Like I mentioned in my National Express Bus review, before I reserve travel with a new company to trek across a country, state or city, I always look for detailed reviews of a travel company’s service to know what I’m getting into and set expectations. However, I often find that these kinds of detailed reviews don’t exist.
There are general travel reviews, but I prefer to know the nitty gritty so I can mentally prepare for what I’m about to do and hopefully not make additional mistakes that traveling in another country can easily result in.
So this was my experience riding an Avanti West Coast train for the first time to travel from London to Liverpool, England in the summer of 2025. Let’s see how it went 🙂 .
Background
As I’ve mentioned, I am an advanced planner. I started planning this trip to the UK with my friends 10 months in advance and I quickly realized that I would have to slow my roll 🙂 .
Avanti West Coast and the other UK train tickets we wanted to book were not available to buy until 3 months before our travel date. So I set a Google Calendar reminder for that date and went about my business.
When our trip was 3 months away, I saw that calendar reminder and headed to Trainline to check out our options. I’ve mentioned why I love Trainline to check out train options in the post below:
However, during my first foray into using Trainline to book tickets directly for trains across Switzerland and Italy, I encountered some issues. So this time around I just used Trainline like I do Google Flights – as a place to aggregate and filter all available travel options before I go directly to the company’s website to book my tickets.
So I found the trains I wanted to take on Trainline and then booked them on Avanti West Coast’s website without issue. Nice 🙂 .
Pre-Trip
Leading up to my trip, the number of emails I received from Avanti was excessive. I bought my tickets “only” 12 weeks before our trip and I received 17 emails from Avanti in that time.
Only 5 (29%) of those emails had anything to do with my trip and the rest were marketing emails. I didn’t see a way to easily unsubscribe from only marketing emails so I just let it happen, but after my train ride with them I immediately unsubbed because that is a wild number of emails.
Train Details
- When: July 2025
- Where: London Easton to Liverpool Lime Street, England
- Bus Time: 2 hours, 23 minutes
- Distance: 219 miles
- Cost: $34.87 USD
The Journey
London Euston Train Station
We took the Tube from our Airbnb to London Euston. After getting off the train car we followed signs to Euston that had a rail symbol like the below. We had to go up a few sets of stairs so I was glad we traveled light – I didn’t see any elevator (lift 😉 ) options at those points.
Soon after that we took an escalator to street level and emerged into the bustling train station. There was mostly standing room with people milling about looking at the screens that list the train platform numbers along with times when that information will be released.
There were a few seats by the wall and more seating upstairs by the restaurants and a sadly not very clean food court. There was also an escalator by the wall in case you don’t want to brave more stairs with your luggage.
My group headed to the food court because my Partner wanted more coffee 🙂 . So we bought some snacks and sat there, which luckily had a very clear view to the TVs listing all the train platforms.
About 30 minutes before our departure time, our train platform was announced and 15 minutes before departure, the TVs listed it as boarding so we headed to our platform.
Boarding
We were on Platform 1 and there was a sign for a ramp on the left side or a sign for stairs on the right. There weren’t a lot of stairs, but the ramp was just as easy to access. We then had to scan our tickets at a machine.
The tickets had all been emailed to me and I had forwarded them to the rest of my group because I naively thought they would be checked on the train like a lot of rides on Amtrak in the US. But instead we had to scan the tickets at a machine to enter the end of the platform where the train was parked.
Since I was the only person who had downloaded the tickets to my phone, I had to scan mine and then swipe to the other ticket and hand it to my friend behind me to scan. That caused some confusion, but with the power of friendship, we figured it out 🙂 . We then headed to our train car, which we identified with by the letter on the front of the car and the helpful screens on top of seats saying the seat number and if it’s reserved or not.
Train
I had intentionally reserved a table in the Quiet Zone car for the 3 of us. Specifically, we were in Coach A in seats 24, 25 and 28. I put my TravelPro rolly bag in the storage racks above our seats and got settled in for our journey.
I also started exploring the train car’s amenities and was impressed to see some features I’d never seen on a train before like wireless charging spots on the table! I then connected to the Wifi and did some last minute travel planning to get ready for the next stop on our UK tour.
