Virgin Trains QuietZone What is the point?

NBLondon

paddyrg wrote: »

What irks is when you pay the extra to go first class, and they've removed the 1st Class quiet cars now!!

Might depend on the route... I was in a First Class Quiet Zone last week Birmingham to London. (Real Moneysaving - it was at the same price as a Standard for that journey time). The biggest source of noise was the drinks trolley...

Voyager2002

North_Of_Utopia wrote: »

Virgin Trains give you the option of booking a seat in their QuietZone carriages, the idea being that passengers in these zones are not allowed to use their mobile phones etc and disturb other passengers.

I recently returned from London and had to contend with a large family group who were shouting, talking loudly on their mobile phones, one was playing loud dance music on his phone without headphones, another couple of them were watching TV on each of their phones again with the volume up and no headphones on, for the duration of the 5 hour journey not one member of staff entered the carriage not even to check tickets, this happens a lot, although this last journey really took the biscuit, I complained to Virgin who gave me this stock reply, which they post on Facebook to anyone who complains about noise in the QuietZone.

'It's disappointing to hear that you've had a bad experience onboard xxxx We do ask passengers to respect the rules of the coach and as you experienced on your outward journey, we do try to make announcements about this whenever possible. Hopefully you'll have a better experience of the quiet coach the next time you travel with us - Luke'

No announcements reminding passengers were made on my return journey which I had the problems with.

So if you have plans to travel in the QuietZone don't bother, it won't be any quieter than anywhere else on the train, it is just a marketing gimmick, they make zero effort to enforce it, I am at a loss why anyone who had no intention of being quiet would book a seat in the QuietZone, I am going to stick to flying at least I don't have to put up with inconsiderate people for too long.

Some points:

The behaviour of that family group would have been unacceptable in any part of the train. Personally I would have complained (and have done so in the past when encountering that kind of behaviour): it is very unfortunate that finding a train manager is so difficult. In any case, staff only pass through carriages and so cannot know that people are being constantly noisy unless someone tells them;

Announcements about the quiet zone seem to make absolutely no difference, and tend to be an annoyance since announcements also make a noise;

This kind of bad behaviour, thankfully, is unusual. I generally use long train journeys to work, and find trains far easier to work on than aeroplanes. I can understand that you feel like giving up on trains and finding an alternative way to travel, but if you value peace and quiet I can assure that flying is even worse.

BlueEyedGirl

The same thing happened to me two weekends ago on a Sunday. I especially booked the quiet coach in the hope I could settle down and read my book for 2 hours.

Instead, in Manchester on gets a bunch of women perhaps late 20’s early 30’s is clearly returning from a weekend’s hen party. They were loud, shouting, laughing, and repeatedly playing videos on their phones from the previous night as well as talking loudly on mobiles. They were incredibly annoying and I seriously had to restrain myself from saying something to them about how ignorant they were being. I was so relieved when they finally got off at Stoke-On-Trent.

I didn’t bother reporting it to Virgin, since I would have also wanted to complain about the disgrace the train carriage was in, and the disgusting toilets. :eek:

belisha-beacon

Azari wrote: »

That's not really relevant, though, is it?

Op paid for a quiet journey and he did not get what he paid for.

Your comment is really both naive and foolish. If you are induced to purchase a product on the basis of some attribute of that product, and the product is not as specified your should be entitled to either:

Return it if it is a physical product

Receive compensation if the product cannot be returned.

It is contrary to consumer legislation to advertise a product that does not fulfil promises made for it.

You're both right, in a way. Yes, if you don't get what you pay for you should be entitled to the money you paid for it back. However, in the unlikely event this went to court, what the courts would look at is what loss you had from not getting the product. ie. how much of the ticket price went towards getting the 'extra benefit' of not only a journey to your destination, but a quiet journey. They can disregard the cost of any benefit that you did receive.

This benefit is free. Quiet zone tickets are no more expensive than normal tickets. And the traveller got the benefit of a journey to their destination, for the price it would normally cost. So they get their zero pence back, and that's it I'm afraid.

Hermione_Granger

North_Of_Utopia wrote: »

If you are so concerned about the environment then perhaps you could save some electricity by switching off your computer permanently, and spare the rest of us your irrelevant posts.

You would hope that someone who was so concerned with the environment would only holiday in the UK and not travel on aircraft simply for their own pleasure..
Tell me daytona0, do you use aircraft for travel when it suits you? and if so, why do you think that other people shouldn't be allowed to do the same?

Azari

belisha-beacon wrote: »

You're both right, in a way. Yes, if you don't get what you pay for you should be entitled to the money you paid for it back. However, in the unlikely event this went to court, what the courts would look at is what loss you had from not getting the product. ie. how much of the ticket price went towards getting the 'extra benefit' of not only a journey to your destination, but a quiet journey. They can disregard the cost of any benefit that you did receive.

