BritRail - Day Two - York to Edinburgh

The hotel receptionist had told us the shortcut to walk to the train station, so our walk took only about 20 minutes with our bags. Once again, we had reserved seats in first class, but it wasn’t obvious on the platform where the cars would actually stop. We made our best guess and were waiting in a less than ideal place.

Me, chilling with the bags on the platform

Unsure how long the train would be in the station, we hopped on and tried to make our way through the train to our seats. Mind you, we are a party of five with five rolling bags, four backpacks, a duffle, four purses, and one fanny-pack. At this point, we also had boxes of pastries, at least two coffees, and possibly a couple other drinks. After struggling through one car, I made the decision to get off the train and walk along the platform. Seeing how far we needed to go and not knowing how much time we had, I sent Jerynn running ahead. I urged Ann and Dani to go ahead as well, telling them that I would get mom on the train and we would make our way to them. Jerynn and Dani were already managing mom’s luggage, so I thought it best that they not take it through the crowded train.

Mom and I encountered a station employee and I asked how much time we had to board. He checked his watch and said we had four minutes. We all stopped running, except for Jerynn who had already boarded the train and disappeared from sight, having reached the appropriate car long before us. We were able to make the walk to our car, board and stow our luggage well before the train started to move. The car was relatively empty. Someone traveling alone watched us board and offered to move so that our fifth seat was across the aisle from the other four.

Given our experience the day before, we had come on board with pastries and coffee. We had no sooner settled in with these snacks that the cart came around, offering tea, coffee, biscuits, crisps and a menu for dinner. We asked how late we could order food, content with our snacks for the moment. Later on the journey we would have pasta and sandwiches, along with more tea, coffee, biscuits and other snacks.

As we were coming into Edinburgh, my phone decided I didn’t really need GPS. I gave the address to Jerynn and she pulled up navigation on her phone. Unfortunately, neither of us realized that you can exit Edinburgh Station several different places. As luck would have it, we walked a quarter of a mile to the exit we saw just to walk that quarter of a mile back on the street and pass the exit we should have used.

Unsure of our navigation, Jerynn and I decided to hike ahead of the others to find the Air BnB we had rented. We had no further mishaps, but we left our bags and ran back down to help the others with the rest of the bags.