Grand Central vs Virgin East Coast - Yorkshire to London 9 April 2018 at 11:43AM in UK holidays, days out & entertainments 3 replies 2K views

DollyTheSheep

I know Virgin East Coast is coming to an end soon and it is a busy service at all times in general. Just wondering how the Grand Central service compares?

Only a few trains a day from Bradford, and takes a bit longer. Does anyone know how busy it gets on their various services in both standard and first class?

p00hsticks

I can't answer you. I'm afraid, but there is also a Public Tranport board on this forum and it may be worth you re-posting there

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=225

dondo

I use both when travelling to/from London and find Grand Central good- no issues

Alan_Bowen

I usually use Virgin and have for many years considered them to be the best of the long-distance operators. It is clear there has been cost-cutting recently and 10 days ago the ovens packed up and there was no hot food, even though the staff on board managed to cook for themselves! I normally know when I am travelling and book ahead but due to a sudden hospitalisation, I needed to book at the last minute last week.

Virgin wanted £91 to London, Grand Central £30 (this is from Doncaster) so I booked GC for the first time. 20 minutes before it was due to leave the board announced the train was delayed, 10 minutes later it was canceled, having broken down at Wakefield. The problem is they have no spare train sets so you at the mercy of other operators. Hull Trains arrived half empty but refused point blank to accept us, claiming that GC wouldn't accept their passengers a few weeks earlier....

In the end Virgin rescued us but not without being told we would have to wait for over an hour despite there being 3 or 4 Virgin trains within that time. For that reason, even though the seats are better in standard class on GC, the unreliability of the trains and the lack of back up means I will stick with Virgin in future