This benefit is free. Quiet zone tickets are no more expensive than normal tickets. And the traveller got the benefit of a journey to their destination, for the price it would normally cost. So they get their zero pence back, and that's it I'm afraid.

I'm afraid that you are, like the previous poster, being being very naive.

If your contention were true, a large part of consumer legislation would be pretty pointless. And it would make the provision of services all but unworkable (because anyone could make any promise they liked, not provide it, and have no fear of any comeback).

What you are effectively saying is that a company can offer an inducement to use their service, not provide what they say the will provide, and the buyer has no comeback.

Which is, I have to say, utter rubbish.

belisha-beacon

Azari wrote: »

I'm afraid that you are, like the previous poster, being being very naive.

If your contention were true, a large part of consumer legislation would be pretty pointless. And it would make the provision of services all but unworkable (because anyone could make any promise they liked, not provide it, and have no fear of any comeback).

What you are effectively saying is that a company can offer an inducement to use their service, not provide what they say the will provide, and the buyer has no comeback.

Which is, I have to say, utter rubbish.

Sorry that you think I am naive. I spent several years working for an ombudsman but I guess my extensive training in determining appropriate remedies in the event of service failures must all have been complete rubbish. Also the court cases I have sat in on were probably weird one-offs which had judges who were going rogue for some reason.

If OP can prove that the advertisement of a quiet zone is what made all the difference to them buying the ticket, and they had no use for the travel otherwise, then they might have a case. Unfortunately for them, as the train companies offer this as an option but don't tend to advertise it as a key feature of the product, it's unlikely to be the case. Whenever I have booked a quiet zone on a train it has come up as something I can pick once I have already booked, but I've never spotted a 'Want a quiet journey? We can guarantee that for you!' sort of inducement. Not saying that OP didn't book in response to an advert about quiet zones, but they'd need some way of showing how the train company had made it part of the bargain.

People also need to be able to show that they mitigated their losses when they're claiming for losses. So the first question would be, "What did OP do to try and avoid them having to sit in a noisy carriage the whole way?" They don't mention going up to the noisy people and saying "Excuse me, I don't know if you know but this is a quiet carriage?" (almost always works for me) and they don't mention going to the buffet car and giving a member of staff the opportunity to deal with the problem.

I know I'm really naive, but I can't see a case here at all.

daytona0

Azari wrote: »

I'm afraid that you are, like the previous poster, being being very naive.

If your contention were true, a large part of consumer legislation would be pretty pointless. And it would make the provision of services all but unworkable (because anyone could make any promise they liked, not provide it, and have no fear of any comeback).

What you are effectively saying is that a company can offer an inducement to use their service, not provide what they say the will provide, and the buyer has no comeback.

Which is, I have to say, utter rubbish.

Points:

1. What type of ticket did OP have? Open seat tickets mean that they could choose the carriage and the seat, thus meaning that everything here is moot. A reserved seat is the only kind of ticket you can debate.

2. How many people were on the train? Busy trains are going to be nosier than empty ones. You have to appreciate that a busy train may not only increase the volume, but also divert the attention of (usually overworked and understaffed) employees. If it was an emptier train then OP would have been able to move to another carriage which was less noisy, thus eliminating the problem.

3. What criteria do you need to follow in the 'quiet zone'? What is the distinction between quiet and noisy? Can you link to Virgin's official policies?

4. Is there a price difference between a reserved seat in the quiet zone vs a non quiet zone? From my experience I'd say no, and that includes table seats vs isle seats as well!

If you answer those 4 points then we can discuss to what extent either you or belisha-beacon are correct. At this stage belisha-beacon makes the most sense, as yours is a bit more of a 'blanket argument'.

shaun_from_Africa

daytona0 wrote: »

3. What criteria do you need to follow in the 'quiet zone'? What is the distinction between quiet and noisy? Can you link to Virgin's official policies?

Well, mobile phones and music from phones and other electronic devices is supposed to be banned and conversations are meant to be quiet,
https://www.virgintrainseastcoast.com/the-east-coast-experience/the-east-coast-standard/quiet-coach/
and these are all things that the OP stated was going on in the "quiet" carriage that they were in.

I recently returned from London and had to contend with a large family group who were shouting, talking loudly on their mobile phones, one was playing loud dance music on his phone without headphones, another couple of them were watching TV on each of their phones again with the volume up and no headphones on, for the duration of the 5 hour journey

daytona0

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Well, mobile phones and music from phones and other electronic devices is supposed to be banned and conversations are meant to be quiet,
https://www.virgintrainseastcoast.com/the-east-coast-experience/the-east-coast-standard/quiet-coach/
and these are all things that the OP stated was going on in the "quiet" carriage that they were in.

Cool, I appreciate you for posting this (I asked for it previously, but it wasn't forthcoming).

Only 3 more points to address before I'm completely sold on Azari's viewpoint.