Best way independently into tibet from Gansu

So I've heard the tickets for the train are hard to get hold of but i need some info on what my best bet would be to get to lhasa cheapest or quickest (i have a flying phobia).
I'm going to be in xiahe Gansu province. Should I head to lanzhou or xinging to try to get a ticket? i don't mind a hard seat if i have to but i don't have the time to wait around 5 days for a ticket and i'm not rich. Which place is quicker/cheaper?
Would it be better to go to golmud to get the public bus (try to hail down outside station and bargin with driver?)?
I plan to get the travel permit if i have to. Does anyone know which place lanzhou/xining/golmud is cheapest/quickest to get the permit?
Thanks for any help.

Since you are in Xiahe, so you can go to Xining via Tongren(Rekhong), so according this the best choice would be Xining.
For the public bus, no bargin at all. IF you want to rent a car, of cause you can bargin hardly.

#1, at least in this reply, you're not advertising your services. Its best to keep any advertising out of the main part to avoid being banned from posting. That would be a shame as you have some good advice.

My preferences would be Lanzhou, Xining then Golmud.
Cheers!

Getting a hard seat ticket from Lanzhou or Xining shouldn't be too hard even during this time of year. You may have to pay a little bit of a service charge, but there are places in both cities that can arrange a hard seat for you (sleeper tickets will be very difficult to get though). If you want to go legally with a permit, I would recommend not going to Golmud. There is a good chance that the CITS in Golmud would make you purchase a tour in order to get a permit. Try getting your permit in either Lanzhou or Xining.

Thanks. That's good news, i'm happy to travel hard seat. but i'd also heard that you never actually see your permit, they use it for buying the ticket but you never see it. so if i can find a chinese person to buy my train ticket for me then i don't need a permit??

You might or might not be asked for your permit on the train or in Tibet Autonomous Region.
Cheers!

can anyone recommend a cheap agency in xining?

"Cheap" is all relative. Right now it seems to me (from reading forums extensively) that no way into Tibet is going to be "cheap".
One of the best deals I've seen so far was a Chinese-speaking tour for 6400 RMB/person including round-trip train from Shanghai, going as far as EBC. That's probably not what most posters here are after, so I don't bother mentioning it.
Cheers!