Commuting to Manchester/Birmingham

To my knowledge there are loads of frequent trains on weekdays from Manchester Pic to Stoke, They're usually the Virgin trains that travel to London and call at Stoke. But there are other non virgin trains, In generally there's a train to Stoke every 15-20 mins from Manchester.

From Stoke to Birmingham, it's usually about half an hour for a train, although I've heard, at peak times these trains are jam packed, its a very busy route.

Im unsure of the weekends however, but hope that helps to an extent

Hi,

I will hopefully be attending Keele University in September.

I'm curious to know whether any current (or even ex-) students have commuted on a semi-regular basis up to either Manchester or (down to) Birmingham using the trains. If so, what is the general reliability through Stoke?

I have looked up the costs and I don’t think I'd be out of pocket getting to either Birmingham or Manchester given the job I would have their but I'm more concerned about the feasibility of using trains to get there and back, sometimes late at night and early in the morning.

Thanks.

As a side note, the 25 and X25 bus is very efficient at obscure times to get from Keele campus to the train station. Even on Sunday evenings they run to midnight, and I've never had a problem getting the bus from the train station to Keele or vice versa. Friday evenings can be a bit busy with people commuting/visiting home, but apart from that.

I've just finished my first year at keele university and I decided to stay at home which is in Birmingham so I do the commute every day. I'm not gonna lie it's not exactly for the fair hearted, it's a 6 hour commute on a good day which means I sometimes have to leave the house at 6 and don't get back too half 10 someways
it is quite expensive as well as a 3 month train pass is £800 and then I need 2 different bus passes at £350 a year each but then again it's still cheaper than accommodation
from my experience the main issue really is how tired it makes you as if there's any delays or bad weather then I can be out the house for around 20 hours that day! But if you think you can do it then its not that bad once you get into the routine, just be prepared to lose a lot of sleep and free time haha!

x!

x

Thanks - how does it take you so long? Even if you split that (outbound and inbound) how does it take you 6 hours to get there and back?



I was thinking this...