After I was done with all that, I settled in and chatted with my Partner and my friend while we watched the English countryside fly by. And then before I knew it, we were in Liverpool!
Liverpool Lime Street Station
The train made announcements when we were approaching each stop and there was also a screen with the next stop and the time we would arrive listed, which I found helpful. So we were well aware when we were approaching Liverpool Lime Street Station.
We arrived on time, grabbed our bags and got off the train. We then headed to the exit of the station where I ordered an Uber, but then had to awkwardly walk back into the station because ride shares are picked up in the taxi section, which is apparently directly to the left when we left the train platform and it’s technically inside the station.
So we hustled back inside and to the taxi stand section that my Uber app described as our pick up location. We were rushing because to my surprise, our Uber was ready for pick up in less than a minute.
If you’re grabbing a ride share, make sure you’re in the right place because they seem to be there immediately after being requested. We hopped in our car and headed off to explore Liverpool!
The Review
So that’s what happened, but let’s break it down a bit. Overall, I was very impressed with my trip.
Everything was seamless – the train was comfortable and on-time, the ticket purchase process was straightforward, and I didn’t encounter any drama along the way.
My only negative would be telling whoever handles their email marketing to chill a bit 🙂 , but that’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I value my in-person experience more than over-eager emails. So let’s get into the details!
Seat
I was impressed with these train seats! They were comfortable and spacious enough to fit my wide hips, which is not always the case abroad 🙂 .
I also enjoyed the armrests and the general configuration of a table seat. However, I made a note that if I book these table seats again, that I would prefer to be traveling in a group of 4.
Luckily I had my Partner across from me, but if it was a stranger, that might get awkward because your legs intersect under the table and I’m not looking to play a game of footsie roulette 🙂 .
Amenities
As I mentioned, I was very impressed with the amenities on this train. I’d never seen wireless charging on a table before, let alone on a moving train.
I used one of those charging spots for my phone and it was so seamless and cool I felt like I was in the future 🙂 . Our seats also had two regular outlets and 4 USB chargers! So many charging options – I love it.
The train also had that free Wifi I mentioned (called “Avanti_Free_Wifi”). It made me enter my email and answer two survey questions to access the internet, but that wasn’t a big deal.
However, one thing I haven’t encountered with Wifi like this before is that it wouldn’t let me send texts or messages in my Airbnb app so I had to hop back on data to send those. I’m not sure what that’s about and it’s possible that was user error, but I wanted to point it out so you don’t miss texts and Airbnb host messages like I did while traveling 🙂 .
Also each window on this train had an easy to open blind that allowed us to control how much light came through the window, which I also appreciated.
Storage
Storage was abundant on this train. There was room for our rolly luggage in the luggage racks on top of the seats like I mentioned, but there was also storage available for large items near the front of the train car.
In addition to that, our table seating arrangement allowed there to be additional luggage space between the backs of our seats and the next row. There was also room directly below our seats that didn’t get in the way of my legs that were under the table. Storage galore!
Conclusion
And that was my experience riding an Avanti West Coast train from London to Liverpool! I was very impressed with how affordable it was to ride, the amenities and storage provided and how smooth my trip was. Avanti is definitely on my list to check out again when I’m back in the UK and looking for a drama-free train ride.
I wish the U.S. had trains that were as nice as the trains in most civilized countries. I’d take them everywhere – they’re way more comfortable and less of a hassle than flying.
I was just going to comment the exact same thing but you said before I could. I wonder what caused the US to abandon its plans for a more expansive high speed railway system.
*sigh* I wish that too.
Quiet car isn’t for chatting! My British father would be appalled 😄
From their website, curious what they’re actual norm was:
No loud conversations: Keep talking to a minimum and speak in a very low, hushed tone if necessary.
Lol fair enough. We weren’t talking a lot and it was in quiet tones. The car was also empty except for like one other couple on the other side of the train car so it was a super quiet time.
What bag (s) do you use for travel??
A TravelPro Platinum Elite rolly and backpack – I wrote about that here if that helps: https://apurplelife.com/2026/02/17/travelpro-platinum-elite-review/