XC Voyager Refurbishment

[Bletchleyite]

Just look at the position of those grab handles on one of the pictures

Just the height to get me in the proverbial I think!

More importantly supposedly they make things very tight for the trolley.

 

[Cach17]

Not bad, but nothing special. At first glance it reminded me of its original Virgin red and silver livery.

I wonder how long it'll last under GBR.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not bad, but nothing special. At first glance it reminded me of its original Virgin red and silver livery.

I wonder how long it'll last under GBR.

I guess the bright colours are aimed at the Instagram generation who are probably (aside from commuters around Birmingham and Derby) its main users. However I do think it's a missed opportunity to create something a bit more, you know, professional.

I should perhaps refrain from commenting (but won't) that the colour scheme on the end vehicles is extremely reminiscent of Ouigo Train Classique, a fairly mediocre budget operation by SNCF using knackered old Belgian coaches (which interestingly have a small amount of heritage in common with Voyagers) and on other lines knackered old Corail coaches. The trouble is that the price is very much not budget. Not a good look.

Image of a Belgian Ouigo Train Classique at Mons station:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouigo#/media/Fichier:station_Bergen_2024_13.jpg

 

[Bayum]

Very smart. What is happening with cars 2 and 3? Are they grey?

 

[CR165022]

I hope they at least add a curve or something between the carriages if not the original shapes design, because having the ends in plain pink and then the middle cars in grey with no transition between them at all doesn't look that great in my opinion.

 

[802020]

Glad im not alone on this. The colour transition without the proposed pattern (which looked good) looks absolutely terrible. Hopefully they come back and say it’s unfinished…

 

[dk1]

Nothing on the refurbished voyager yet.

But not a great day to attract media attention anyway with all these :
5 cancellations
8 delays
14 accessibility updates
10 station updates
7 formation updates
6 catering updates

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That’s not too bad for a network the size of XC though.

 

[GilfachFargoed]

Hopefully with the more ergonomic design of the seats and the seating arrangement, they have been able to squeeze more seats in. Hopefully more people can find somewhere to sit instead of being crammed in the vestibule or stuck in the accessible toilet.

I am led to believe (by my mole in XC) that the layout will be the same - ripping out / re-configuring / replacing an elderly reservation system is more than the budget would stretch to.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Hopefully with the more ergonomic design of the seats

<laughs>

The LEAN is thicker backed than the seats they replaced. That's I expect why Northern binned them off for the 195/331 despite people saying they were comfortable - the airline seats would have been so tight a 150/2 would have looked comfortable, and it's quite possible that the priority seats would have been noncompliant.

 

[Trainman40083]

Just the height to get me in the proverbial I think!

More importantly supposedly they make things very tight for the trolley.

Very tight for the trolley, I understand.

 

[FGWHST43009]

When is it expected to enter service? I have two long XC journeys coming up in April, so I might get to try it out, although it's a 1 in 68 chance I'll get it.

 

[GooseGuy]

I am led to believe (by my mole in XC) that the layout will be the same - ripping out / re-configuring / replacing an elderly reservation system is more than the budget would stretch to.

Absolutely typical if that is the case.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Feb 2026 ==

When is it expected to enter service? I have two long XC journeys coming up in April, so I might get to try it out, although it's a 1 in 68 chance I'll get it.

I believe the unit will be running before April

 

[Bletchleyite]

Absolutely typical if that is the case.

It was the same with the Pendolino. Fortunately that meant more legroom rather than cramming in more seats!

 

[dk1]

It was the same with the Pendolino. Fortunately that meant more legroom rather than cramming in more seats!

Every cloud & all that…

 

[py_megapixel]

Every cloud & all that…

Although in this case, as Bletchleyite has pointed out a few times before, we are getting the worst of both worlds - a reduction in legroom, but no extra seats to show for it.

Or at least that's what it looks like from the photos... I certainly hope I am proven wrong when I encounter one in person.

 

[thomalex]

I don't understand why this is receiving a new livery giving the imminent GBR transition.

I can understand receiving the existing one as the GBR livery has yet to be fully defined, but to create a new one? Seems wasteful to me

 

[fgwrich]

Because XC will A, be the last operation to go into GBR, and B, the official livery has not been decided or signed off yet. Mutterings around Westminster was that nobody liked the GBR interim launch livery and was described as something akin to “GBNews on Rails”.

