[Anonymous]

[MarcusUK]

Took a Virgin train for a meeting yesterday from London Euston, to Birmingham.
Booking ahead i took the 1st class up, standard back.

I was very surprised at how down market the 1st class has become !

The lounge in Euston, whilst enlarged & refurbished, had watered down orange juice & coffee from a machine where you were asked to select which type, but Virgin chose not to stock any!
Only thing to eat was a mini pastry, no plates, cutlery, not even saucers for the cups, wooden sticks to stir.
No newspaper on Board always had The Times, Menu has gone as has the choice of food. I was offered one coffee with no top up until 10 minutes before arriving, over an hr apart. A Soggy egg sandwich pre-packed. The staff used to be quite motivated n chatty, they seem quite demoralised & fed up, but not surprised if they have no decent products to serve.
The toilets in 2 carriages had electro hand dryers not working, not very hygienic.

The days of the freshly made sandwiches hot quiche, or pasta, breads, & the breakfast has simply gone. It had a graded version according to the time you left before, but always fresh & again, was one of those nice elements of train travel.

To be honest travelling just after Peak hours, i would not longer buy a 1st class seat! The food benefit is gone, you are better to buy a good quality sandwich & coffee & take it on board, & the standard is not busy always after 10am or before 3pm.

More of those small luxuries, & Virgin lauded for the best food for years, This quality train travel is over.

[PaulJennings]

I travelled on the West Coast route last week for the first time in about 6 months and noticed a big difference. Not much to eat or drink in the lounge, except for Virgin soft drinks, not even mineral water. Still a bar service on board with decent white wine but poor food and little of it. (Hint to Virgin, you are not meant to eat bananas while they are still green).

My train had a Liverpool-based crew, who are almost always cheerful and wittily disparaging of management and passengers alike. One generously endowed passenger asked after crisps and was told ‘no love, it’s weight watchers tonight.’

[NTarrant]

I travelled 1st Euston-Birmingham International back in October on a train just after 0900 up and 1430ish coming back. I had a superb breakfast on the way out and a nice sandwick on the return. Could not fault it or the service.

The quality of some offerings on long distance trains has changed since the recession and a relection on cutting costs. It is sad to hear that standards have dropped in less than two months.

I used the Euston lounge when I returned from EDinburgh on the overnight sleeper and First have an arrangement with Virgin for 1st passengers to use the showers. The showers were fine except no one had thought about hanging you clothes up!

[MarcusUK]

Indeed, the breakfast menu was excellent, a treat in the mornings to look forward to during the journey. Those nice days of enjoying a fresh meal on a train appear to have gone also…

2 of the showers were closed when i when through the lounge, & several of the toilets were in a very un-attended state shall we say… clearly hygiene & monitoring of these issues can be an expectation?
Some 1st class ticket prices off peak have been lowered, but others have increased a great deal. This does not justify the cuts, nor would they be acclaimed again as offering the best UK train food on board.

[ScottWilson]

Let’s be frank here. For all of SRB’s moaning about a BA/AA tie up and a so-called “monopoly”, this is exactly what Virgin Trains is on London-Manchester. With the West Coast Main Line upgrade, effectively taxpayer funded because of the huge subsidies given to Virgin Trains on this franchise, rail is now undoubtedly far superior to air.

So Virgin Trains need do little to get business traffic that is London-Manchester, because the hassle of getting to Heathrow and Manchester Airports, plus security, is a major turnoff. Even though both BMI and BA operate on the route.

The First Class food has been getting downgauged regularly and First Class is priced to be competitive with fully flexible airfares. I have regularly had “oh we’ve run out” excuses on the service, and free wifi is only a new introduction.

The fact the taxpayer has to prop this up, so there is little hope of an open access competitor makes the likelihood of it getting better even less so. SRB has won the market and need do little to compete.

[SofiaTan]

I travelled VirginTrains 1st Class to Euston Station and was looking forward to using the First Class Lounge at the station to have a quick meeting but unfortunately when I arrived, it was already very busy and it was very hard to ‘feel comfortable’ at all. People were standing everywhere and no need to mention the F& B facilities. I dared not even to get a drink …

In the end, my client came to meet me and took me to another ‘business lounge’ which was just a few minutes by taxi away and it was amazing. It was called bcs city lounge and we ended up spending the afternoon chatting away with excellent coffee and biscuits. Maybe you should check this out. I think it would be perfect for people who travel often by train to London and want a professional – not too crowded- business lounge to work from. It’s formal, casual and definitely comfortable. Staff were great as well.

