Can I catch the last train home?
Find a practical train journey home based on where you’re travelling from and when you’ll be ready to catch it.
Check your journey home
How the check works
- Choose your stations. The National Rail station you’re catching a train from, and your home station.
- Tell us when you’ll be ready. Now, or a date and time. If you’re not at the station yet, add how long it takes to get there. We then add 5 minutes to reach the platform and board, once.
- We search the timetable. We look for trains from the moment you’d be ready to board until our overnight cutoff at 04:00. We prefer a practical train you can board with at least 20 minutes to spare that gets you home soonest; if there isn’t one, we show the best train you can still catch. If we can’t confirm a whole journey that crosses London, we may show the part we could confirm, such as a train into London, and where it stops being confirmed.
What “last train” means here
It’s the latest practical journey our search can find after you’re ready, within the night that runs until 04:00. We look for a train you can actually catch, with sensible connections, rather than simply listing the final scheduled departure. Routes that are unusually long or roundabout aren’t recommended.
When the timetable data can’t confirm a way home, we say so plainly instead of telling you you’ve missed it. Our rail source doesn’t list every service, so “we couldn’t confirm a train” never means “there is no train”.
What’s covered
- National Rail stations in England, Scotland and Wales, including journeys with changes.
- Planned timetable times up to 84 days ahead. This isn’t live running information, so check National Rail Enquiries for delays and cancellations before you travel.
- National Rail journeys, including any rail replacement buses in the timetable. Where a journey home needs to cross London between two National Rail stations, we may time that change with London public transport information. This isn’t a complete Underground, DLR or tram journey planner, and we don’t plan local buses to or from your station.
Questions
Is this the very last train of the night?
Not always. We recommend a practical train you can catch after you’re ready to board, preferring one with time to spare that gets you home soonest, and we also show the latest train our search found. Our rail source may not list every service, so the latest train we found isn’t always the final one of the night.
Does it show live delays or cancellations?
No. Answers use planned timetable times. Check National Rail Enquiries or your train company for live running and disruption before you set off.
Can it plan Tube or DLR journeys?
Not as a full journey planner. The trains we check are National Rail services. Where a journey home needs to cross London between two National Rail stations, we may time that change with London public transport information. Our London pages show the last Underground and DLR times at each station.
What happens around 04:00?
Each night’s search ends at 04:00. If you’ll be ready to board shortly before then, we only check the trains left before 04:00. If you’ll be ready to board after 04:00, we check from then until 04:00 the following night, so the first morning trains are included.
What if I need time to get to the station?
Choose “I need time to get there” and pick how many minutes it takes. We start looking for trains after that time plus 5 minutes to board, and we never add the same allowance twice.
Do you save my journey?
No. Your answer is held only in this browser tab: it isn’t put in the page address, cookies or browser storage, and refreshing the page clears it. To find trains, our server sends station codes and times to our rail timetable provider. Our privacy notice has the details.