Virgin Friday LHCS (now M-F)

[87015]

It was running instead of a Pendolino not in addition to one. I don't think there is that much difference in capacity between the mark 3 set and a pendolino.

Lack of available 390s.

 

[87031]

Well said that man!

People are far too often too quick to jump on the 'blame Virgin' bandwagon, but at the end of the day the timetable specification was out of their hands, as is the infrastructure failing. If the timetable really was bad they would've abandoned it by now.

Yes there were farces, but it's only natural for new timetables to have teething troubles, and it's how you deal with it that matters. Virgin dealt with it well. London Midland had a terrible first few weeks in December/January with planned cancellations in advance, traincrew out of position, stock shortages, and the first Saturday of the timetabled revealed very little service on their Birmingham-Liverpool route.

Also, people may think that the Birmimgham and Manchester trains are 'empty' due to a service every 20mins, but have you thought to check the First Class end? The Manchester route in particular has been successful in attracting more passengers from the airlines.

Face it, locos + stock are gone. Pendo's are here to stay.

look at the state of the West Coast today delays and cancellations galore...everything going via Northampton . Good Old Virgin Trains...and good old Pendolinos eh

 

[MCR247]

Yeah, cos Overhead wire problems are VTs fault, and if they had LHCS it wouldnt of happened. Get real!

 

[37401]

why is it when anything goes wrong its always the fault of the TOC, OHLE,Signaling,Train defects have nowt all to do with the TOC infact I cant think of an example where the TOC is to blame, lack of stock maybe? dunno on that one

whats even funnyer is the comments aimed at Richard Branson he may be the face of Virgin but Chris Gibb calls the shots and you cant blame him for the signal problems (unless he loops all pendos for his service home to his mums tea in 1hr 20 )

 

[matt]

I think today may have been the most Virgin West Coast loco action since spring 2005.

 

[87015]

I think today may have been the most Virgin West Coast loco action since spring 2005.

Was wondering about that earlier. After this little lot, Last Week of Virgin 87 action, June 2005, the "cobblers" did remain in operation into July these were only out and back runs and publicly Silverlink trains anyway. As the trains were skoda hauled I payed little attention so can't recall the details, the last cobbler was on July 20th, but was down to one set by then. The sets at weekends if not during the day between "cobbler" duties escaped to work to Virgin diagrams - so I'd guess a weekend in early July 2005 was the last "two sets out all day" workings.

This of course saw one of the best riots in a long time with 90039 having a jolly to Wales, which saw this turn into this and a complete flap to rake it in involving my first Pendo leap as no other options but worth the suffering to have John to Euston.

 

[Chester025]

This of course saw one of the best riots in a long time with 90039 having a jolly to Wales, which saw this turn into this and a complete flap to rake it in involving my first Pendo leap as no other options but worth the suffering to have John to Euston.

Aaaah, 87013... Turned up at Crewe ready for the trip to Euston on Sunday, starts backing onto the train and pop, 10 feet away from the stock it 'blows up'

 

[matt]

Was on the 1630 off New St today and I expect it will be out for a little while yet

Is there any estimates for when the Pendolino(s) will be returned? Is it likely to last another three weeks as I thats when I'm next off work and fancy a phot of the new set.

 

[bengolding]

Well I travelled on the 07:03 refurbished VT loco-hauled service on Friday. The First Class seating is far superior to that on the Pendolinos.

Out of interest, I travelled on the 14:43 from Euston today, which was a Pendolino. Does anyone know what diagrams the 2 loco-hauled sets work on the Euson-West Midlands route this week?

 

[Stacey]

Don't tell me it's not running Fridays now?? The day I'm in the Midlands this week

 

[33056]

AFAIK the loco hauled set did not run at all on Monday, there is normally just the one diagram that does the 0703 / 1043 / 1443 Euston to Birmingham and 0850 / 1230 / 1630 BHM - EUS now.

I recollect seeing somewhere that both sets were out last Friday, the refurbished set on the above trains and the Cargo D set on the 1846 Euston to Preston, no idea if the same will happen this week.

 

[Phoenix]

AFAIK the loco hauled set did not run at all on Monday, there is normally just the one diagram that does the 0703 / 1043 / 1443 Euston to Birmingham and 0850 / 1230 / 1630 BHM - EUS now.

I recollect seeing somewhere that both sets were out last Friday, the refurbished set on the above trains and the Cargo D set on the 1846 Euston to Preston, no idea if the same will happen this week.

Yeah the set was a no show on Monday this week.

 

[alex57601]

I was told that last week was supposed to be the final week of running locos + stock on the Euston-BNS circuit, although that pre-dates the decision to swap a 390 diagram with a 221 on a West Midlands diagram to free a 390 to do a few Birmingham-Edinburgh runs for the Edinburgh Festival, as well as 221112 being off the road for repairs after having a fight with debris flying from a container.

Whether the original plan has changed I'm not sure, but the biggest clue will be what turns up at Euston tomorrow evening for the 18.46 to Preston as WB64 would be on that had it not been for the Birmingham runs. The Pendo that had been out of traffic after the mishap at Wembley which led to the WB65 temp set being diagrammed on the Euston-BNS circuit has recently re-entered traffic.

Unless someone has seen WB64 out this week?