As for the Virgin 1st Class – not really worth it anymore I must say …

[NTarrant]

The lounge at Euston is not very big and not really intended for meetings on arrival. I am suprised they let your client in without a ticket.

Be interested in more information about the lounge you mention

[SofiaTan]

My client was actually coming from Virgin Trains as well and we were both to stay in London for 1 night.

We were very happy staying at Mont Calm ( newly refurbished hotel ) and bcs city lounge being just accross the street made it even easier.

their website is http://www.bcscitylounge.com for more information. They have a corporate video that explains it all. I believe that’s ideal for business travellers in london …

[NTarrant]

Thanks for the link Sofia, looks very nice. If you visit London regularly and a company director, its worth joining the Inst Directors. The have excellent facilities at Pall Mall as well as other locations in the UK, France and Belgium. For small meetings up to 4 people its ideal and no extra cost other than food and drink. http://www.iod.com

[SofiaTan]

Ah yes, I’ve heard of IoD – unfortunately, I’m not yet a company director so … – not applicable.

Give a try to bcs city lounge, they also have meeting rooms or private lounges if you need to use them. They are at an extra cost though – that’s why the lounge is pretty cool – food & drink complimentary!

[AMcWhirter]

ScottWilson is correct about the subsidy issue. It’s not generally realised that, unlike some other train firms such as First Great Western or East Midlands, Virgin Rail makes no franchise payments to the government. It actually gets a subsidy

This is because Virgin Rail agreed to take on a run down rail service and was prepared to spend billions on introducing faster, more frequent and more modern trains.

Hefty franchise payments on the East Coast route brought down two train firms, namely GNER and NXEC, because they couldn’t keep up with their payments. They also had to compete with two “open access” operators: Hull Trains and Grand Central.

Open access operators do think they can compete with Virgin Rail because of the latter’s subsidy. Rather it’s because a “no competition” clause was written into Virgin Rail’s franchise agreement.

Chiltern and London Midland who compete in a sort of way between London and Birmingham are not considered as open access operators.

Virgin Rail’s franchise expires in two years’ time. It will be interesting to see whether the government grants a further extension or whether it will give another train firm the opportunity to take it over.

[flyingdutchman]

Thanks for your posts, are about to book a trip Bournemouth-Liverpool and see a 1st class any train costs 524 GBP, restricted trains 260 GBP. After reading your posts I take standard for 88 GBP and buy my coffee before boarding.

[NTarrant]

Flyingdutchman you are looking at the fare for travel via London as opposed to the Cross Country route via Birmingham which is £416.00 anytime, but if you travel after 0930 then it comes down to £232.40.

Time wise it is the same, but do reserve a seat on Cross Country in First. Alternatively if you wish to go via London split your journey ticket wise rather than having a through ticket. If you know the dates and times you need to travel you can get some bargain First fares between London and Liverpool in the off peak.

If you don’t have an Oyster card buy a Bournemouth to Zone 1 return ticket which will cover you on the Underground. http://www.fgwtickets.co.uk is a good site for any fares, irrespective of operator, but check Virgin

Alternatively take the train to Southampton Airport and fly on Eastern Airways Southampton Liverpool service which runs twice a day. Hope that helps

[PaulJennings]

Those are good suggestions.

As a general (not infallible) rule, if your train journey involves more than one operator, you will only see the full range of discounted fares if you buy two separate tickets, splitting at the point where you change form one operator to another. For example Bournemouth to Liverpool via London split into Bournemouth – London – Liverpool and Bournemouth to Liverpool via Birmingham split into Bournemouth – Birmingham – Liverpool.

The exception is where both operators have the same ultimate parent where a through ticket is often cheaper, for example South West Trains and Virgin Trains.

At the risk of getting too ticket-geeky, you can often also save money splitting the ticket at an intermediate routing point, for example Bournemouth – Reading – Birmingham – Liverpool. This works either if there are more trains (and therefore more discounted fares) on part of the route than on the rest of the route, if only part of the journey you are making is in peak hours (i.e. split the ticket at the first station after the cut-off time) or if the two journeys have fares set by two different train operators.

http://www.eastcoast.co.uk is quite userfriendly and charges no booking fee.

It would be quite difficult to trough your way through £524 of complimentary tea and biscuits.

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