Class 33
Established Member
- Joined
- 14 Aug 2009
- Messages
- 2,362
I did a journey on a Class 800 on Friday, on the 0930 Bristol Temple Meads-London Paddington service. I booked a seat in Quiet Coach A. Though as usual I didn't sit in the actual seat I was allocated, because A) I booked an airline forward facing seating, and I was allocated a backwards facing seat! and B) because I could see there was another person reserved in the seat next to me. And I prefer to have to have two seats to myself. So I initally sat in one of the unreserved airline forward facing seats. But I decided to then move to a forward facing table seat, as it offers a better view, and I didn't think this service would be very busy at this time of day on a weekday. But it turned out the train was fairly busy which was a surprise, and a guy sat opposite me on the ailse seat. Oh well! Also three or four people were talking on their mobile phones, despite this being a Quiet Coach! One woman rightly got up and told one guy who was having a business conversation on his phone, that this was a Quiet Coach! Good on her. To be fair though, there was hardly any signs in this coach that this was a Quiet Coach, apart from just a small poster on the wall at the end of the carriage, which a lot of people won't notice. GWR needs to put more signs up that this is a Quiet Coach, including vinyl stickers on the top part of the windows and stickers on the backs of seats. The carriages though are nice and airy. Though I think in the mornings and evenings when it's dark outside, the interior lighting would be too bright for me. The seats are a bit hard, but not too bad really, and not as bad as I thought they would be! I like that the seats don't have as high backs as the seats in the current GWR HST's, so I can see down the carriages a bit more and not feel like I'm in a small cubicle! The armrests are a bit narrow though! A nice pleasant journey overall. I enjoyed it. These trains are good worthy successors to the HST's on Great Western mainline services. A MUCH better successor compared to the Voyager's replacing HST's and Class 47's on the Virgin Cross-Country services.
I look forward to getting a nice long(ish) ride on one of these fine trains again sometime early next year. Though I'd like to ideally get a ride on these on one of the services that don't keep stopping at stations every 10-15 minutes!!(apart from the approx 30 minute journey between Reading and London Paddington), for instance services on occasional weekends that are diverted via Newbury and Trowbridge and run non-stop between Reading and Bath Spa, giving a nice long non-stop high speed run. Hopefully soon, more of these trains will be running at weekends, making such journeys possible.
I look forward to getting a nice long(ish) ride on one of these fine trains again sometime early next year. Though I'd like to ideally get a ride on these on one of the services that don't keep stopping at stations every 10-15 minutes!!(apart from the approx 30 minute journey between Reading and London Paddington), for instance services on occasional weekends that are diverted via Newbury and Trowbridge and run non-stop between Reading and Bath Spa, giving a nice long non-stop high speed run. Hopefully soon, more of these trains will be running at weekends, making such journeys possible.