Travel & Trains

If you do decide to have a little holiday in the UK. I recommend going by train – it is less stressful as you can relax and not worry about anything – start your holiday on the train!

Also, my tip for travelling with Dialysis is to use the Travel Assistance. They are always very good, help you on and off the train with your heavy bags and machine. They will get you to your seat and make sure you are comfortable.

It is easy and free to request assistance. You just have to book it through the train company that runs the first station you are going to use – you can do that via the national rail website here.

For example, my local station is Cardiff Central which is run by Great Western Railways; I can either apply online or give them a call to organise the assistance for my whole journey no matter which station I get off at. If you ring the assistance helpline they can also help you plan the best route (avoiding stairs, or buses, or busy crowds) – they can even organise a wheelchair if you need one.

Remember to tell them that you are travelling with life critical machine/bags and you need help because (a) with liquid in you can not carry anything heavy, (b) you get tired, etc etc etc.

Remember in the Travel – General post I talked about the railcard – this means that it will likely be much cheaper to travel via train too.

Now I have only used Assistance with Great Western Railways, Virgin Railways and London Midlands Railways – but I had no trouble at all. It made the journey much easier and less stressful.

Also, a tip for you, if you can book seats on the train i would. Just so you know you will have one. If you book Assistance they will even kick someone out of the seat for you if they have been cheeky enough to sit in it (this happened to me once). If you are not able to book a seat, the train crew will help you find one (and a lot of trains have disabled/priority seats you can use).

Happy travels!!

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