are plenty but ....

A useful map showing the rail network in the South East of England may provide some additional pointers.

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/system/galleries/download/print_maps/LondonAndSouthEast.pdf

Richmond or Kingston on Thames might be an option, although it is taking you further west. We have travelled the Waterloo-Richmond line during rush hour on many occasions and while busy it is never absolutely crushed and standing room only - there are a lot of coaches on the trains; the ones nearer the station end of the train i.e. at the back tend to get more crowded because they take on the later-comers. I would say that any line with good and frequent connections in and out of London is going to be a commuter line.

Thanks to all for the feedback you've provided so far.

He'll likely be looking to catch a train into London late on a Friday morning (between 10 and 11), leaving the vehicle overnight, then returning to the car park late in the afternoon on Saturday (the next day). Since this timing wouldn't likely have them traveling during rush hour, would that make a difference?

Not really. As in all roads lead to Rome, so do all rail lines......