Voyager experience not as bad as expected

[Mat17]

It might even be better to change at Leeds, so you can use the more frequent 195-operated services via Barnsley, followed by another 195-operated service to York (both services are 2tph).

I've done this as well! A much more pleasant journey overall.

 

[Krokodil]

The majority of journeys on XC are not end to end. Reading to Birmingham is a common journey and is only 1h30, plenty would take a reduced 3+2 fare on that service (if the train was a bit wider).

3+2 seating only really works if everyone fits neatly in the very narrow seats that result. One slightly bigger person, or anyone manspreading will result in it becoming de facto 2+1

 

[londonmidland]

My other gripe is how loud they are (and 222s) when idling at stations

Pedantic mode on but Merdians are actually quieter than Voyagers due to silencers added to their exhaust pipes.

This is noticeable both internally and externally as you don’t get that (as loud) ‘spool up’ upon departure as well as less engine noise whilst at speed.

Voyagers are very bass heavy. Particularly in areas where you’re surrounded by walls or are underground (such as whilst at New Street)

 

[Ayman Ilham]

It is truly bizarre to see 4 carriage trains rumble into Bristol or Basingstoke with a destination of Newcastle, Edinburgh or Aberdeen, I'll give you that, and I like to think that when the Voyagers finally have had their heyday - for better or for worse - the same mistake wouldn't be repeated, and a more appropriate length of train will be specified. People often suggest 7 cars, to my confusion, 9/10/11 cars work on the WCML/ECML/GWML/MML and similarly I think 9 cars + would be the best idea for the route, proofing it for future passenger growth.

One idea is to introduce new bi-modes (Class 807 and 809 - mix of 7 and 9 car units) on all Manchester services (starting with the Reading/Bournemouth services) and then all existing Voyagers on XC will be able to strengthen the other services along the Bristol-Newcastle corridor and have double voyagers on almost every service. However, that's a discussion for the speculative forum if anyone wishes to discuss this in further details.

 

[azOOOOOma]

If there's 2 TMs, the one is classed as 'working' the train and the other one is the 'assist'.

Nice one thanks for your reply. Makes sense now!
Laura x

 

[Segedunum]

To give another outsider's point of view - my lass (who's only really started using trains since we got together, lucky her) travelled from Birmingham to Newcastle last Monday afternoon.

She couldn't even get near her reserved seat because the four carriage Voyager was utterly rammed. She ended up sat on the floor for half of the journey and doesn't want to travel on XC again if she can avoid it.

I can't blame her. When we were blessed with double sets on the NE-SW services, XC were usually fine (though I've still caught a full and standing nine car from Sheffield to Leeds), but we've been robbed of most of them in exchange for a couple of Newcastle to Reading services.

As trains they're fine to be honest, but far too short and it's utterly mad having a four car train doing Penzance to Edinburgh.

 

[Energy]

3+2 seating only really works if everyone fits neatly in the very narrow seats that result. One slightly bigger person, or anyone manspreading will result in it becoming de facto 2+1

I'm not a fan of 3+2 myself, it works ok on the 350s on short distances but otherwise isn't great. Quoting XC's longest journey times is a bit misleading though as they aren't the majority of journeys.

 

[JonathanH]

It is truly bizarre to see 4 carriage trains rumble into Bristol or Basingstoke with a destination of Newcastle, Edinburgh or Aberdeen

I don't know why you feel it is truly bizarre. It has been the established train length for 20 years for those services, and one people are now very familiar with.

Personally, they have always struck me as nimble and robust little trains that connect places far apart. They look like an Intercity train from the front.

(I agree they are too short for some of the passenger loads, but the main failing is about their length for the numbers taking short journeys on the core part of the operation, not the numbers travelling long distance.)

 

[jhy44]

Previously a regular user of voyagers Birmingham - Bristol/Manchester/Leeds.

I also like them and have never understood the hatred. Warm soft lighting (unlike the 800s) which is kind on the eyes and doesn’t trigger my migraines; comfortable seats; acceptable noise / vibration levels; and spacious and airy unlike the tube-train-esque claustrophobia-inducing pendolinos (I always used to be cackle with glee when a voyager turned up for my EUS-BHM Avanti service)

What isn’t great about them as many have pointed out is that they are unsuitable in capacity and design for the services they are used for. They get used as suburban local trains into the nearest city for places like Sheffield, Wolverhampton/Coventry, Macclesfield; packed in like sardines and not enough space or doors for the speed of boarding required. Cut those stops and have them running like proper intercity services and that problem is fixed.

