Central London to Bracknell

Hello Everyone,

Strongly considering relocation to the UK and am interested in living in a metropolitan city. The complication is the office is located in Bracknell. The question becomes is it feasible to commute from Central London to Bracknell? I would not be required to be in the office on a daily basis. I am no stranger to 70+ minute train rides to get to NYC. How difficult would a commute between central London and Bracknell be. Assume 2-3 times a week tops. I welcome feedback.

You don't say where in "central London" you will be living, but there is a direct service from London Waterloo to Bracknell, in the morning peak the trains run every 30 minutes and the journey takes 1 hour or slightly less.

Weekdays... First train out is 5:05 AM and then (more or less) every half hour throughout the day...

London Waterloo 05:05 Bracknell 06:20
London Waterloo 05:50 Bracknell 06:50
London Waterloo 06:20 Bracknell 07:20
London Waterloo 07:20 Bracknell 08:20
London Waterloo 07:50 Bracknell 08:20
London Waterloo 08:07 Bracknell 09:09
London Waterloo 08:37 Bracknell 09:37
London Waterloo 08:50 Bracknell 09:49


Pattern continues thought the day, the last (realistic) train from Waterloo to Bracknell is at 23:38 arriving at 00:37 (this is 12:37 AM in railway speak)


Same pattern coming back, basic service depart Bracknell at 2 and 32 past every hour (with some extras inserted into the pattern) last train leaves Bracknell 11:32 PM arrives Waterloo 12:32 AM

So, it takes about 1 hour and there are trains every half hour, occasionally more often.

Quite do-able, day return fare from £12.80 up to around £55 depending on ticket type and whether you buy online or at the station.

If your London base is nearer Paddington you can go from that station to Reading and change there for Bracknell, journey time and frequency about the same.

Thank you the response. I did not include where because we have not decided on a location yet. All we know is we want to live in a city. We are used to New York City life. We love cities and want to be in the heart of a city. If there are locations that make getting to Bracknell more bearable those would the area I would target. I open for suggestions on areas of London to look at. I am trying to get prepared because all of this might happen very quickly.

Bracknell is one of the most boring places on earth, so you are right to not want to live there.  However, the reason that so many companies have their offices there are becuase its easy to get to Heathrow and its easy-ish to get to London.  Although you need to find out where your actual office is b/c many of the large technology offices arent really near the rail station, so you would need to add a bus or taxi journey to your travel time.

As Tremula said, the direct service will take you to Waterloo, so it would be best for you to find housing near Waterloo rather than another one of the London Rail Station. 

If you find that housing is too expensive in London, you'll probably want to look into Reading as the next large-ish city.  Trains from Reading to Bracknell will take about 20 mins.