Apologies for what may be slightly lower volume than normal - it sounded fine on both my PC and mobile but I will fix it for following videos if it is an issue :) A huge thanks to those who have allowed me to use their footage for todays video - whom without this video would not be possible to make; www.youtube.com/@BrianTuckerRailvideos www.youtube.com/@A60stock (Fred Ivey) www.youtube.com/@agdenyer www.youtube.com/@paulbarlow2527
The introduction of the voyagers was a massive mistake. They never had the capacity required and that is still the main issue with the Cross-country network. Like your videos, very informative 🙂
The complaints about Virgin Trains having an ageing fleet were laughable for southern region commuters who were still riding Mk1 based slam doors whilst Virgin's fleet featured air conditioned Mk2s and Mk3 carriages.
Voyagers should never have been built as 4 car units. Should have been 8 or 9 car units from the off. Shame Alstom can’t manufacture more carriages now
I think the theory was 'if we replace an hourly 7/8 car train with 2tph 4 car trains we will be fine" except for the fact that doubling frequency usually results in an increase of passenger numbers. Once again a failure because they were almost too successful - but should have anticipated passenger growth
Not the same people who thought it acceptable to replace 110mph (non-tilt) or 125mph (tilt) 4/5-coach Voyagers with 3-coach, 100mph 185s with no proper catering facilities on intercity services over 3 hours long?
Those 4 car 220s are the reason why I actively avoid CrossCountry trains when planning journeys, especially long distance ones. I am not standing squashed between people and luggage for 2+ hours, because you WILL be on those services.
I have many a fond memory of sitting in the vestibules between seating areas throughout my uni times, it’s the reason I bought a car again! I used to travel at stupid times to avoid it, inevitably failing and still having to sit next to the toilets.
VXC were chaos Branson style.Naturally he blamed the old stock nothing to do with Sir Richard to quote Obi Wan Kenobi, probably borrowed from Plato's Republic or the like,'with great power comes great responsibility '.
Virgin Cross Country, I'd say had many of the right ideas but implemented very very badly. Much of it comes down to the fact though that Cross Country have for far too long not been treated as a proper intercity franchise. The franchise map needs re-drawing, more services need to be incorporated as Cross Country services (Liverpool to Norwich if it's not being split, Cardiff to Portsmouth and I'm sure there's others) and they need to be operated by suitable rolling stock. 4 or 5 car trains just doesn't work long distance, you need 8-10 carriages long distance and 5-7 for medium distance to allow people to be comfortable and to allow for future growth. It's probably also worth looking at the purpose of Cross Country and whether there's journeys they shouldn't do - Should they really operate beyond Edinburgh or Plymouth? I'd say not but the relevant ScotRail and GWR services would need strengthening to account for losing those services. Sadly in the current system that sort of joined up thinking rarely happens. In the short term though I just hope that Cross Country are able to take on the 222s, they're excellent trains and the increase in capacity that would be gained from taking those on would be a great start in sorting out the issues.
I travelled on the first of Virgin XC’s refurbished HSTs in 1997 from Bristol TM to Birmingham NS via Oxford. It’s livery was so striking back then that it turned a few heads.
Great memories of going to Nan's on Virgin Cross Country but then, that's from the perspective of a 5-10 year old who isn't really worried about being anywhere on time.
They did well bringing in the new fleets of pendolinos and voyagers but they missed a trick by not having the voyager trains with more carridges as they were always crowded. I recently took a trip from rugby to Truro and purosley went via London as I knew the train from Birmingham would be packed
Unfortunately XCs staff T&Cs require one train manager per train, so two on a coupled set. I’ve seen it first hand a 9 car train but only the 4 car in use as a train manager had phoned in sick so a 9 car train is running round with just the 4 car in use.
Did Arriva not take it over after virgin cross country. They got rid of my Sussex Scot. Good video though. I used to use the Sussex Scot from Redhill to Kensington Olympia.
Anyone who thinks Virgin XC were a failed franchise 1) has clearly never experienced Arriva XC, and 2) wasn't a traveller on the Manchester-Scotland route when TPE took over those services immediately after and lumbered us with the even slower, even shorter 185s.