Oh and the complete lack of phone signal is a nuisance, so not suitable for any sort of business travel / work.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Previously a regular user of voyagers Birmingham - Bristol/Manchester/Leeds.

I also like them and have never understood the hatred. Warm soft lighting (unlike the 800s) which is kind on the eyes and doesn’t trigger my migraines; comfortable seats; acceptable noise / vibration levels; and spacious and airy unlike the tube-train-esque claustrophobia-inducing pendolinos (I always used to be cackle with glee when a voyager turned up for my EUS-BHM Avanti service)

What isn’t great about them as many have pointed out is that they are unsuitable in capacity and design for the services they are used for. They get used as suburban local trains into the nearest city for places like Sheffield, Wolverhampton/Coventry, Macclesfield; packed in like sardines and not enough space or doors for the speed of boarding required. Cut those stops and have them running like proper intercity services and that problem is fixed.

Oh and the complete lack of phone signal is a nuisance, so not suitable for any sort of business travel / work.

Are you seriously suggesting that XC should stop serving places like Sheffield, Wolverhampton and Coventry? All cities in their own right. Are you suggesting they don't deserve intercity services at all? Ridiculous. Which other stops would you randomly chop from the XC service? And once you've randomly axed 50% of the stops, what do you do with those passengers? Cram them onto other busy and/or inadequate services?

 

[Doomotron]

Are you seriously suggesting that XC should stop serving places like Sheffield, Wolverhampton and Coventry? All cities in their own right. Are you suggesting they don't deserve intercity services at all? Ridiculous. Which other stops would you randomly chop from the XC service? And once you've randomly axed 50% of the stops, what do you do with those passengers? Cram them onto other busy and/or inadequate services?

I think the intention of the post was to say that in city areas CrossCountry gets used by commuters, which by itself isn't a XC-specific issue. The former GWR Brighton services were effectively West Coastway fast services as Southern don't provide them, but this meant that the small 158s or whatever else did the service would be packed fully instead of people getting on a slower but longer 313 or 377. Granted I'm guilty of it myself, albeit only under the instruction of the guard of the train I was on. And that is how my only journey on a 158 so far was in the vestibule. In the case of the GWR Brighton services cutting stops between Southampton and Brighton would reduce this tendency. I don't know the layout of Sheffield's railways or where XC stops around there but there may be room to cut one or two stops outside of the bigger cities to stop people going for short journeys on them - or they could introduce operator-specific ticketing that doesn't allow passengers to go on CrossCountry services in the area without a surcharge, which would reduce demand. I doubt the suggestion was to stop CrossCountry from going to Sheffield at all.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are you seriously suggesting that XC should stop serving places like Sheffield, Wolverhampton and Coventry? All cities in their own right. Are you suggesting they don't deserve intercity services at all? Ridiculous. Which other stops would you randomly chop from the XC service? And once you've randomly axed 50% of the stops, what do you do with those passengers? Cram them onto other busy and/or inadequate services?

The suggestion is that you don't need to run a long train from Aberdeen to Plymouth if it's only busy between Wolverhampton and Cov. What you do is run a short train on the former which doesn't accept local passengers, and you run a proper local service.

There are a few ways to do that. The norm in Germany is that local tickets are only valid on local trains. The French and Polish make reservations compulsory, ticketing separate and don't sell tickets on those trains for the local journeys.

Only I think the UK and Switzerland just have a load of "trains" with the same tickets valid on all of them with no attempt to differentiate purposes.

 

[Lewisham2221]

The suggestion is that you don't need to run a long train from Aberdeen to Plymouth if it's only busy between Wolverhampton and Cov. What you do is run a short train on the former which doesn't accept local passengers, and you run a proper local service.

