Virgin Trains calls for compulsory seat reservations - MSE News

Former_MSE_Naomi

Virgin Trains has proposed making seat reservations compulsory on long-distance trains, saying it would cut overcrowding and guarantee every passenger a seat...

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'Virgin Trains calls for compulsory seat reservations'

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One-Eye

So a busy Virgin Pendolino with 444 standard seats currently leaves London with 530 standard ticket holders on board.

Virgin would lose a sixth of their revenue for this train - or more likely they would want to increase fares by 16% to make up for it.

One-Eye

What would Virgin do if the train in the previous post was cancelled at the last minute?

444 passengers forced to queue up to re-book on later trains, many of which may be nearly full already?

NaughtiusMaximus

Overcrowding wouldn't be anywhere near as big a problem if they'd upgraded all their Pendolinos to 11 carriages a few years ago rather than just half of them.

I regularly travel from Brum to London in the peaks, IME the 11 car Pendolinos are generally fine, it's the 9 car ones which tend to suffer from overcrowding.

Paul_Herring

Are Virgin (along with Stagecoach) actually still relevant for trains after being barred from all three franchise bids, for refusing to stump up for historical pension deficits? (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47877858)

NaughtiusMaximus

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Are Virgin (along with Stagecoach) actually still relevant for trains after being barred from all three franchise bids, for refusing to stump up for historical pension deficits? (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47877858)

If Virgin back down and agree to cover the pensions funding I'd be very surprised if the ban wasn't reversed.

Another possibility is all the franchise owners could collude and agree that none of them will cover these costs in any future franchise and effectively force the government to bear the full cost themselves.

worried_jim

I'm on the Virgin train to Crewe, plenty of seats, wish they would provide working WiFi!

Paul_Herring

...and effectively force the government taxpayer to bear the full cost themselves.

There we go...

phillw

One-Eye wrote: »

444 passengers forced to queue up to re-book on later trains, many of which may be nearly full already?

If they can't arrange an alternate train then what else would you suggest?

One-Eye

phillw wrote: »

If they can't arrange an alternate train then what else would you suggest?

I would get on the next train and stand - I'd rather stand and be an hour late than be 4 hours late because I had to wait for a seat.

Owain_Moneysaver

phillw wrote: »

If they can't arrange an alternate train then what else would you suggest?

The same as happens with airlines - you sit on benches at the airport for three days until a plane with seats is available.

There are no "spare" trains on the UK network, and there are very few spare paths available on much of the network even if rolling stock were available, so there won't be an alternative train arranged.