• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

LNER vs VTEC

Status
Not open for further replies.

Masboroughlad

Established Member
Joined
2 Mar 2011
Messages
1,560
Location
Midlands
I have not travelled on the East Coast for a while. How do LNER compare with their predecessor? Any changes other than brand or have some of the less popular changes been reversed?
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

takno

Established Member
Joined
9 Jul 2016
Messages
5,038
They seem to be almost manically committed to getting the trolley down standard now, although to be fair that's continuing a trend that was already starting to happen under VTEC. Overall though, same trains, same staff same management, same absolutely insane unusable ticket machines.
 

ChiefPlanner

Established Member
Joined
6 Sep 2011
Messages
7,768
Location
Herts
The staff , IMHO, seem a bit happier ......(despite some challenging non related to LNER operating issues) , no doubt having yet another rough evening as we speak.
 

bussnapperwm

Established Member
Joined
18 May 2014
Messages
1,506
One advantage of LNER is that it is now FOIable so should they do something disadvantageous to the travelling public, they are more accountable
 

MikeWM

Established Member
Joined
26 Mar 2010
Messages
4,382
Location
Ely
My first journey with LNER last week was very positive - I very stupidly managed to drop my advance ticket out of my pocket at Peterborough, crossed the bridge to get my train, then realised I no longer had a ticket...

Retraced my steps and found the ticket lying there on the platform, but my train was well gone.

On the off chance, I asked at the desk by the gateline, and was delighted when they stamped my ticket to be passed and told me to get the next train. I got to Leeds only 30 later than I should, and without being over £50 worse off if I’d bought a new ticket.

Would that have happened with VTEC? Quite possibly - it has been a while since I’ve done something so silly - but it made a great impression for LNER.

Only other journey so far was punctual throughout, which after a week travelling around NW England was quite a novelty!
 

CaptainHaddock

Established Member
Joined
10 Feb 2011
Messages
2,206
It's certainly noticeable that so far at least LNER don't seem to be having Seat Sale offers like VTEC used to do round about this time of year.
 

cuccir

Established Member
Joined
18 Nov 2009
Messages
3,659
It's certainly noticeable that so far at least LNER don't seem to be having Seat Sale offers like VTEC used to do round about this time of year.

They did give out a lot of 30% off voucher codes when they were first launched, which are valid till end October.
 

GrimShady

Established Member
Joined
13 Dec 2016
Messages
1,740
The staff are much happier it would seem however it will be a long time before they repair the damage done by VTEC. I hope the oboard service will return to its former glory.

They need to drop that stupid Azuma nonsense!
 

route101

Established Member
Joined
16 May 2010
Messages
10,595
They seem to be almost manically committed to getting the trolley down standard now, although to be fair that's continuing a trend that was already starting to happen under VTEC. Overall though, same trains, same staff same management, same absolutely insane unusable ticket machines.

Something you see very rarely on VTWC.
 

Journeyman

Established Member
Joined
16 Apr 2014
Messages
6,295
I took a return journey from Edinburgh to London in August, both first class in HSTs. Still a lot of Virgin branding on the set I used outwards, pretty much all LNER on the one I took back (along with absolutely shocking ride quality, the worst I've ever experienced). Other than that, no real change, although I did notice an odd patch of plastic covering parts of the large vinyl pictures on the toilet walls - I realised it was covering the Virgin hot air balloon in the corner of the picture!
 

JB1601

Member
Joined
4 Aug 2011
Messages
58
Use LNER most weeks and no, very little change thus far. Impressed how quickly the Virgin brand was able to be removed - only place I see it regularly as the very small one on the staff uniforms and on the overhead reservation screens.

Speaking of which - these are a bit hit and miss at the moment - they always seem to be on, but sometimes seem to be displaying complete nonsense. Thankfully most services still have the old paper reservations but some announcements would be nice if we are to still completely ignore them, because the average passenger won't know they are still a work in progress.
 

Butts

Veteran Member
Joined
16 Jan 2011
Messages
11,323
Location
Stirlingshire
Is the Free Scotch still flowing at the same rate in 1st Class ?

Lets get the priorities correct :E
 

Taunton

Established Member
Joined
1 Aug 2013
Messages
10,018
I did notice an odd patch of plastic covering parts of the large vinyl pictures on the toilet walls - I realised it was covering the Virgin hot air balloon in the corner of the picture!
This sort of thing is just like the Ancient Egyptian Pharoahs, who would have the names of their predecessors chiselled off stone monuments.
 

BRX

Established Member
Joined
20 Oct 2008
Messages
3,600
They did give out a lot of 30% off voucher codes when they were first launched, which are valid till end October.
How does one get hold of those? Are they for previous VTEC customers only?
 

CMRail

Member
Joined
3 Sep 2018
Messages
163
Location
Gloucester
Nothings really changed, staff haven’t changed, passenger charter, interiors, catering, trains used, timetable, journey times, twitter feed are all the same apart from the fact they now all use LNER.
 

pt_mad

Established Member
Joined
26 Sep 2011
Messages
2,960
Interestingly the new travel centre opened at Berwick today. The old red windows have gone from the concourse and are replaced with a walk in two tone light/dark grey travel centre as smart as a bank where the old cafe was. No red now which is surprising given that LNER uses red as well as the outgoing VTEC did.

Maybe dark grey was chosen because it's on some of the LNER posters and ads? (The ones with a diaganol stripe on, one half red the other grey)? Colours look very suitable for the old East Coast branding imo!

Also I'm not sure why VTEC couldnt remove all the Virgin badges from trains before their last days. They had notice of the day of ending and other Tocs seem to have managed it.
 
Last edited:

FQTV

Member
Joined
27 Apr 2012
Messages
1,067
Also I'm not sure why VTEC couldnt remove all the Virgin badges from trains before their last days. They had notice of the day of ending and other Tocs seem to have managed it.

Virgin still has 600 tonne, 125 mph mobile branding billboards running up and down the country.

If (say) Amazon wanted their name flashing past commuters the length of the country, they’d be charged a fortune for the privilege.

There was no incentive or demand for Virgin to de-brand; they were let off despite it being a franchise requirement.

Stagecoach may have burned their bond, but Virgin Group must be chuckling at the value that they’re still extracting from the enterprise.
 

JN114

Established Member
Joined
28 Jun 2005
Messages
3,346
One advantage of LNER is that it is now FOIable so should they do something disadvantageous to the travelling public, they are more accountable

Are they? Despite popular belief LNER is still a private company.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top