Cross country garbage.

[Goatboy]

This may be a revolutionary thought but why don't they move the trolley to the other portion of the train at one of the stops enroute

They didn't have time to do that as they were too busy explaining there were two trains coupled together :roll:

 

[wintonian]

They didn't have time to do that as they were too busy explaining there were two trains coupled together :roll:

If they would give us double Voyagers (preferable to the trolley) there would be plenty of time to move it at Reading and New Street.

 

[Bristol Rover]

I too loathe XC in general, and in particular, the voyagers. 4 coach trains for intercity travel (and it's basically only 2.5 coaches as one's first class and the vestibules are enormous) is ludicrous. The trains are cramped and noisy, and the electronic reservations mean you spend ages waiting for it to scroll through to find out where the reservation starts and ends, holding up passengers behind you in the aisle. The quiet carriage is a waste of space as it's so busy it will always have people using their mobiles and listening to music.

Their First Class service is overpriced and a disgrace. More often than not there is no catering - the trolley simply often never appears.

If I'm travelling to the Westcountry I'll try and use FGW HSTs. There's a service at 11-47 which closely follows the XC 11-44. It goes via Weston which adds about 15 minutes to the journey but the train is twice as long and everyone gets the 11-44, so it's lovely and empty.

 

[yorksrob]

I had a decent enough return journey on XC about 4 years ago on the way on holiday. Voyagers both ways - journey south was a bit busy, but the trip back North was very comfortably loaded.

More recently I've gone via London (due, often to price), however, If I end up holidaying that way again, I think I may go by XC again (this time on a 125 though) just for a change and come back via London.

 

[YorkshireRider]

Think you hit the nail on the head yorksrob, the price, its a sham the only way XC can control passenger numbers is by making too expensive, but i guess there is no other way in the short term.

 

[HSTEd]

Do we actually have a breakdown on the costs of running an InterCity train?

How linear is the overall relationship?
Clearly variable track access charges, stock leasing costs and fuel costs scale relatively linearly but staff costs and "path" based track access charges will not.

It would be interesting to see how much extra it would cost to run all XC services as single units that are ten cars long (assuming stock was available) with only a single crew and thus how many extra tickets would have to be sold at whatever price to make it worthwhile.

 

[Goatboy]

Think you hit the nail on the head yorksrob, the price, its a sham the only way XC can control passenger numbers is by making too expensive, but i guess there is no other way in the short term.

The trouble is the lack of capacity is a problem entirely of the previous franchise holders making. Replacing a bunch of 7-8 coach trains with Voyagers which have, after you take out the places you can't sit, far far less capacity and then saying 'Well now we've got overcrowding so we need to raise fares to manage demand' is just bonkers.

Imagine if your local shop said 'Well we've decided to get rid of half the bread we sell but in order to manage demand we'll then be forced to double the price'. It's a similar principle.

Compared with the average service 10 years ago XC is now more crowded *and* more expensive. They desperately need more trains and at this point I'm not even sure I care what they are as long as they've got seats.

The Voyager is a fairly average train arguably unsuitable for long distance but once you fit 7 coaches of passengers into one it becomes a nightmare. Any train would be awful under those conditions. I cannot remember the last time I used a Southbound XC on a Sunday without needing to engage in some sort of bizarre test of dexterity and skill in order to negotiate the hoards of people sitting on the floor in the vestibules which if nothing else has to be a safety risk surely? I accept that many of these people are morons and continue to sit on the floor in the doorway once seats become available, but even so...

By contrast every time I need to travel to London - a journey of more than 3 hours - I'm able to buy a reasonably priced Advance Single, often 1st Class, and then sit on a fairly plesent, well refurbished and usually (sure, sometimes its busy) comfortably loaded HST courtesy of FGW. And it costs me less than an equivilent journey (infact a shorter one in terms of distance) on XC.

And I thought London trains were supposed to be the higher priced ones?

 

[WestRiding]

Nothing wrong with Voyagers! Oh dear. First of all, who thought it was a bright idea to replace loco-hauled 6/7 coach cross country services with a 4 car coca-cola can, 3 cars really, as 1 coach it empty first class? The seats areof the sort that try pushing you out. There is no leg room for anyone over 5.9ft. They are noisy. They smell of chemical toilets. The seats are not aligned properly to the windows. They are generally cramped inside. The reservasion system in a pile of poo, you sit it a vacant seat, then two stations later, unbeknown to you, you find yourself been turfed out, as the seat has now become reserved, what was wrong with a paper ticket, showing where the seat is reserved to and from? They are probably suitable for such as Trans Pennine services, but not for Aberdeen to the South West, i would not use the train for such a journey, knowing that it will probably be a voyager.

 

[Rich McLean]

On the 1403 BHM to GLC it was F & S until SHF, nose to nose in the vestibules.

