VT70
New Member
Fine with the rebranding but why can you not change your seats when making a booking like the old VT site.
Because that was a commercial deal between Virgin & Trainline that couldn't be transferred across. Also First Group use a different web supplier who don't have that function. It is being looked at to try & reinstate but will take time and of course quite a bit of money to do. Let's not forget it took Virgin almost 20 years before it introduced this. It's fairly a recent thingFine with the rebranding but why can you not change your seats when making a booking like the old VT site.
Where abouts is this screen, if it is the POS then it could take a while to update as the isn't as much encouragement to update it as customers don't see it.The coffee machine in the onboard shop on the Pendolino I’m currently travelling on still says Virgin Trains on the screen.
Avanti headrests covers have appeared on the Voyagers:
View attachment 71903
Curiously, they are quite different from the ones in Pendos.; the latter are white with a blue segment. The colour in my photo is distorted by the purple lights, but they're a sand colour
I do find it a bit odd on the side of the train. Wouldn’t be surprised if they switched to just the number eg 450 instead of VT450.I don’t think the VT code will disappear for a long time yet. GNERs is still used for the East Coast operator!
Bombardier Transportation has signed a Train Services Agreement (TSA) contract with FirstGroup and Trenitalia for the maintenance of the new joint venture, the Avanti West Coast franchise, which began operation on 8 December 2019.
Under the new contract, which will run from 12 December 2019 to 11 December 2020, Bombardier will be required to maintain a fleet of 20 Bombardier Class 221 diesel-electric multiple unit (DEMU) trains.
Improvements will include each of the five-car trainsets receiving a comprehensive interior refresh and the fitting of an upgraded Wi-Fi system at Bombardier’s Ilford depot.
This was expected, the voyagers would be kept for a few more years so their would be a contract for maintenance and bombardier makes the most sense, the voyagers were already announced to have a light refurbishmentUpdate on refurbished/rebrand of the voyagers:
looks like contrary to what we heard before, they have got a refurb programme after all
(if this has been mentioned before, apologies, do tell me)
https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/news/94523/avanti-west-coast-maintained-bombardier/
so i guess the leather first class seats are only the beginning??
Well from what i heard on the thread before, clearly not alot of people thought that the voyagers would have a refurbishment considering they are not staying.This was expected, the voyagers would be kept for a few more years so their would be a contract for maintenance and bombardier makes the most sense, the voyagers were already announced to have a light refurbishment
As of yesterday, there was still no sign of any Avanti branding/station signs at Crewe. Everything still looks like Virgin but without their name on. Also yesterday I still saw Avanti trains showing the VT lettering journey code e.g VT450 on the exterior electronic journey displays.
A lot of NR Tangomen working on tracks at Crewe Xmas day, so maybe the branding will be changed to Avanti as no passengers...
Virgin already had distinguished what was pendo and voyager routes with their route maps.I initially thought I picked up an inference that Avanti were trying to distance themselves from Voyagers but the new vestibule maps now distinguish Pendo. and Voyager operation by routes.
Perception of 'branding' is of course personal but the small details of darker place mats etc in first do give me an impression of dignity in contrast to the brashness of Virgin, but maybe that's because after 20 years the latter had become a little jaded. The repeated 'Beam' announcements (which often raised an audible grown in the carriage) have gone. Ahhhhh that's better.
Virgin already had distinguished what was pendo and voyager routes with their route maps.
you know all avanti have actually done is re colour the virgin route map right?
On an extremely trivial matter I know; but 'Uglies'.
The observant might have noticed that the packaging has changed from blue to orange-red.
The old packaging showed Lily O'Briens as County Kildare but the new ones show Bedfordshire.
An example of a change to British sourced food, perhaps?
I think Uglies are the nice chocolates they give on board in First.I recognise all the words but can't actually make any sense of them ...
What are "uglies" ?
What's changed from blue to orange-red ?
Who is Lily O'Briens ?