Loughborough Transportation

You can get to Loughborough by train. Train services by Midland mainline and Central train runs to Loughborough. I prefer Midland mainline with more reliable service to and from London, and also cleaner train. The frequency of the train is about one every half an hour to London St Pancras.

The picture shows the train station at Loughborough. It is a small station with relatively short platform. The bigger stations near Loughborough are at Leicester or Nottingham, so you can get connections to almost everywhere in the UK at these bigger stations.

The train station is served by mainly Midlandmainline trains and Central trains. I prefer the former that comes from London and to York. Trains are cleaner and their offers are value for money.

I make frequent trips to London because I can afford it with the discounts. I just love to go to London as I have something to do everytime I go there.

For train travel to Loughborough, you will have to get the underground to King's Cross/London St Pancras from Heathrow (GBP 3.60). Trains to Loughborough departs from London St Pancras at frequency of every half an hour during peak hours, and at least hourly departure throughout the day. I would suggest you to buy your tickets from the internet before you travel and collect the tickets at the station, cos buying tickets on the day you travel will cost you a lot more (unbelievably at GBP 78 valid on any trains, or GBP 35 valid on off peak). The cheapest ticket is GBP 19 which you have to book at least 7 days in advance. The next cheapest is GBP22.

The fastest train will whizz you to Loughborough in 1 hr 30 minutes. There are free coffee and tea on the train service too.

There are many types of fares. For more information or get yourself confused at first glance, visit the website below. There's a timetable of the trains at the website.

Check out the "Hot Tickets". You can get single journey tickets usually to and from London for as low as GBP 7 per ticket, depending on the time of travel. Selection is very limited, but it's an option.

The cheapest ticket is called "4-sight" which 2,3 or 4 people travel for GBP 44. If there's 4 of you, it will be GBP 11 per person! There's some restrictions on the tickets. Only valid on off-peak train, but more selections than the hot tickets. The group must travel togather.

Parking in Loughborough can be a nightmare. This combined with the hopeless ringroad makes it a "no go area" for cars from 7-9 in the morning and 3 - 6 in the evening.

Free Parking
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This is limited in Loughborough. There is plenty of "on street" parking with hour or half hour limits. There is also a large free multi-storey behind Somerfields off Granby Street.

Paid Parking
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There are two or three large multi storey car parks in the town centre - beehive lane near Southfields Council Offices is the easiest to find (just off the A6)

Places to Avoid at Rush Hour
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Epinal Way (near the uni, and shelthorpe roundabout) - Loughborough's excuse for a ring road fails miserably when all the uni traffic and Endowed School traffic floods onto it in the late afternoon and early morning.

Leicester Road (A6) outside the Endowed Schools, 8-8.45am and 3 - 4.30pm. (This is the only real alternative to epinal way - so sorry!!!

Nanpanton Crossroads during rush hour - busy crossroads on the edge of Loughborough.

Other Notes
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In addition to Epinal Way, most other main roads in and out of loughborough get choked with traffic at rush hour (largely due to the inadequacies of Epinal Way as a ring road).

It is easy to get lost at the northern end of the ring road - as if you dont spot the right roundabout you end up on a narrow road through a housing estate - where the ringroad was originally designed to go. Thanks Charnwood BC for your short-sightedness!

The are surprisingly few shortcuts to avoid the major roads - as large chunks of land are owned by the Uni and the Schools, so the roads have to go around these.

As at end 2003.

There is only one and only one bus service to the University running from the train station via the town center to the other end of the University. Oh yes, almost forgotten, it is a yellow Kinchbus service number 7.

It cost 60p to get from the town center to the University. It will be 20p within the University. Every year, the bus fare will increase and inflation is quite high (about 20%). Last year, it was 50p, and when the term started in Oct 2003, it became 60p.

It is not a long ride...

I usually cycle from town. When I see the bus at the bus stop in the town center, I can be faster than the bus by one minute to reach Mechanical Engineering (the other end of the University)...

The nearest airport to Loughborough is East Midlands Airport. At the moment, the airport is served by mainly the no-frills airlines. There's two bus services that will take you from the airport to Loughborough. Alternatively, you can take the taxi which you can get from the tazi stand outside the terminal. It will cost £12 flat to Loughborough.

For more information about the airport, click here: EMA. I have used it several times, but it has not proved to me as the best UK's airport - very small airport with nothing much around.

There are many different ways of commuting around loughborough, the main being the bus service. There's always one around, and we have shuttle buses th the airport, shuttle buses to the university buses to Leicester, Nottingham and other local villages and smaller towns, so if you are stuck just hop on!

There's a bus service operating to and from the train station to the University campus via the town center and Loughborough College. Single trip will cost you 50p.

The bus service is number 7. And the last bus service is at 9pm during term time, and 6pm during the holidays.

There are two bus services from Loughboorugh town center to the East Midlands Airport. It will cost about GBP 1.20. The earliest service is at 5.30am and the latest service at 10.40pm.
The bus services are Air-line and Rainbow 5B. Do check out the time table at the website.

If you have missed the bus, there's a taxi stand. Taxi will cost GBP 12 to Loughborough.