Anyone know what they use to haul passengers up to Manchester from London in? Loco hauled or some form of MU?
I could lie and say it's for a layout but in reality I have to travel on Monday and I'm trying to work out if I'll get a decent seat in Standard or if it's worth upgrading to first? (Oh, and before anyone asks it's on expenses )
Usually travel up the East Coast on GNER ... book ahead and the service is superb especially on the named trains.
Most likely you will get a Pendolino, tilting EMU. Smooth and quiet but the economy seats are pretty awful IMHO, small and upright and lacking knee room. If you are really lucky you might just get a really comfortable Mk3 coach set. Keith Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.
should post this in uk.railway
Virgin use (electric) locos and pendolinos on that route.
From experience pendolino services are always more crowded than the loco hauled ones although there's often a seat somewhere.
Thanks both of you, should have added currently I'm booked in Coach "A" ... which if the piccies on the virgin website are to be believed
Cheers,
Chris
In the little private room?
I went to railfest on a virgin voyager, very impressive.
The LCD displays on the outside tell you which coach it is, and after the train manager has downloaded ticket info the displays on the luggage rack tell you which seats are booked and where from/ to. I think every seat is a mandatory booking now, not sure if they stop selling tickets when all seats are allocated.
If you are traveling alone you will most probably get a reserved seat in a pair with just aircraft style tables.If your lucky it will be by a window not a pillar and facing the direction of travel :-)
My son and I migrated up to the quiet coach which didn't have any reserved seats so we grabbed some with a proper table.
...
Cheers although we booked separately there's two of us going up and we've managed to book adjacent seats, the seat numbers have an "A" at the end of them which I've been told means that we have fold down tables :-( just so long as we're in a reasonably quite carriage ...
... btw does anyone know if smoking is permited anywhere on a Virgin trains? GNER usually have a smoking carriage on the long distance routes but I can't se any reference WRT "smoking" on the Virgin website.
Virgin are (supposed to be) 100% non smoking
Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
... and so on until I get to Manchester.
If that's the case I'll hire a car next time.
Pendolinos are running at 125mph in some places still to the older timetable and I would imagine the station stops would be longer.
If this is the case, just site near the doors then at each stop you can have a smoke on the platform! (stand close to the train though so they don't leave without you)
Just in case anyone was following this ...
On the way up it was a Pendalino ... with 2 working toilets until about an hour into the journey when they also failed (BTW 1/2 cup of coffee = £1.30), only good thing about the entire trip was a young lady who kept coming up and down the carriage with a bin bag to take the rubbish away (wouldn't let us get off by the front door - even though we entered via it!). Will I go with Virgin again ... not on your nellie!
We came back the long way via Midland Mainline roomy Mk3 carriages pulled by a 125 and complimentary tea/coffee ... all going swimmingly until we got to Kettering when the front power car broke ... everyone turfed off the train. Mind you staff polite and helpful and within 20mins a turbostar turned up with plenty of room on board to pick us all up.
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