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!
There will always be some kind of AdEx on Cross Country, Virgin know that their Voyagers are underspec'd for Summer Saturday services, and the H&S implications of an overfull Voyager if something goes wrong doesn't bear thinking about.
Can you confirm which departures from Newcastle are HSTs? there used to be two, I have a feeling it's only the 0944 Newquay now though. I know there are two northbound workings.