cactustwirly
Established Member
Virgin Trains
Weekend First - Super Voyager
Warning: Some large images
G’day, y’all and welcome to trip report, this time with a company real close to my heart. That’s right, it’s a Virgin Trains report! However, today I move away from the beautiful gems that are Pendolinos and explore the whole new world that is the Super Voyager. As soon as I was told we would be briefly visiting Wales to visit family, my brain instantly clicked and I thought - DING! Virgin Trains!
In this report I travel on a Saturday evening from Crewe in Cheshire East, north-west through Chester and along the North Wales Coast to Bangor (Gwynedd) in North Wales, to try out the Voyager weekend first and see how it compares to that of the Pendolino.
I started my first class journey at Crewe having enjoyed a day of standard class rover travel. The first class lounge is small but very comfortable for sure, though I might add that the BBC News is played extremely loudly. Apart from that minor drawback, the first class lounge is a pleasant, relaxing haven that makes a welcome change from Crewe’s rather dark platforms - which aren’t to my liking. Here, why not take a peep?
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It’s unstaffed and in my opinion rather lonely.
The train set was Bombardier liveried 221115 alongside 221118 on the rear, arriving perfectly on time and giving me something to smile about as those were two of my few remaining winner Voyagers. I boarded the train and was pleased to find the reservation system working nicely. Score! This is the 221 Reservation System btwnice and clear. I find the Voyagers always have had a better reservation system than the Pendolinos.
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Eagerly anticipating what this new experience in the wonderful world of Virgin Trains would entail, I sat down my one facing one seat - it may be worth noting I was travelling on my own today (wah!) as all of my siblings decided to be social and go hang out with our cousins instead; I am a very social person but hey, where a Virgin Train is concerned, that comes first!
Here are the Voyager first class seats. Unlike the Pendolino first seats which are moquette, these are leather - it looks nice and it fairly comfortable but unlike those on LNER I’m not sure they’re real... but they do have a good recline and plenty of legroom. Plug sockets are available.
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The train set off for Chester next stop and I enjoyed a quiet relaxing ride as we branched off of the main West Coast Main Line and I said goodbye (not actually that would look really weird and sad haha) to electrification. The train split at Chester and by then I was feeling a little peckish so I went to the shop to collect my meal.
That’s right: on weekends there is no at seat service on Voyager operated trains. (This is not the case for Pendolinos)
The choice was more limited today due to it being a weekend, I chose a ham salad roll over the quinoa salad. This came in a box which was put into a convenient paper bag with cookies, pretzels and a little chocolate thing. When I took it out after returning to my table I noticed there was also a fruit scone with jam and clotted cream in the box that contained the roll! So weekend it may have been, but I had myself a coolio feast, man! I have a pretty poor appetite so I couldn’t finish it all, instead I saved the full-of-calories cookies and chocolate for another day.
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I was really pleasantly surprised with receiving such a large amount of food on a weekend! It was especially nice as it was seven pm and I’d not eaten a proper meal that day, having been too busy on Pendolino trips between Wigan and Crewe, and Merseyrail jaunts between Chester and Bache, etc.
The ride was very comfortable and fairly smooth for a Voyager too, not many people boarded at the North Wales stations. I plugged my headphones in and listened to music while enjoying as much of the Welsh scenery as I could in the dark. The Wi-Fi worked well and was fast, not very compatible with Snapchat or Instagram mind you, but it was good and I had no problems with it.
I got a bit thirsty at Rhyl, so made use of the free bottles of water which were lying everywhere. As well as this pile on a seat there were two large racks of water bottles as well!
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Eek what hosed quality that photo is! I’m so sorry!
Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and soon a very quiet train and a rather tired (not had much sleep the night before haha) but very relaxed TT-ONR-NRN arrived into Bangor station, on time.
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221115 Bombardier Voyager at Bangor.
Here is my verdict:
Way better than the Voyager weekend first class service you’d get with CrossCountry, plus the seat was also more comfortable. You get a very good amount of food for a weekend too!
However, I prefer the overall Intercity atmosphere of the Pendolinos, plus the traditional moquette seating. The cheap weekend first class upgrade is well worth doing on a Super Voyager, for both short and long journeys - however, if I were travelling from London to the Lakes and Scotland, I would definitely prefer to travel on a Pendolino. The carriages are much longer, there’s more of them, nicer moquette seats, at seat service and reading lamps. The reading lamps aren’t liked by everyone but I like them - nice gesture in my opinion! They don’t have them on Voyagers. Let me know what you prefer!
Well dudes that’s all for today but please feel free to check out my review of LNER’s weekday evening meal service, featuring a rather nice at seat dinner of salmon. That’s coming up in a few days!!!
Thanks for reading and until next time
Lates
- Recline
- Plump for a Pendolino over a Voyager
- Put jam on your free scone but chuck the clotted cream away, it’s fatty and GROSS.
Great trip report, shame you didn't do the superior WAG express instead!
PS: Throwing away clotted cream is a capital offence!
, throwing away clotted cream 
. You can't have a Cream Tea without CREAM you know