class 168

[387star]

Just a quick point that two 168 units I was on today made a terrible drilling noise. Anyone else noticed this? Quite unpleasent. By the way Anyone know why there are two types of seating on the train? I was also unlucky in that my voyager internal doors growled like a dog! Another violently rattled when closed

 

[fgwrich]

Welcome to the Wonderful / Woeful* World of Bombardier!

*delete as appropriate!

Seems to be a common problem with Bombarby built stock - usualy and by the sounds of it, it's the pannels rattling again with every vibration - As for the Voyager's internal doors....Well, that's just a Voyager!

 

[RPM]

Re. the two types of seating, the Chiltern senior management tested various seating types when the 168/0s were on the drawing board but there was a split in opinion between two of the seat types, so they decided that if they were split on which was the best seat then the public probably would be too - so why not have a mixture of both?

 

[387star]

Interesting. Nice to know some TOCs care about the seating!

I'm just surprised the chiltern 168 issue hasn't come up on here before as it was on two seperate units and very intrusive.

I was on a Bournemouth-Edinburgh train today. I know I could check the times but does anyone know off the top of their head how many trains go to Edinburgh? I presume this is a very infrequent service from Bournemouth.

PS the DFT is making a number of announcements lately. Presumably an agreement about Voyager extension will eventually be reached! Hopefully Virgins Birmingham-Scotland trains can be transferred over.

Thought: Perhaps DB can pinch HSTs from Grand Central in return for Voyagers.

 

[sprinterguy]

PS the DFT is making a number of announcements lately. Presumably an agreement about Voyager extension will eventually be reached! Hopefully Virgins Birmingham-Scotland trains can be transferred over.

Thought: Perhaps DB can pinch HSTs from Grand Central in return for Voyagers.

Not very likely though, GCs' HSTs are considerably different in formation and length to Crosscountrys', plus for as long as Bombardier are still undertaking the maintenance contract for the 220 and 221 fleets at Central Rivers then there'd be no benefit to sending a handful of Voyagers to GC.

 

[150001]

The 168/0s like 001, 003 etc are very noisy and do cause some vibration but it isn't that bad. The 168/1 and /2 are fine. Just the 0's but there is nothing wrong with the 168s; comfy and quick.

 

[MCR247]

I was on a Bournemouth-Edinburgh train today. I know I could check the times but does anyone know off the top of their head how many trains go to Edinburgh? I presume this is a very infrequent service from Bournemouth.

Most likely something to do with the engineering works so trains were diverted via Lichfield.

 

[387star]

Ah I see.

Where is Lichfield is it near Derby?

 

[MidnightFlyer]

No. Between Birmingham and Tamworth, alternative route for when the line via Tamworth is shut. It is the northern half of the CrossCity line.

 

[Mojo]

As others have said, service changes due to engineering work.

The normal services are Bournemouth - Manchester via Coventry, Reading to Newcastle via Doncaster, Bristol (with a few coming from the South West) to Manchester, and Plymouth (with a few coming from Penzance) to Edinburgh (with a few continuing to Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen).

 

[MCR247]

There were also no through services to/from Nottingham from Birmingham which wasn't good and it basically took me an hour longer to get home! :x

But that isn't the most annoying thing because if the diversion made the journey an hour longer, I'd survive, but the fact that of that hour:
- 30 minutes was spent stood at Derby because of XC putting on poor connections
- 20 minutes sat at Lichfield City

meant I was not happy!