Virgin to relocate Club Class?

I travelled on a Virgin Cross Country service from Birmingham
International to Reading yesterday on a Value Advance First ticket.
Due to staff shortage, there was no at-seat service in the Club Class
carriage and the Train Manager advised us all to present our tickets
at the buffet 3 carriages away to get our complimentaries.

I had a chat with the Train Manager who clearly expressed their
dislike at the Voyagers. He/she had been on the railways for 20 yrs,
and told me that Virgin were considering relocating the Club Class
carriage to the other end of the Voyagers so that it is nearer to the
Shop. Does anybody have any more info on this?

Due to the fact that the train runs non-stop from Coventry to Oxford,
it arrived some 5 minutes earlier than its booked time. This got me
thinking - since Virgin are the only operator between
Coventry-Leamington Spa, why could Virgin not reinstate the Leamington
Spa stops on the Scotland-Bournemouths? This would restore the hourly
service to Leamington Spa, avoid the horrendous overcrowding on the
Newcastle-Bournemouths and allow customers for Banbury to alight at
Leamington for Chiltern services. The TM thought this was a good
idea. Any comments?

P R Stanfield said:

> I had a chat with the Train Manager who clearly expressed their
> dislike at the Voyagers. He/she had been on the railways..

Couldn't you work it out?

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Chris Game <chrisgame@!yahoo!dotcodotuk>
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On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 08:13:51 UTC, wensleydale@pacersplace.org.uk (Neil
Williams) wrote:

: It'll certainly help - hopefully they'll do it such that the buffet
: divides first and standard, and lock out (except staff access) the
: door at the buffet end of that vehicle. That way, there's no reason
: for anyone to want to go past the buffet, unless upgrading to first or
: using the bog if the others are OOU, so the small size of the buffet
: will be less of an issue.

Locking the door seems a bit over complicated - and would be a pain
for the passengers who want to get to the TM's office. I'd have
thought that through traffic would be much reduced anyway.

Ian


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On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 20:22:55 UTC, wensleydale@pacersplace.org.uk (Neil
Williams) wrote:

: On 11 Dec 2003 11:02:27 GMT, "Ian Johnston" <ian.usenet@talk21.com>
: wrote:
:
: >Locking the door seems a bit over complicated - and would be a pain
: >for the passengers who want to get to the TM's office. I'd have
: >thought that through traffic would be much reduced anyway.
:
: Sorry, I didn't mean the vehicle end door - I meant the outside doors,
: just as they are on Mk2 and Mk3 buffet vehicles.

I see what you mean. Sorry for misunderstanding.

Ian

bilee_from_bileeland.uk (P R Stanfield) wrote in message news:<c1ab40ff.0312100611.5622d9ae@ com>...

[stuff withdrawn]

> Due to the fact that the train runs non-stop from Coventry to Oxford,
> it arrived some 5 minutes earlier than its booked time. This got me
> thinking - since Virgin are the only operator between
> Coventry-Leamington Spa, why could Virgin not reinstate the Leamington
> Spa stops on the Scotland-Bournemouths? This would restore the hourly
> service to Leamington Spa, avoid the horrendous overcrowding on the
> Newcastle-Bournemouths and allow customers for Banbury to alight at
> Leamington for Chiltern services. The TM thought this was a good
> idea. Any comments?

you may have mentioned this to the tm, but hey have you contacted [by mail
or phone] VT-XC about this idea? if you don't they will never know. i think
the idea is quite good myself and for the cost of a first or second class
stamp, i am sure that they will give you an answer.

trevor

[who notices that lots of bright ideas for rail service improvement get talked
of on uk.r, but wonders how many of them actually reach the relavent toc?]