Hi,
If you are down London way, and want to stay within travelcard boundaries, some good areas are from Willesden-Watford Junction, which has a nice mix of igh speed and commuter trains. Also Finsbury Park to Hadley Wood have a similar mix of traction. These are all easy locations to access and they have regular trains to/from London.
I hope this helps. Enjoy your trip :)

Thanks, I will keep that in mind. I will be arriving in London, and plan on spending the first half of the trip in Southern England. I intend to visit RH&D, and wouldn't mind getting to Dawlish as well. I have a Britrail Pass already, so travelling outside of London won't be a problem!

RH&D is a must, for Heritage lines in the South East, ie steam, there is the Kent & East Sussex Railway and the Bluebell Railway.

Most heritage railways go quicker than Southern services

Should you find yourself in the North of England I presume you know about the National Railway Museum at York and its annex in Shildon, County Durham but it would be remiss of me not to bang the drum for Darlington Railway Centre and Museum a.k.a. Head of Steam. It's about twenty minutes walk from Darlington's main line station at Bank Top or the first stop on the line to Bishop Auckland (Shildon is the fourth).

I planned on making a trip to York at some point to get to that museum. I was not aware of the Head of Steam museum, I will add that to my list as well.
I do also plan on taking the Jacobite one of the days, and I am also taking the Caledonian Sleeper to Edinburgh.

Glasgow Queen St Station --> Mallaig in the highlands. got to be one of the best rail trips in the world. (Glenfinnan is magical, stop there for a while if you can, take a walk down to the Bonnie Prince Charlie monument by the loch, - transcendent.)

Originally posted by snipawulf04:

I planned on making a trip to York at some point to get to that museum. I was not aware of the Head of Steam museum, I will add that to my list as well.

You wouldn't regret it. If you know what you're looking for there's all kinds of railway related stuff to be found in Darlington. A lot less than there used to be of course just as there is a lot less railway.

At the risk of attracting brick-bats for self promotion the Friends of Darlington Railway Centre and Museum* website has a links page you may find helpful:
www.friendsofdrcm.org

Hmm... This has prompted me to think about when I last checked it through and the fact is I can't remember so I'll be testing and possibly changing it this afternoon.

*The Museum's name was changed a few years ago but the Friends did not follow suit. I've yet to meet anyone who likes Head of Steam as a name or understands why it was changed. The best guess appears to be that some consultant suggested it to justify his fee and the Council accepted it because, if it didn't go down well, they can all say, "don't fire me! It was the consultants idea."

Originally posted by IC125:

Most heritage railways go quicker than Southern services

Lol ! That's funny. :) Good Humour.

Well, if you're visiting London, you should definately check out Clapham Junction during the rush hour. There are up to 180 trains per hour passing through this station. It's really an impressive sight with this much trains.

Originally posted by Motorhomegirl14 UK:

Originally posted by IC125:

Most heritage railways go quicker than Southern services

Lol ! That's funny. :) Good Humour.

Was it a joke? I thought that was a warning.

Originally posted by JJTimothy:

Originally posted by Motorhomegirl14 UK:

Lol ! That's funny. :) Good Humour.

Was it a joke? I thought that was a warning.

I saw the funny side of the comment. :)

There's nowt funny about sitting outside Victoria in a 377 and being overtaken by a hetitage Thumper :)

Originally posted by IC125:

There's nowt funny about sitting outside Victoria in a 377 and being overtaken by a hetitage Thumper :)

FYI Guys, I am a retired Train Driver of 34 years, those sort of things happened to me all the time when I was driving. You have to just laugh it off, otherwise, you'll just get wound up un-neccessarily, it's always better to see the funny side and chill. :)

I was also joking around, I saw the funny / ironic side of things too. I was surprised to see it in the first place as normally we only get the heritage steamies through Sarf London :)