Getting from London to Birmingham
· Updated · BootsnAll
If you are flying into Britain from outside Europe you will probably land at Heathrow, and London will be your first encounter with the country. Birmingham is the second city, 120 miles north, and it is a straightforward run.
It is also the busiest intercity corridor in Britain, which means frequent trains and, if you buy badly, eye-watering fares.
Trains from London to Birmingham
Two different railways go there and the difference is worth money.
The fast route runs from London Euston to Birmingham New Street in about an hour and twenty minutes, with several departures an hour at peak times. The slower route runs from London Marylebone to Birmingham Moor Street and Snow Hill, takes around two hours, and is usually noticeably cheaper.
Moor Street is the nicer station and is closer to the Bullring than New Street is, so the slower train does not even cost you much at the far end.
How to not overpay, which is the whole game
British rail fares are the least intuitive in Europe. The same journey on the same day can cost five times as much depending on how and when you bought it.
Advance fares are the cheap ones. They are released roughly twelve weeks ahead, tie you to a specific train, and are not refundable. Off-Peak fares are flexible within certain hours. Anytime fares let you take any train and cost what you would expect a flexible ticket on a busy line to cost, which is a lot.
Two things that genuinely save money. A railcard gets a third off most fares for a year and pays for itself in about two journeys: there are versions for under-26s, over-60s, two people travelling together and more. And split ticketing, which means buying two or more tickets for legs of the same journey on the same train, is entirely legal and often cheaper than the through fare. Several sites will work the splits out for you.
Check times on National Rail Enquiries and then buy from the train operator's own site, which avoids the booking fees the resellers add.
A note on who runs the trains
Britain is renationalising its railway. Operators are transferring into public ownership under Great British Railways, with roughly half of journeys publicly run as of February 2026 and all fourteen companies due to be transferred by the end of 2027.
What that means for you is practical rather than political: the brand name on the train may change between now and your trip, while the route, the station and the fare rules stay the same. Search by journey, not by company.
And HS2, since you will hear about it
The high speed line between London and Birmingham has been under construction for years and it is not going to help you. After a government reset in May 2026, the first trains between Old Oak Common in west London and Birmingham Curzon Street are expected somewhere between 2036 and 2039, with the extension into Euston later still, perhaps 2040 to 2043. The northern legs to Manchester and Leeds were cancelled outright.
So: the existing line, for a long time yet.
Coaches and driving
National Express and Megabus run frequent coaches from London Victoria to Birmingham in around two and a half to three hours, and book far enough ahead and they cost a few pounds. On this route the coach is the genuine budget option rather than a token one.
Driving is about two hours up the M40 or M1 if the motorway is behaving. Birmingham city centre driving is not a pleasure and there is a Clean Air Zone charge for older vehicles. Take the train.