I think the real thing that I take away from this is that it shows how utterly incompetent our politicians are when it comes to railway matters.
The fact that Corbyn couldn't even find an overcrowded train departing London is absolutely hilarious. If he wanted to make a valid point about how poor Virgin are about managing crowding, he could have gone down to Euston and showed the 1520 train departing with just a handful of customers on board because this supposedly "Peak" train warrants a price tag of £166 each way for a walkup customer
£91.50 surely?
meanwhile the 1900 is full and standing for over 80 Min.
Yet the 1857 relief train that runs on Thursday and Friday to Crewe and Manchester has a fair few empty seats in my carriage, power at every seat in my carriage, room to use a laptop, and even free wifi! Not bad for £38.
Only problem is it's a long old walk upto coach C from declassified coach K.
However these anomolies aside, yes, the off peak trains (the 1740, 1800,1820, 1840) are easy to find seats in, sometimes an entire 4 to yourself. In first class you may well get the entire carriage to yourself. The peak trains (1520, 1900, 1920, 1940) are another matter. Why Virgin don't have a "semi-off-peak" ticket at somewhere about £160 return allowing arrival into London after 10AM and departure at any time is beyond me (ok - they don't want to abstract the fares from the £300 return brigade who just book peak trains without thinking. For those in the know £183 return allows more flexibility than the £80 off peak return)
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there is no denying Virgin have done a great job on the West Coast
As a frequenter of virgin trains on the wcml I certainly would deny it. No sockets, tiny seats,
If Chiltern ran through to Crewe I'd certainly be interested in that - power, wifi, nicer seats, and avoid the euston scrum
" emotion!