But the problem with XC isn't just the busy central core. It's more of like a number of joined up regional services, providing lots of local journeys as well as, almost by coincidence, the longer journeys. That's a lot of extra "local" trains you'd need if you were going to ban local pax from XC.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But the problem with XC isn't just the busy central core. It's more of like a number of joined up regional services, providing lots of local journeys as well as, almost by coincidence, the longer journeys. That's a lot of extra "local" trains you'd need if you were going to ban local pax from XC.

Liverpool to Norwich is that. XC isn't and isn't intended to be, it's a secondary InterCity service.

 

[JonathanH]

XC isn't and isn't intended to be, it's a secondary InterCity service.

Who says? While the heritage of XC is clearly having been part of the InterCity network, do the authorities really see it the way you suggest, after the developments over the last 20 years.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Liverpool to Norwich is that. XC isn't and isn't intended to be, it's a secondary InterCity service.

Liverpool - Norwich and Manchester - Bournemouth are both roughly similar distance, similar journey time, similar number of station stops and similar time between stops. Of course, XC also have the former Central Trains regional services too, but the thread is about Voyagers, so that's just me being pedantic. Even the NE and SW sections look fairly regional to me, Yorkshire to Bristol is probably about the only part of XC that resembles anything truly intercity.

 

[Krokodil]

The suggestion is that you don't need to run a long train from Aberdeen to Plymouth if it's only busy between Wolverhampton and Cov.

I think that we can be fairly confident that an Aberdeen-Plymouth service won't have many passengers travelling between Wolverhampton and Coventry onboard.

It will however almost certainly be pretty busy all the way from Newcastle to Bristol. Likewise a Manchester-Bournemouth service will be busy from Manchester to Reading, not just while it navigates the West Midlands.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Who says? While the heritage of XC is clearly having been part of the InterCity network, do the authorities really see it the way you suggest, after the developments over the last 20 years.

XC themselves certainly do, there's an article in a recent Modern Railways about them.

 

[43074]

It is truly bizarre to see 4 carriage trains rumble into Bristol or Basingstoke with a destination of Newcastle, Edinburgh or Aberdeen, I'll give you that, and I like to think that when the Voyagers finally have had their heyday - for better or for worse - the same mistake wouldn't be repeated, and a more appropriate length of train will be specified.

I'd agree with that, seeing one at Penzance going Edinburgh sat next to a 4 car 150 to St Ives (with more seats) recently was a bit strange.

Whether a longer train would be specified in the future I don't know, a 5 car TPE 802 has about 340 seats compared to 200 on a 4 car Voyager so even if the Voyagers were replaced by a 5 car 80x variant there would still be a 70% increase in the number of seats available on the XC long distance services.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

I don't know why you feel it is truly bizarre. It has been the established train length for 20 years for those services, and one people are now very familiar with.

Personally, they have always struck me as nimble and robust little trains that connect places far apart. They look like an Intercity train from the front.

(I agree they are too short for some of the passenger loads, but the main failing is about their length for the numbers taking short journeys on the core part of the operation, not the numbers travelling long distance.)

You don’t think it’s bizarre that four carriage trains work such long distance IC trains? That’s fair enough, but I do. The length of time that these formations have been in existence has no bearing on how odd it is. True, I’ve seen this be the case for as long as I can remember, but that doesn’t make the original choice back in 2000 or whenever to have such short trains run these services seem any less bizarre to me.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Jun 2023 ==

I'd agree with that, seeing one at Penzance going Edinburgh sat next to a 4 car 150 to St Ives (with more seats) recently was a bit strange.

Whether a longer train would be specified in the future I don't know, a 5 car TPE 802 has about 340 seats compared to 200 on a 4 car Voyager so even if the Voyagers were replaced by a 5 car 80x variant there would still be a 70% increase in the number of seats available on the XC long distance services.

Well that’s just it.

I suspect what @JonathanH is pointing out is that many of us, enthusiast or otherwise, have an automatic tendency to assume a train travelling long distances should have a long formation, when really the distance a train travels doesn’t necessarily have a bearing on how busy it is - eg the almost six hour journeys to Mallaig via Ft William operated by single 156s, the five hour ish journeys on Heart of Wales using single carriage 153s, etc - but its not just the physical distance of the journey I’m talking about, or how long it takes - but the fact it goes so far while calling at many major transport hubs or cities en-route.