Until Richard Branson and Virgin Trains lost the Cross-country franchise and Arriva took over the CrossCountry franchise as we know of today. Mind you CrossCountry just like ScotRail should have kept the Class 43 HSTs.
Are there or have there ever been for XC (either Virgin or Arriva) any examples of a regular service formed of two Voyagers couple together, which divides somewhere and each unit goes to a different destination?
Don’t think different destinations, but many examples of 8/9 car trains halving beyond principal stations like Temple Meads or Plymouth in the south west
Is the performance of the Voyagers and Super Voyagers actually a huge upgrade over the HSTs? They have the same top speed after all. Do they improve in terms of acceleration?
Do you think that Virgin Crosscountry was the best train operator that run service from the North of England and Scotland all the way down to Southern England. Including Southampton, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Brighton, Exeter and Plymouth. Or was Virgin Crosscountry lacking a lot and didn’t provide the best train service that saw the franchise collapse and Virgin Trains lost the Cross-country franchise. And didn’t have the best rolling stock to compete with other rival train operators.
Apologies for what may be slightly lower volume than normal - it sounded fine on both my PC and mobile but I will fix it for following videos if it is an issue :)
A huge thanks to those who have allowed me to use their footage for todays video - whom without this video would not be possible to make;
www.youtube.com/@BrianTuckerRailvideos
www.youtube.com/@A60stock (Fred Ivey)
www.youtube.com/@agdenyer
www.youtube.com/@paulbarlow2527
The introduction of the voyagers was a massive mistake. They never had the capacity required and that is still the main issue with the Cross-country network.
Like your videos, very informative 🙂
The complaints about Virgin Trains having an ageing fleet were laughable for southern region commuters who were still riding Mk1 based slam doors whilst Virgin's fleet featured air conditioned Mk2s and Mk3 carriages.
Voyagers should never have been built as 4 car units. Should have been 8 or 9 car units from the off. Shame Alstom can’t manufacture more carriages now
The Voyagers were built by Bombardier, not Alstom...
@@keirrobinson4156 Alstom Owns Bombardier's assets and designs.
@@keirrobinson4156Bombardier was bought by Alstom.
@@keirrobinson4156 Bombardier was brought out by Alstom in 2021, so whilst made by Bombardier in the early 2000's, anything these days is Alstom
Replacing 7-8 carriage trains with 4-5 carriage ones...who the actual f*** thought this was a smart idea?
I think the theory was 'if we replace an hourly 7/8 car train with 2tph 4 car trains we will be fine" except for the fact that doubling frequency usually results in an increase of passenger numbers. Once again a failure because they were almost too successful - but should have anticipated passenger growth
@@Vanmanyo yeah they seriously screwed up and thought short term gains obviously
the problem with voyagers (and MUs in general) is they're not easy to extend by a carriage or 2
Not the same people who thought it acceptable to replace 110mph (non-tilt) or 125mph (tilt) 4/5-coach Voyagers with 3-coach, 100mph 185s with no proper catering facilities on intercity services over 3 hours long?
It's bizarre why the Voyagers were ordered as 4/5 car when the Pendolinos were ordered as 9 car and 11 later on
The plan was to increase frequency but use shorter trains. Which didn’t quite go to plan as the trains were often always overcrowded.
Those 4 car 220s are the reason why I actively avoid CrossCountry trains when planning journeys, especially long distance ones. I am not standing squashed between people and luggage for 2+ hours, because you WILL be on those services.
I've ended up sitting in the luggage area because of having had to stand for too long
I have many a fond memory of sitting in the vestibules between seating areas throughout my uni times, it’s the reason I bought a car again! I used to travel at stupid times to avoid it, inevitably failing and still having to sit next to the toilets.
VXC were chaos Branson style.Naturally he blamed the old stock nothing to do with Sir Richard to quote Obi Wan Kenobi, probably borrowed from Plato's Republic or the like,'with great power comes great responsibility '.
