National Express train, London to Edinburgh

Book well in advance and get a family rail card, if you want to get reasonably-priced train tickets from London to Edinburgh and to be sure of seats on board. Packed to the rafters, the trains leaving London on Friday afternoons carry dozens of people standing in the wells at the end of each carriage. If you have a seat and a laptop, you'll find the WiFi intermittent and the electric sockets don't always work. Moreover, the on-board catering is fairly lame and expensive. Still, from Durham onwards there are great views of the Northumberland countryside and coastline before you arrive slap bang in the middle of Edinburgh less than four-and-a-half hours after you left Kings Cross. Surprisingly, on the timetable, the return journey on a Sunday can be more than five hours. But you might get into London 30 minutes early, as there seems to be a lot of leeway built into the Sunday schedule. 6/10