The 20.48 was a Pendolino. At about 21.45 you could hear the catenary slapping against the carriages...by the time our carriage reached it, or perhaps it was being dragged by the tension weights (we were either the last or second-to-last carriage...I don't remember), it was making a tremendous racket all over, sounding like it would break the carriage windows. We coasted to a halt and all the emergency power systems came on. Over the next 2.5 hours it got progressively colder inside. The crew did their best at trying to make everyone comfortable, coming through with drinks and offering free goodies from the Shop, but information was slow in coming. Eventually, a Voyager came alongside at around 00.15...somewhere about 00.30 - 00.45 (it took awhile to transfer all the passengers over one gangplank), we headed back to Crewe.
I'm relatively-new to train travel in the UK, and this was my first experience with Virgin...nothing like a baptism by fire (no pun intended)!