Virgin Cross Country, I'd say had many of the right ideas but implemented very very badly. Much of it comes down to the fact though that Cross Country have for far too long not been treated as a proper intercity franchise. The franchise map needs re-drawing, more services need to be incorporated as Cross Country services (Liverpool to Norwich if it's not being split, Cardiff to Portsmouth and I'm sure there's others) and they need to be operated by suitable rolling stock. 4 or 5 car trains just doesn't work long distance, you need 8-10 carriages long distance and 5-7 for medium distance to allow people to be comfortable and to allow for future growth.
It's probably also worth looking at the purpose of Cross Country and whether there's journeys they shouldn't do - Should they really operate beyond Edinburgh or Plymouth? I'd say not but the relevant ScotRail and GWR services would need strengthening to account for losing those services. Sadly in the current system that sort of joined up thinking rarely happens.
In the short term though I just hope that Cross Country are able to take on the 222s, they're excellent trains and the increase in capacity that would be gained from taking those on would be a great start in sorting out the issues.
Should use ex TPE Mk5's and 68s on Liverpool to Norwich. No splitting then.
I travelled on the first of Virgin XC’s refurbished HSTs in 1997 from Bristol TM to Birmingham NS via Oxford. It’s livery was so striking back then that it turned a few heads.
Great memories of going to Nan's on Virgin Cross Country but then, that's from the perspective of a 5-10 year old who isn't really worried about being anywhere on time.
They did well bringing in the new fleets of pendolinos and voyagers but they missed a trick by not having the voyager trains with more carridges as they were always crowded. I recently took a trip from rugby to Truro and purosley went via London as I knew the train from Birmingham would be packed
Unfortunately XCs staff T&Cs require one train manager per train, so two on a coupled set. I’ve seen it first hand a 9 car train but only the 4 car in use as a train manager had phoned in sick so a 9 car train is running round with just the 4 car in use.
Did Arriva not take it over after virgin cross country. They got rid of my Sussex Scot. Good video though. I used to use the Sussex Scot from Redhill to Kensington Olympia.
I think it's only former operators, but I could be wrong
They didn't get rid of it; the government did by removing it from the franchise requirements and the paths being given up to GTR.
@@AbsoluteTVYT Bloody GTR, The only failing franchise to get rewarded by getting more strings to its bow.
You know its a good video when Vanmanyo starts with "Hellœ"
Cross Country have been abysmal since, still using the Voyagers for now....
Anyone who thinks Virgin XC were a failed franchise 1) has clearly never experienced Arriva XC, and 2) wasn't a traveller on the Manchester-Scotland route when TPE took over those services immediately after and lumbered us with the even slower, even shorter 185s.
Until Richard Branson and Virgin Trains lost the Cross-country franchise and Arriva took over the CrossCountry franchise as we know of today. Mind you CrossCountry just like ScotRail should have kept the Class 43 HSTs.
Yes HSTs should have been kept 👍
👍
VANMANYO!!! TODAY IS A GREAT DAY!🎉
What was the two 37s pushing and pulling into New Street?
Bro I had notifications on,Why didn’t I get any notifications? D:
Are there or have there ever been for XC (either Virgin or Arriva) any examples of a regular service formed of two Voyagers couple together, which divides somewhere and each unit goes to a different destination?
Don’t think different destinations, but many examples of 8/9 car trains halving beyond principal stations like Temple Meads or Plymouth in the south west
Is the performance of the Voyagers and Super Voyagers actually a huge upgrade over the HSTs? They have the same top speed after all. Do they improve in terms of acceleration?
The acceleration is a lot quicker compared to the HSTs.
Do you think that Virgin Crosscountry was the best train operator that run service from the North of England and Scotland all the way down to Southern England. Including Southampton, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Brighton, Exeter and Plymouth.
Or was Virgin Crosscountry lacking a lot and didn’t provide the best train service that saw the franchise collapse and Virgin Trains lost the Cross-country franchise. And didn’t have the best rolling stock to compete with other rival train operators.
Thing is the crap virgin xc had has now followed into the current XC franchise