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East Coast Main Line to Virgin Trains East Coast


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Sadly, that shape is better suited to any livery that graced an A4.

I shall just have to keeping looking at Gilbert's PN layout more.

 

Stewart

I thought they looked rather nice in GNER's dark blue (which I rather liked as a livery and who, as an operator, delivered what I found to be the best on-train level of passenger service the ECML has had since privyisation).

 

Now of course it's down to razzamatazz and it will be interestingt to see what happens to on-train service.

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The change that has happened is the sudden disappearance of the cheaper tickets. I have been booking advance tickets with East Coast for many years and what I was paying in the £30+ for a Thursday night ticket is now in the £60+. In addition my collection of reward points tickets appear unusable as there are no trains I can book to use them. The revised web site states if I cannot book reward seats it is because:-

 

It's probably because there are no free tickets available for the journey you're trying to book. There are only a certain number of free tickets for each journey. We allocate them on a first-come-first-served basis, so try changing the time or the date you want to travel to find a journey which still has free tickets available. The number of free seats varies from train to train, and also depends on the time of day. There are generally fewer at peak times and none at all at particularly busy times of the year, such as Christmas and Easter.

 

The last point is nonsense as I have used reward tickets at Easter before. In my anal mode I checked every day from today until the end of May and there are no rewards seats anywhere on the London - Newcastle corridor. Virgin advise me I can trade them in for Nectar points. Bit of a con going on here in my opinion.

 

It was a good start to the day. At 7.00 this morning the revised website did not recognise London Kings Cross as a Virgin East Coast station!!!! I emailed a screen shot to them and by 10.00 it had been sorted out so good response by Virgin on that one.

 

One Gem. East Coast tickets are more expensive through Virgin Trains than if booked with Virgin Trains East Coast. I understand the commercial reasons why but not good PR from a company that thrives on its' image.

 

Mike Wiltshire

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One Gem. East Coast tickets are more expensive through Virgin Trains than if booked with Virgin Trains East Coast. I understand the commercial reasons why but not good PR from a company that thrives on its' image

Similar to the old East Coast online 10% discount

If you read the VTEC price match, it's no wonder VTWC is more expensive, after all they want to keep the two operations separate this time

 

I suspect your cheaper Advance Fares will appear once the fare box has been loaded

It looks as if it has only been loaded to the end of March 2015

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A trio of pics from today, since I was over at the modelling shed.  One of everything that's brand-able.

 

91109 (also the only silver 91 left)

 

16480162887_13c004d379_c.jpg

91109 Stevenage 1-3-15 (V19191) by TimEaster, on Flickr

 

82204 (at the sharp end of the above shot)

 

16686423952_9fe9bb0a35_c.jpg

82204 Stevenage 1-3-15 (V19190) by TimEaster, on Flickr

 

43317 accelerating north from the Stevenage stop.

 

16501306999_0a88dabcf9_c.jpg

43317 Stevenage 1-3-15 (V19195) by TimEaster, on Flickr

 

Have to say I'm not entirely sold on the livery, but I'll see how the travel experience changes when I head up to Grantham and back on Wednesday.

 

 



Is 91101 going to get this treatment?

I rather like its Flying Scotsman livery.

 

Cheers,

Phil.

 

From what I've heard, all special liveries are staying put.  I'll wait and see....!

 

Cheers,

Tim

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I suspect your cheaper Advance Fares will appear once the fare box has been loaded

It looks as if it has only been loaded to the end of March 2015

A few weeks ago, EC were selling tickets up to six months in advance - anyone know if this is likely to continue?

Mal

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A few weeks ago, EC were selling tickets up to six months in advance - anyone know if this is likely to continue?

Yes, it is now a new franchise requirement that advance tickets are (depending on franchise, and eventually) available up to 12 months in advance

 

VTEC have started off with Edinburgh and Newcastle available up to 5 months in advance (as this is all Network Rail could guarantee as at January 2015)

All other routes are currently limited to the next timetable change

The next batch of availability should commence from the middle of April and VTEC should then initially be offering 6 months in advance and by the end of the first year of the franchise will extend to 12 months in advance

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Yes, it is now a new franchise requirement that advance tickets are (depending on franchise, and eventually) available up to 12 months in advance

 

Thanks, mjkerr, at last ticketing moves into this century - booking so far in advance will mean checking for timetable alterations before travel.

Mal

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On board this morning, only changes visible are the lanyards worn by staff and the seat reservation tickets. No livery change to either HST seen this morning (43310 on the rear) or the set I'm on which has 'For the Fallen' as motive power.

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Thanks, mjkerr, at last ticketing moves into this century - booking so far in advance will mean checking for timetable alterations before travel.

Mal

Technically the requirement has long been that fully updated train service alterations should be available on the system, and thus for reservations, on a 6 month horizon.  Railtrack were totally unable to deliver it (and didn't even consider that they necessarily should) and it will be interesting to se if NR can manage it.   It has to include all alterations including 'out of Rules' type jobs such as Reading this Easter - where the 12 week horizon seems to be fully observed as is nowadays usual for NR (and definitely wasn't the case for Railtrack).

 

(It is, and long has been) standard practice on the European mainland although one or two national networks were not very good at it back in the 1990s - I remember a very nasty moment at an international timetable conference when the representatives of several affected countries got very upset with the Italians for their waywardness and it nearly resulted in the Austrians threatening physical violence.)

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Will this livery be appearing on the 390's given they have not had a re-livery/ re-brand since built?

The InterCity West Coast franchise is due for renewal in April 2017

The Class 390 units were built 2001 to 2004, and are due for repainting in 2016 to 2019

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