Virgin Trains calls for compulsory seat reservations - MSE News

Andy_L

NaughtiusMaximus wrote: »

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.

Seeing as how some of that deficit is going to date from the British Rail era it seems reasonable that the Gov/taxpayer should cover that part of it.

Robin9

I travelled on Monday (Bank Holiday) plenty of trains but more people than seats and it was sardine time.

It didn't matter if you had reserved seats or not or even wheelchair assistance you just couldn't get on the train.

My compliments to the train managers and station staff who kept us informed and advised of alternative routing.

martindow

It seems like a marketing PR thing from Virgin to try to show how nice they want to be to passengers. But it is not likely to happen as it is not well thought out.


Getting a day return ticket from Birmingham to London for instance where trains are very frequent, I may be fairly confident on catching a specific outward train but I don't want to be tied to a particular return train which would mean risking missing it or having to hang around for a couple of hours after I have finished my tasks in town.


Losing this flexibility would be a big downside, and I suspect many people would drive part of the way so they can a get a train with an open service.

MothballsWallet

What would Virgin do if they're meant to be running 2 of the 5-car Super Voyagers joined together and one of the units didn't turn up?

This happened to Mrs MbW and I back in February when we went to London to see Phantom of the Opera (Valentine's Day treat for us both) and when we came back.

We had seat reservations both ways - on the train back, the train manager announced that the reservations were cancelled due to one of the train units not turning up.

Paul_Herring

MothballsWallet wrote: »

What would Virgin do if they're meant to be running 2 of the 5-car Super Voyagers joined together and one of the units didn't turn up?

Under EU rule 261/2004 you could be entitled to between £110 and £520 in compensation....

lisyloo

I don’t buy advance tickets as I have to cross London before my outbound journey. In practice I can’t guarantee arrival time. The second time I got the train, the Victoria line was suspended and I was about 30 mins late.

I’d want to see better arrangements for amendements e.g. for a fee not total loss.

There is no way I could reasonably allow for delays in London without turning up 30 mins early every day which I don’t think is reasonable.

lisyloo

One-Eye wrote: »

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.

Or perhaps 114 people book on the next train 10 minutes later or earlier?
Other people on the previous/next train would have to shift too so we’d get people more spread out.

lisyloo

One-Eye wrote: »

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?

Well firstly they can declasssify first class.
And secondly they can decide to have standing when delays/cancellations mean it has to happen.

This doesn’t mean it’s not a good strategy to have no PLANNED standing just because there are issues sometimes.

lisyloo

phillw wrote: »

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

Standing on the next train.

The proposal should be no PLANNED standing, but allowed when things go t*ts up.

harz99

Won't work. There are places on Virgin's West Coast routes where consecutive stations are used by commuters and local leisure travellers with VTWC effectively providing all or a large part of the local train service. Wigan/Warrington/Preston/Lancaster come to mind.