I wouldn’t do it. That is a lot of travel for two days. There is a lot to see closer to London, likd Oxford or Cambridge.

I like to take the train but stop in York on the way, altho not sure if you want another stop

I don't know that you need that much time in Edinburgh. We did Edinburgh in a one day trip just to see the major sites and felt it was enough time. Was very long day but fun. We took an early train from London and got back about 11 pm.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The plane is one hour, the train about 8 hours. You save nothing going by train. I have done that journey many times. The best part of it is crossing the bridge in Newcastle and seeing all the other bridges lined up across the river.

Why not train it up and fly back?

8 hours round trip?

Current schedules show about 4:15 - 4:45 hours one way.

I think the best parts are the scenery along the coast near Edinburgh and glancing at Angel of the North as you speed by.

It depends on the train, it can take just under 5 hours and up to over 9 hours. Sundays will be the most likely day for slow trains.

If traveling by train on Sat/Sun, see if you can get a "weekend first" upgrade. Those often have only a nominal up charge and the trip is much more pleasant.

Anonymous wrote:The plane is one hour, the train about 8 hours. You save nothing going by train. I have done that journey many times. The best part of it is crossing the bridge in Newcastle and seeing all the other bridges lined up across the river.

Why not train it up and fly back?

8 hours round trip?

Current schedules show about 4:15 - 4:45 hours one way.

I think the best parts are the scenery along the coast near Edinburgh and glancing at Angel of the North as you speed by.

The plane is one hour, the train about 8 hours. You save nothing going by train. I have done that journey many times. The best part of it is crossing the bridge in Newcastle and seeing all the other bridges lined up across the river.

Why not train it up and fly back?

We did this exact trip. DH is from the UK. Our kids were I think 14 and 17 at the time. We were there for I think 2 full days. I think that will be just enough to see the castle and the royal mile, and one or two other activities.

We went to Edinburgh for a couple of days then back to London via rail.

Train was stopped for an hour or more (can't remember) on the way back to London, so we got our money back. It actually wasn't UK rail's fault; there was some freight train that had broken down. But, UK rail has a rule about refunding customers if the train is delayed for some time.

Go to Edinburgh first or midweek. That way if anything screws up, your flight home won't be imperilled.

In summer 2022, there were many train strikes in England.

On our trip from Edinburgh to London by train, there was an electrical problem with our train route that halted the train. Our trip length time was at least doubled. Lost about 4 hours. Found out that these electrical issues come up a lot...bad infrastructure/vandalism/component theft.

We were sufficiently far from London that we couldn't intelligently develop an alternative affordable solution to getting there. So lost half a day sitting at a station in nowheresville.

I don't like to back itinerary risk up against flights home. We had a screw up in the Paris region in 2023 due to counting on regularity of trains from an outlying town back to Paris on a Saturday, and it cost us about $350 in unexpected private car service.

Yes train is the better choice. But taking it both ways is a lot of extra travel time. Sounds like your flights are already booked? If not, I'd look at seeing if you can book DC-London and then Edinburgh-DC as a single ticket. That way you save a good amount of time backtracking. If already booked, maybe see if you can change the return to leave from Edinburgh? Might be possible, depends on ticket type.

Use the National Rail site to search best options, then book directly with whatever railway has the best price.

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk

Best options almost surely going to be LNER or Lumo, those are the main options to Edinburgh

Going to be in London for Spring Break (mid April) with my family (tween plus teen). Thinking of a short side trip to Edinburgh - leave on train from London to Edinburgh on a Friday, return to London on the Sunday (to fly back to US on the Monday). This is obviously a very abbreviated tour of Edinburgh, but thought it might be fun to see while we are so close. Any tips for this? I think the train is better than plane (since you need to waste a lot of plane travel time getting to airport early, etc). Thanks.