The refurbishment is also part of a £75M investment in these by Beacon Rail.

I don't understand why this is receiving a new livery giving the imminent GBR transition.

I can understand receiving the existing one as the GBR livery has yet to be fully defined, but to create a new one? Seems wasteful to me

See above. Given that GBR doesn’t effectively know what GBR is yet, it’s not really surprising. Plus, like the interiors, after 25/26 years (yes they are that old) of daily battering they needed a repaint too.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't understand why this is receiving a new livery giving the imminent GBR transition.

I can understand receiving the existing one as the GBR livery has yet to be fully defined, but to create a new one? Seems wasteful to me

I'm kind of surprised they haven't done them in a neutral base colour with XC logos stuck on, e.g. light/dark blue, red or a simple grey. That way vinylling GBR over the top is easy when the time comes.

 

[Bob85]

Bit of a shame that (I assume) the headlights haven't allowed for a non-yellow front to be added.

Other than that, the new livery is no worse than the current one in my view.

 

[jw]

Very smart. What is happening with cars 2 and 3? Are they grey?

Yes, intermediate coaches are grey. See post #425 earlier in the thread for the paint scheme mockup over the full length.

 

[43096]

Although in this case, as Bletchleyite has pointed out a few times before, we are getting the worst of both worlds - a reduction in legroom, but no extra seats to show for it.

The flip side of that is a significant increase in comfort over the abysmal original seats.

 

[Bornin1980s]

A few more photos of the interior courtesy of Nodrog and a video of Alstom / Rail Express:

2 x External images of 220033 in its new XC livery
1 x First Class internal image showing the new seats and colour scheme
1 x Standard Class image showing the new seats and internal colour scheme
1 x Cab image

https://x.com/railexpress/status/2021223125849977041?s=46

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Has the cab been refurbished in any way? Also, is that a floppy disc drive?

 

[fgwrich]

A few more photos of the interior courtesy of Nodrog and a video of Alstom / Rail Express:

2 x External images of 220033 in its new XC livery
1 x First Class internal image showing the new seats and colour scheme
1 x Standard Class image showing the new seats and internal colour scheme
1 x Cab image

https://x.com/railexpress/status/2021223125849977041?s=46

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In the background of the internal first class image, is that another unit being refurbed or are the carriages split in the depot?

Yes, I’m not sure how many are onsite at the moment but another can be made out to the right of 033 in the first image, albeit unrefurbished / painted.

 

[Bayum]

Yes, intermediate coaches are grey. See post #425 earlier in the thread for the paint scheme mockup over the full length.

Yes but then there were comments suggesting that the transition to the grey happened earlier on the driving vehicles so I wasn’t sure if that was the correct mock up.

 

[Russel]

Looking at the interior photos as well as exterior, I really like this, it's modern and smart, fair play to XC.

 

[dk1]

Looking at the interior photos as well as exterior, I really like this, it's modern and smart, fair play to XC.

I totally concur with you.

 

[Russel]

I totally concur with you.

It's been a long time coming!

I just hope that XC look after the units rather than run them into the ground.

 

[thenorthern]

Looks like they have finally got rid of the at seat radios or the covers for where they were. A good idea at the time but soon at seat radios became obsolete. The Charging point is also more accessible now and there are 2 of them. The old seats on the voyagers seemed to have had a lot harder life than the Avanti voyagers. I often found the CrossCountry seats were often dented.

A big question I have seen on Facebook when the new train was unveiled is have they sorted out the toilet problem. Does anyone know if this has been sorted with the refurbishment? I also assume that the tilt system hasn't and won't be reactivated.

 

[Russel]

A big question I have seen on Facebook when the new train was unveiled is have they sorted out the toilet problem. Does anyone know if this has been sorted with the refurbishment? I also assume that the tilt system hasn't and won't be reactivated.

By toilet problem, do you mean the smell? If so, that hasn't been a problem for at least 15 years, it's just used as a lazy insult these days.

Tilt system was also removed on the XC 221s over 15 years ago.

 

[fgwrich]

By toilet problem, do you mean the smell? If so, that hasn't been a problem for at least 15 years, it's just used as a lazy insult these days.

Tilt system was also removed on the XC 221s over 15 years ago.

Can’t see the tilt system being re-activated at all. Aside from a short section, it was never widely rolled out across the VXC network and therefore re-instating it wouldn’t be worth it. It would just result in more to go wrong and increased maintenance costs.