Great Western Coffee Shop

Tried working out trains from Brighton to Harwich international (HPQ) arrive by 13:00 on a weekday  and am puzzled by routing from National Enquiries.

Doing Brighton HPQ you get via London Bridge,  Northern to Bank,  Central to LST then  HPQ.  Change Maningtree which seems to be on all trains. In fact it's the 12:00 from Manningtree (11:00 LST) is latest  train 12:17 HPQ.

If you do Brighton Liverpool Street you get a single change at Farringdon why the very ackward change at Bank especialy with luggage? I know it's over teh bridge at Farringdon but it would seem easier than Bank.

It also seems cheaper to split at LST.

Why not Brighton to London Bridge the Jubilee Line to Stratford and then onto Maningtree etc, admittedly London Bridge is not an easy station to navigate in the rushes

Bearing in mind that not all Manningtree trains call at Stratford. I believe they are hourly from there (Well the IC services certainly are) ;)

LST has a half hourly service to Manningtree, One is pick up only at Stratford whilst the other is non stop, with first call being Colchester. The Pick up only trains at Stratford also call at Chelmsford and other places so are slightly slower.

I would discourage the Jubilee line in this instance if I'm honest. I would also discourage the Bank suggestion. IIRC, Farringdon does have lifts. So luggage wouldn't be a big problem. However getting from the through platforms to the Underground at London Bridge is an absolute pain.

If you take a Southern Fast into Victoria, The quickest way would probably be Victoria Line to Kings Cross and Circle/Met/H&C lines to Liverpool Street. However the Circle is direct, albeit much, much slower! I remember that Victoria is hugely lacking in the lifts department... :o ::)

I would say that NRES is working by the shortest possible distance. In which case the routing seems correct. However I can see how someone with more knowledge than a layman might think "Why would one go that way?"

Agreed about the Jubilee Line.

I would avoid the Victoria Line a Victoria even off peak the down escalator is very busy, a slower route would be the Circle line from Victoria to Liverpool St