I personally find Voyagers cramped, uncomfortable, smelly and noisy. They seem to be much 'smaller' than Mk3 coaches if you see what I mean, you feel much more enclosed, and legroom is abismal in most seats. Meanwhile, HSTs feel much more airy (though I have to say they can get kind of stuffy at times), they do not smell, and the seats are large and nicely padded.
Don't get me wrong, given an HST over a Super/Voyager I would take the HST. However, this doesn't mean I detest the newer stock.
The argument about power points seems fairly irrelevant as GNER refurbed Mk3s have these anyway, and I'm sure that if Virgin had decided to refurb their HST sets as opposed to using new build voyagers they would have installed power points.
When Virgin first started out with the new franchises ten years ago, thier aim was to grossly improve thier network, and increase the number of passengers. There is no way that they could have achieved the results that they did by refurbishing some HSTs and spending a few bob on a slick marketing campaign. For potential new customers to become intruiged and to get the maximum number of them involved, you need to dazzle them with NEW products and ideas. Psychologically a refurbishment program won't have as big an influencing effect than something which is new and exciting.
I find the 'shop' an embaressment to be honest. It is placed in the middle of standard
so that it is of rougly equal distance from all Standard coaches. If i'm sat in coach A in an HST I have to trawl through 5 long coaches to get to the buffet. The shop in Super/Voyagers and Pendolinos is situated roughly in the centre of Standard to prevent the long walk.
which means it gets very congested, and if you are queuing for something you frequently have to move out of the way for people to come past, often with loads of large bags - very annoying!
True. How would you rectify the problem in the space available?
The fact that there is only a microwave also makes the food options fairly limited. A GNER freshly prepared bacon toastie is far more appetising than a Virgin microwaved pre-packed bacon bap!
Midland Mainline have the same principle at the Standard buffet car - refrigerated snacks ready to be heated in a microwave. And that's in HSTs as well as Meridians.
The entertainment system is to be honest a bit of a gimmick. Many passengers, probably even the majority these days, will carry an MP3 player or CD player with them, or even a laptop to watch videos, so why would they listen to the radio? The choices of stations are very poor on Voyagers anyway, I don't think I've ever really used it.
True; still, at least it's there for passengers to use if they wish too.
In comparison to 221s, 222s are far superior. If only Virgin had tried out the Voyagers for a while first and then realised that the 222s were better, and ordered those instead!
Except 221s are better in that they tilt. If they ran 222s on WCML then that would have been seen as a waste. Virgin needed at least some tilting stock.
This is getting silly. I said the on-board entertainment was rarely used. Power sockets are used, yeah, but not very often, not enough to suddenly make everyone go by Voyager, they're a bonus really. But this is all totally irrelevant to the debate because HSTs can easily have power sockets anyway. And, some do!
As I said above, simply refurbishing trains and adding power sockets would not have had quite the same desired affect on passenger numbers and business than ordering new trains. GNER aren't seeing a near 100% rise in passenger numbers through their refurbishment programmes.
I've known passengers "outcry" agains them when packed in like sardines.
But not on the same scale as the recent FGW palarva.
Anyway I see no mention of the entertainment system in the survey
What can we say from this?
I've compared old and new timetables and I can see very little difference in journey times. There have been some line speed improvements (on my route, NE-SW, notably between Derby-Birmingham-Bristol) and they were done at the same time as the trains for the re-launched service. No, it was no co-incidence but that doesn't mean the new trains are good.
What do you mean by 'good'. Good in terms of performance or good in terms of comfort. I suspect you mean the latter. Journey times have decreased by 20% over the last 5 years through a combination of, higher performance trains, higher performance tilting trains, line speed enhancements, capacity upgrades, track upgrades, and signalling upgrades. Slack in the timetable is to prevent further capacity problems in problem areas.
The debate is about Voyagers, and the fact is that there is no tilting timetable for Voyagers. I keep repeating this, and Chaz has said it, but they want flexibility between 220s/221s so they don't timetable them to tilt.
But the tilt is not timetabled to be used....
No it's not true that the "vast majority ... are timetabled as 125mph running". None are. If this was true 220s would struggle to keep to the timetable, but that doesn't happen, because it's not the case.
Pendos & Voyagers on WestCoast are; Voyagers on CrossCountry are not.
There may not be formal WTTs separating tilting trains and non-tilting trains. However, at this time neither side has been proven wrong
But, does it really seem like a coincidence that a lot of trains on WC are 221 as apposed to 220?
As I said earlier, 221s are used on North Wales and WC so that they can use the new infrastructure on the mainline. As for WC, I cannot even prove at this time that North Wales is actually timetabled as 221s. Neither can you. But you're agreeing with me that North Wales IS TTed as 221. If the majority of trains run on WC are 221s, then why can't you agree that a lot of WC trains could actually also be TTed as this, as for North Wales?
No point wasting the electric infrastructure...
What about the 50% or so of Virgin's XC network which isn't electrified? Had wasting electrics been such an issue then electrification may have been a better solution. As it was, it was less of an issue and the solution turned down by many.
No point wasting the high line speeds for 185s...
Which relates to decisions made by the government and not the TOC.
Exactly! which is why Voyagers should not run Manc-Brum, Manc-Glasgow etc!!
Of the near 200 trains which run daily on XC, these routes account for only a couple dozen in weekday daytime (that is, trains which don't originate or terminate elsewhere on the network.) Pendolinos are needed more on WC, and returning to older stock would be seen as a last resort plan by Virgin - were this not the case we would be seeing more DVT and electric locos running these routes.
Away from EPS sections, i.e. WCML and Reading - Birmingham, 221s do not of course run at higher speed however ride quality is better when going round corners, because they can tilt under thier own accord (they don't need line infrastructure to tilt - just a gyroscope at each end.)
