[Fsuk-manchester] Fwd: [Sat 23 May: Trip to Bletchley Park]

[Paul Waring]

Apologies for the cross-posting but this trip may be of interest to
people on the various lists and a few people have said they missed the
original email.

Paul

----- Forwarded message from Paul Waring <address@hidden> -----

Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2015 15:41:02 +0000
From: Paul Waring <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden, address@hidden
Subject: Sat 23 May: Trip to Bletchley Park
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101
        Thunderbird/31.5.0
Message-ID: <address@hidden>

Based on the results of the Doodle poll, this year's trip to Bletchley
Park will take place on Saturday 23rd May. If you'd like to come, full
details are below.

N.B. If you normally attend Geek Walks, this event will count as the
May walk.

TRAVEL

If you're coming by car from Manchester and have spaces available, or
would like to go by car but don't drive, please let me know and I will
try and match people to spaces (drivers have first refusal on
passengers).

For everyone else, the trains we'll be getting from Manchester are:

Outward:
09:15 Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston. We'll be getting off at
Milton Keynes Central station. This train also calls at Stockport
(09:23) and Stoke-on-Trent (09:50) if people want to join en-route. It
arrives at Milton Keynes at 10:52.

Meeting time and location for the outward journey is 09:00 underneath
the departure boards at Manchester Piccadilly.

Return:
19:09 Milton Keynes Central to Manchester Piccadilly. This train stops
at Stoke-on-Trent (20:24), Macclesfield (20:41) and Stockport (20:55),
and arrives at Piccadilly at 21:07.

There are two earlier return trains at 18:03 and 18:28 which take
around the same amount of time and stop at Stoke-on-Trent and
Stockport. We can get these if we finish dinner early and everyone has
an off-peak return.

If you're coming from outside Manchester I can't easily advise on
travel, other than to say that the main group will arrive at Bletchley
shortly after 11:00. If you're coming from the South then it might be
easier to get a stopping service to Bletchley, as opposed to an
express service to Milton Keynes followed by a taxi/extra train.

Both the outward and return trains will be Pendalinos (the tilting
trains) - apologies if these make people queasy but Virgin have a
monopoly on that route so there's no choice of train.

If you're planning on joining us anywhere other than at Manchester
Piccadilly, please let me know so I can text you if the train is
running late etc.

SCHEDULE

Depending on what time we arrive, we'll either have a guided tour
followed by lunch, or vice versa. We'll then spend the afternoon
looking around the park and the computing museum before getting a
quick dinner in Milton Keynes (early evening) and heading home to get
back to Manchester late evening.

We'll probably split into two groups depending on modes of transport
(train vs car) but will aim to meet up at some point during the day.

COSTS

Travel costs assume you're coming by train from Manchester Piccadilly.

Train: An off-peak return, which allows you to go out and return on
any train on the day, costs £63.80 (railcard discounts apply if you
have one) and you can buy it any time up to and including the day of
travel (but you *must* buy it before boarding the train). It may be
cheaper to buy two single advance tickets, but there were none
available when I checked this afternoon and this does mean you will
have to stick to specific trains.

Since it's impractical to coordinate booking seats, I'd suggest not
making a seat reservation and we'll just commandeer a couple of tables
in one of the standard class carriages.

Taxis: We usually get a taxi from Milton Keynes to Bletchley as it's
too far to walk, and we'd have to spend 30-40 minutes waiting at the
station for the stopping train. The taxi costs about £1-3 each,
depending on how many of us there are.

For the return journey back from the park we'll either get a train to
Milton Keynes (£3.50) or a taxi (same price as the outward journey).

Entry fees: Unless you already have a valid annual pass, the entry
fees are as follows:

Bletchley: £16.75 or £14.75 for students. This gives you unlimited
entry for 12 months. You can buy your tickets online, but there's
usually a queue to pick them up so it's probably best to just get a
ticket on the day.

National Museum of Computing: £5 (adults), £2.50 (students), free
(members). This is a single entrance fee, not an annual fee.
Unfortunately there's no joint Bletchley/Computing Museum ticket
available, you have to pay for them separately at each venue.

FOOD

There is a cafe on site serving a range of hot meals plus the usual
selection of sandwiches etc. There are also places to sit and eat a
packed lunch. There's a coffee shop on site if anyone wants a hot
beverage during the day.

If people want to stay for an evening meal we'll be getting something
a quick-service place (e.g. Wagamama) in Milton Keynes.

There's no obligation to buy a lunchtime or evening meal and you're
welcome to make your own arrangements - these are just the planned
ones.

Please let me know if I've missed anything off - otherwise hopefully
I'll see you on the 23rd May!

Paul

-- 
Paul Waring
http://www.pwaring.com

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
Paul Waring
http://www.pwaring.com