Thousands of Everton supporters making their way to London this weekend for their team’s Premier League fixture at West Ham United are facing travel chaos because of Avanti West Coast’s late release of timetables and fares.
Despite their lowly position in the table – Everton are currently second bottom, level on points with third bottom West Ham – as usual, the Blues have sold out their away allocation and around 2,800 fans will be descending upon the capital for the game at London Stadium, a 460-mile round trip from Goodison Park.
Making the journey by car will typically take over four hours so given that trains between Lime Street and Euston can be completed in little more than half that time, going by rail is often a popular option for travelling supporters as it also enables them to relax.
Tickets used to be available for most rail journeys in the UK some 12 weeks in advance but at the time of publication – just five days before the game – no fares are available from Lime Street to Euston on Saturday on either the National Rail Enquiries or Avanti West Coast websites with timetables yet to be confirmed.
An Avanti West Coast spokesperson said: “We are sorry tickets are not available for these dates yet. We know this is extremely frustrating for our customers and can only apologise for the current situation.
"There are engineering works scheduled on this weekend which require us to run a bespoke timetable for this period. We want to reassure our customers that we are working hard alongside our colleagues at Network Rail to make sure tickets are available as soon as possible.”
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