Great Western Coffee Shop

Been travelling recently on these infernal piles of junk, and in the last few weeks they have been always been full and standing , with toilets locked out of use early in the day and nothing in the shop, a fine state of affairs if you are going to Newcastle from Taunton stood up
Is it me or has the service started to go downhill since Mr Branson departed??

Travelled for 2 1/2 hours on one today. A 4-car voyager in the new Cross Country livery between Camborne and Newton Abbot. It was really bad. Usually 5 cars but today was 4, standard class was full and standing by Truro and never emptied. Then the Air Conditioning in Coach C turned itself to full heat due to extreme passenger loads according to the TM. And to top it all off the extra 4 cars due on at Plymouth got shifted to a different diagram as another unit failed.

You have my sympathy for your bad travel experiences on Voyagers, dog box and qprrule: I tend to avoid the 0846 Nailsea to BTM for just those reasons!

However, one thing does puzzle me: why does any train 'think' that overcrowded passengers need to be baked alive? Whenever I am on a crowded train, the first thing people complain about is how stuffy it gets - so why does the train's air conditioning system then insist on pushing (smelly) hot air around???

 >:(

Sounds like Arriva are struggling a bit with their fleet of Voyagers from what you describe dog box. The sooner they get their fleet of HSTs running on cross country the better, but this is some way off.

Speaking of Voyagers, it was Mr Branson and company that scrapped HSTs on Cross Country replacing them with the smelley tin cans that run the routes today. Thats not an excuse for Arriva not to maintain them of course.

They always were crowded before,  haven't noticed any major differences between Virgin and Arriva save the lack of at seat entertainment (apparently the kit in the trains belongs to Virgin and cannot be used.)  On another note punctuality of most voyagers I've been on lately has been excellent (however that may be slack in the timetable?)

I have heard that Virgin wanted Loco-Hauled stock not DEMU's for Cross Country.

...SMELLY yes on a Voyager its that nasty public toilet aroma thats circulated, seems as if Aircon systems on trains do as they please somewhat..HSTs do have some basic system control. try standing up in the tip up seat area on a wedged 143 in the summer with all the windows open its quite pleasant really

When are Cross Country getting the HSTs? Hopefully by the summer!

Are they refurbing them?

That indeed was the Bombadier bid that won the bid for the stock. But between winning it and building them it became DEMU.

The first few will be in operation for Summer Saturday services.

Supposedly ready by MAY!!!! :D :D :D :D

Or will these be the usual "hire-ins"?

There shouldn't be any hire-ins for the May additionals, there will be for the main Summer additionals - at least, that's what I'm told.

(posting on board a unrefurbished Mk3 HST on NXEC to Newcastle)

I doubt there will be any HSTs left for "summer only" holiday services!

Nor any MkII's between 67's either the way things are going.  >:(

The XC services have got worse - I've changed my morning train as a result, got fed up with the over crowded 4 coach trains (when they used to be 5).  The FGW trains are much much better.

That certainly is a problem i've noticed aswell, it makes quite a big difference on peak services.

Remember there are no Paddington-Cardiff services on weekends.

There are literally HUNDREDs of stored Mk2s

If Mk2's are what I think they are.....

go through crewe or wolverhampton any day of the week - there are HST carriages left to rust

...Yes there are!

Virgin trains took about half of the total super voyager fleet i think (give or take about 5 or so)
Really with the XC services around bristol, it depends what time of day you travel espically if your traveling north from bristol.