Recent content by Mogz

Put in the Avanti seats and seating layout and you have a winning combination with the IETs IMHO. I’d love to see them operating CrossCountry services (preferably with 9 coaches). Bi mode would also eliminate using diesel under the wires. A tri-mode with third-rail shoes would also eliminate...

Given this white elephant is now only going from London to Birmingham (already served by WCML and Chiltern) you might as well turn it into a commuter railway serving places such as Aylesbury, Brackley etc. Might actually get more ridership that way!

I take it all back… Got a table seat on a refurbished version today and due to the higher table the experience is much more spacious and comfortable. I hope that when the ex-Avanti ones come to be refurbished they stick to their mostly-tables layout in Coach D…

We know it’s going to be branded “Great British Railways | West Coast” But given there are also going to be “Great British Railways | Southern” and “Great British Railways | Great Western” It would have been nice to have: “Great British Railways | London Midland” Or “Great British...

Definitely. It had the real feel of a friendly local railway. For instance, if you forgot to pay for your parking, the first time they would just put a note on your windscreen inviting you to come to the ticket office to pay up, rather than slapping you with a fine. The trains had a trolley in...

GNER- they really set the standard with a dining car on nearly every train.

Very true. The Grammer is a very comfortable seat for modern stock. For me, the “least worst” option for modern (installed in the last few years) seats are those used across the Avanti fleet imho.

On a 4 car refurbished unit now outside Reading. Still packed and standing as usual. More carriages still needed. Refurbishment does nothing for overcrowding. Oh, and the new seats are actually LESS comfortable than the ones they replaced. The en****tification of everything continues…

Not even those nice big windows? Coach D on the Avanti version shows just how nice they could have been…

Yes. It’s a pity the plan to put in a pantograph car for working under the wires never came to fruition, nor the Mk5-style “loco at one end” push pull option that was considered. The difference when travelling in a Voyager carriage when the under-floor engine is not working is quite...

Voyagers had the potential to be a great train. If they were 7-9 cars with better leg room and a better mix of table to airline seats they would have been wonderful. As it is, if you’re anything over above average height the leg-room is purgatorial and they’re often packed to the gills...

Since recently travelling on a SWR Class 159 and remembering that train seats actually used to have cushions, all modern train seating is a disappointment.

A friend once saw “West Kirby” as a destination on a 777 set at Hooton but wasn’t travelling on it so couldn’t say whether “calling at Hadlow Road, Neston South, Heswall, Thurstaston, Caldy and Kirby Park” was in the PIS!

I’ve seen XC trains that are packed to the gills and people standing in the aisle of first class being told that they will have to squeeze back into the vestibules or get off, or else be charged a full first class fare. 1776881108 I’m so very glad that due to a change in my work I now visit...

As a regular user of the Borderlands Line (Bidston-Wrexham) I remember in the late 90s/early 2000s finding it rather amusing that the Merseyrail timetable map depicted the Wirral peninsula as pointing up, with the line running vertically, whereas the North Western Trains/ First North Western...