 

[Roverman]

Currently on the 16:27 XC from Piccadilly to Stafford. There is no refreshments but 3 staff to check tickets/sell upgrades. Toilets stink already and there's just a general feeling that all they wanna do is take your money!

 

[calc7]

Currently on the 16:27 XC from Piccadilly to Stafford. There is no refreshments but 3 staff to check tickets/sell upgrades. Toilets stink already and there's just a general feeling that all they wanna do is take your money!

If you're at Piccadilly early and on an "open" ticket it's not a bad shout to get the xx15 Euston train as far as Stoke so that you only have to suffer 15mins of the Voyager crush.

 

[Roverman]

Too late currently somewhere between Macclesfield and Stoke! But will remember that for next time!

 

[Rich McLean]

Currently on the 16:27 XC from Piccadilly to Stafford. There is no refreshments but 3 staff to check tickets/sell upgrades. Toilets stink already and there's just a general feeling that all they wanna do is take your money!

The toilet I was standing next (forced up) to was out of service, an according other PAX, all the bogs were the same. I was glad when I got off at sheffield and jumped on a Northern 158, then at Doncaster, on a East Coast HST, which was also busy, but 9 coaches cope a lot better than 5

 

[Roverman]

Has anyone ever taken XC to task on their shoddy yet uncheap service? And was the Virgin offering worse than this?

 

[Rich McLean]

I feel like writing a letter that the service I was on should of been a double voyager or a HST. Even then it would of been packed at we left several behind at Tamworth and Derby

 

[Roverman]

They left people behind?! How does that work if they have Advance tickets with Seat Reservations?!

 

[Goatboy]

Has anyone ever taken XC to task on their shoddy yet uncheap service? And was the Virgin offering worse than this?

Virgin was worse - at least Arriva have re-introduced HST's. It is Virgin who are to blame for the mess as it was Virgin who replaced the 7 and 8 coach trains with 4 and 5 coach DMU's and then figured that jacking the price up might be the best way to solve the resulting overcrowding problems.

 

[Roverman]

But CrossCountry have been working the franchise for sometime now surely they could have lowered the prices if that was an issue?

As for the HSTs I've sadly yet to see one on the WCML.

I should add that I only seem to have issues with XC when I go to Manchester, when I go to BHM they seem to be a completely different service!

 

[Simon11]

If you lower the prices then surely there would be even more over crowding..... The dft need to sort the issue out(after dealing with their other numerous issues and faults) and order some new stock.

 

[sprinterguy]

As for the HSTs I've sadly yet to see one on the WCML.

That's because Crosscountry's HSTs are used solely on the North East to South West corridor. They haven't been used on any services from Manchester since the summer of 2010.

 

[Roverman]

Ahh thanks for that info Sprinterguy.

 

[Goatboy]

But CrossCountry have been working the franchise for sometime now surely they could have lowered the prices if that was an issue?

But that doesn't solve the capacity issue. You need capacity first.

Virgin took away the capacity then increased the prices - if you wish to undo it you must first add the capacity back in.

 

[Roverman]

Could they not be forced to put more coaches on the train?

 

[wintonian]

But that doesn't solve the capacity issue. You need capacity first.

Virgin took away the capacity then increased the prices - if you wish to undo it you must first add the capacity back in.

The trouble is sometimes profit (for example) is unavoidable, if you need to raise prices above cost in order to manage demand the you create a surplus whether you like it or not. A position the board and shareholders at XC/ Arriva are unlikely to be particularly unhappy about.

Of-course lowering prices to the point in which demand is unmanageable would be disastrous with the added pressure on the infrastructure (having to cope with more the it was designed for), the ability to provide the full or even effective service as well as the damage to the operating company and dwindling confidence in its management board. At the extreme the state may then have no option but to take over the running and tackle these issues itself.

 

[Eagle]

Could they not be forced to put more coaches on the train?

Which coaches would these be?

 

[Goatboy]

Which is of course yet another problem with the concept of a privatised railway rather than a publically operated service. Profit should go into improving services or reducing fares but, and rightly so given the current system, instead it goes towards maxmising shareholder value as this is the legal duty of a limited company.

 

[wintonian]

Which is of course yet another problem with the concept of a privatised railway rather than a publically operated service. Profit should go into improving services or reducing fares but, and rightly so given the current system, instead it goes towards maxmising shareholder value as this is the legal duty of a limited company.

What neoliberals (and others in favour of free market economies) seem to forget is that in his paper 'The Wealth of Nations' Adam Smith (warned against such things as cartels and monopolies in this new economic model he was proposing.

 

[Roverman]

Which coaches would these be?

Well Coaches B and E for a start, they always seem to be A,C,D,F!

 

[wintonian]

Well Coaches B and E for a start, they always seem to be A,C,D,F!

and if you would like to tell us where you found these spare coaches?

 

[Roverman]

Are you trying to tell me these trains were made without Coaches B and E?