As a user of South Western railway, its a shame that First are taking over Virgin. When first took over the south western franchise, I was quite happy as south west trains needed a change. But so far First haven't delivered much, some Desiros have a different interior, many of the 159s have new livery but old interior, and the 442s planned for May 2018 still haven't gone into service yet.
Virgin on the other hand was a good operator, and I think First might ruin its legacy. The new idea of calls at Motherwell is not a good idea, Motherwell already gets some morning and afternoon services, calling at Motherwell will make the service slower by at least 10 minutes, as I doubt the Pendolinos will go over 100mph between there and Glasgow, and the calls will have to fit in with Scotrail suburban services. Knowing First, the refurbishment will take ages, not to mention First aren't in the best financial state, and many of the networker turbos at GWR still haven't been refurbished. The new units will probably not come into service until 2022 aswell.
The Dft might have made another stupid decision that will worsen train services for passengers, but I hope that First Trenitalia will do as good of a job as Virgin, Trenitalia has run the c2c quite well, so hopefully the same can be done here.
Trenitalia and the Pendolinos are a good combo!
(would be their first time I think?)