If I see a CrossCountry train bound for Edinburgh at Liskeard, I know it will have to go all the way there serving places like Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, York and Newcastle, none of which are particularly quiet or sparse, and that is why to me it looks bizarre when that train has four coaches - of which only three are standard class - and they’re not long saloons either.

 

[Krokodil]

I don't know why you feel it is truly bizarre. It has been the established train length for 20 years for those services, and one people are now very familiar with.

You could also say that this has been the established level of overcrowding for the last 20 years, and people are very familiar with standing outside the bog.

I find it truly bizarre that this is considered acceptable.

 

[Doomotron]

I find it truly bizarre that this is considered acceptable.

It isn't.

 

[Krokodil]

It isn't.

It must be. Why else would governments have refused XC permission to expand their fleet on multiple occasions over the last 20 years, and be threatening to reduce it now?

 

[GoneSouth]

You don’t think it’s bizarre that four carriage trains work such long distance IC trains? That’s fair enough, but I do. The length of time that these formations have been in existence has no bearing on how odd it is. True, I’ve seen this be the case for as long as I can remember, but that doesn’t make the original choice back in 2000 or whenever to have such short trains run these services seem any less bizarre to me.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Jun 2023 ==


Well that’s just it.

I suspect what @JonathanH is pointing out is that many of us, enthusiast or otherwise, have an automatic tendency to assume a train travelling long distances should have a long formation, when really the distance a train travels doesn’t necessarily have a bearing on how busy it is - eg the almost six hour journeys to Mallaig via Ft William operated by single 156s, the five hour ish journeys on Heart of Wales using single carriage 153s, etc - but its not just the physical distance of the journey I’m talking about, or how long it takes - but the fact it goes so far while calling at many major transport hubs or cities en-route.

If I see a CrossCountry train bound for Edinburgh at Liskeard, I know it will have to go all the way there serving places like Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, York and Newcastle, none of which are particularly quiet or sparse, and that is why to me it looks bizarre when that train has four coaches - of which only three are standard class - and they’re not long saloons either.

I think you’re right. It does seem bizarre now, but when these trains were introduced 20 + years ago, they were replacing quite a sparse service that happened to be operated by longer trains with higher frequency shorter trains. An HST followed by a 2 hour gap then a knackered old loco hauled draughty wooden crate was quite normal between Birmingham and Leeds for example. Introducing a 4 or 5 coach train every hour probably wasn’t that much of a change in overall capacity but it did change the number of people using the routes.

Unfortunately, we are where we are today because of bad decisions made back then to not grow capacity when required.

I’d love to see the original Voyager timetable to see how it compared with the previous BR timetable. I think for example there was an hourly Leeds to Cardiff service. I maybe talking utter nonsense as usual so feel free to correct if I’m wrong

 

[JonathanH]

I’d love to see the original Voyager timetable to see how it compared with the previous BR timetable. I think for example there was an hourly Leeds to Cardiff service. I maybe talking utter nonsense as usual so feel free to correct if I’m wrong

It is here - https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/operation-princess-what-was-the-intended-timetable.220559/

Every other hour from Cardiff

 

[Bletchleyite]

I’d love to see the original Voyager timetable to see how it compared with the previous BR timetable. I think for example there was an hourly Leeds to Cardiff service. I maybe talking utter nonsense as usual so feel free to correct if I’m wrong

If I recall the capacity overall was about the same or very slightly lower.

Whoever thought that massively improving the service frequency without increasing the capacity would work was in cloud cuckoo
land, I'm sorry. It was obviously never going to work.

 

[GoneSouth]

If I recall the capacity overall was about the same or very slightly lower.

Whoever thought that massively improving the service frequency without increasing the capacity would work was in cloud cuckoo
land, I'm sorry. It was obviously never going to work.

Yes, seems absolutely insane. But it’s nice to know that we learn from our mistakes and correct them…

20 years we’ve had to fix the problem and nobody gives a ****

 

[Krokodil]

If I recall the capacity overall was about the same or very slightly lower.

Whoever thought that massively improving the service frequency without increasing the capacity would work was in cloud cuckoo
land, I'm sorry. It was obviously never going to work.

Even when the units were still on order, the professionals could see what would happen. Chris Green tried to get permission from the SRA to lengthen them but this was rejected.