Paul Simpson has confirmed that Carlisle United will travel by train to many of their long away games this season.
The Blues boss says they will make nine or ten of their League One trips by rail.
It is part of United’s attempt to improve their preparation for games and reduce injury risk.
Simpson hopes it will help Carlisle reach their destinations quicker and avoid players spending long hours on a coach, particularly with the risk of heavy Friday traffic.
The Blues travelled by train to Sutton United for the last game of their 2022/23 League Two season and have been looking into more regular train travel since then.
“The thinking is to be able to get quicker travel and avoid the chaos of the M6 or the M1 on a Friday afternoon which we had many times last season,” said Simpson.
“It still doesn’t make it a quick journey but when we’ve looked at the fixtures I think there’s nine or ten where we’re going to go down on the train.
“There are a couple where we’ll go into London and others where we’ll go down to Milton Keynes and the coach will pick us up there.
“We’re just looking to see if we can get a little edge, and if that edge is going down on the train to help with our preparations then we’ll do that.”
Carlisle’s league calendar this season would involve 10,296 miles on the road as an overall round trip.
They face a number of long journeys to opponents such as Exeter City, Portsmouth, Charlton Athletic, Leyton Orient, Reading, Stevenage, Oxford United, Bristol Rovers and Cambridge United.
Simpson, meanwhile, says he has asked for his players’ input into how best to manage the journeys around their training.
“The dilemma will be about training at normal time then getting the train later, or train later and reduce the recovery time,” added the manager.
“This is where I’m asking the players on their opinion on it and what they think is the right thing to do, but whatever happens it’s about however they play on a Saturday whether we get a result or not.
“If we can get a little five or ten per cent advantage by going on the train then we’ll do that.”
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