[*]They're very small for the routes they serve which can lead to overcrowding, especially Aberdeen to Penzance
maybe some of the technical issues may be more bearable if you only had to put up with them on shorter journeys rather than maybe being crazy enough to ride the trip from Aberdeen to Penzance
Worth remember as well that very few passengers travel very long-distances and the "average" passenger journey is probably about 90 minutes.
I'm with Chris here - the "Aberdeen to Penzance" argument is seriously over-egged by enthusiasts.
I mean, I don't think that London Underground stock would be ideal if I were travelling from Cockfosters to Heathrow Airport, but I don't think enough people do that full journey either.
XC journeys are more about things like Manchester to Birmingham or Sheffield to Leeds - hence the big scrums you get at those stations.
At the risk of adding something
new to a "Voyagers aren't very good" thread, I wonder why so many enthusiasts accept the 1/3 2/3 door positions on TPE (due to the large number of people doing city-to-city journeys) but any discussion of XC stock replacement always requires end doors?
[*]They have a few toilet problems with smell that spreads throughout the train and maybe cause vomiting (they are nicknamed "Vomiters" sometimes)
The fact that a type of traction attracts a childish derisory name from some enthusiasts really doesn't tell you anything about the quality of that train (it tells you a lot about the maturity of aforementioned enthusiasts though...)
[*]They, being Diesel Electric Multiple Units, are noisy and cause uncomfortable vibrations for passengers when they engines are right under the carriage floors
Is it nosier than a 222? Because I don't see the same complaints about their underfloor engines.
Considering the stock that they replaced had about eight to ten coaches per train
Agreed.
There's a lot of revisionism on these threads - I'd love to know which XC services were ten coaches long day in day out - maybe there was a summer service to Newquay once a year - I remember some five/six coach services through Yorkshire, I remember half a coach given over to a guards' van - but every time the subject comes up those days appear to be halcyon times where the XC services were the longest InterCity services in the UK (bearing in mind the number of seven coach HSTs at the time etc).
If you'd thought of searching for Voyager in this forum you'd see this subject comes up about three or four times a year, if not more often.
I'm struggling to think of anything new that could ever be said...
Given that there's a very busy thread currently debating future uses for 442s (and was one last week about renationalisation), I feel custom bound to bring up the "Master Thread" idea that I always trot out at such occasions.
Some topics get done over and over - we'd save a lot of time if we kept those arguments together to avoid going round and round.
I am sure they are quick, fast, strong, reliable, efficient and cheaper to run than the alternatives
They are, which is part of the problem - there's no real alternative (without slowing existing services down/ electrifying another thousand miles etc).
They are like the Class 66s of the passenger world - reliable - perfectly suited to the job
that they were designed for. What other stock is going to get me from Sheffield to Bristol as fast/ reliably?
Mechanically, they seem great. The two problems are that they are not long enough and that they replaced a number of loco-hauled services.
Are they not particularly fuel-thirsty as well?
I think that any self propelled train (i.e. DMU/ DEMU) capable of tilting at 125mph speeds and able to accelerate as well as an EMU would be pretty thirsty.
The question is, do you slow existing services down to go for something more fuel efficient?
Seats not lined up with windows
Which stock has been introduced over the past thirty years where seats
fully line up with windows?
How many seats do you propose to take out of crowded Voyagers to enable the remaining seats to line up better with windows?
Most other very busy TOC's (take for instance the commuter lines into/out of London) tend to have a reasonable off peak period in which they can do some cleaning before needing all their units for the evening peaks. That or they are running services along a fairly narrow corridor (i.e. East Coast or West Coast, even GWR to a lesser extent) which means that there are only a few depots which means that units are less likely to be sat at remote locations with poorer facilities
Fair point.
Must admit, I think it's more a case of idiotic planning. I mean, when ordering the Voyagers, someone has to have agreed to something along the lines of ...
"We're going to double the frequency of the service thereby transforming it's very nature into something much more passenger friendly, we're going to shorten the trains, we're going to buy trains that will be a nightmare to lengthen, we're going to ignore all this platform length we've got to play with, rail travel is already increasing in popularity, the economy is primed to go off like a rocket, and we've got a very anti-car government in office.
Yeah, it'll be fine. We won't need any extra capacity in the next 30 years. I mean, why would we, and there's no better way of solving the problem than buying a small number of short DMUs that are incompatible with pretty much everything else."
Well, duh.
Congratulations on predicting that rail travel would double since the Millennium - did you invest wisely with your knowledge of an economy "primed to go off like a rocket"?
We've had some good quarters and some bad quarters (
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/nov/25/gdp-uk-1948-growth-economy), but there have been bumps along the way.
Also worth mentioning, in terms of the revisionist anti-Virgin stuff that you get on threads like this, that around the same time First were introducing five coach 180s for their London - Cardiff service, National Express were introducing two coach 170s for their London - Nottingham (Barnsley) service...
...I don't think that anyone was anticipating the huge growth in passenger numbers (other than you, of course).
I have never ridden on CrossCountry