Alas be ready to mourn the loss of the mk.3's

[micksasse]

I must say I concur with the (apparently widely-held) view that, from the point of view not of anoraked people like ourselves but of the travelling public, there's little to rival the ride quality and ambience of the Mark 3. Travelling travelling regularly up the ECML from Newcastle, I travel in these and also in Mark 4s, which are vastly inferior (although to be fair the suspension was optimised not for 125 mph but for 140 - and it shows and the very, err, interesting ride!).

I'm afraid I simply won't use Virgin services now that the HSTs are gone - the Voyagers are just not appropriate for long-distance travel; I prefer to take a GNER service as far as possible and switch to some variety of sprinter to complete my journey - but I'd add that I suffer from back pain, making prolonged use of a Voyager in any event impossible (speaking of both first and standard class). Unfortunately there are, of course, routes with little straightforward alternative to Virgin services, such as NE-SW routes, and I'm afraid I've reverted to the car for those

[jimbob]

Well it may not be for most of you much use but the Mk3's will still be in use (hopefully refurbed internally!) on anglia railways (or what ever they call us from next year!) As its part of the SRA's franchise commitments to replace our very tired & tatty Mk2E/F's with loco hauled trains using Mk3's, but we got to keep DBSO's unfortunatly which are 2nd to the old tired & ready for bed 86's in the failure stakes.

I must say that on the new/newer unit seating front the comfort/legroom stakes have gone down hill consistantly over the last 25 years;
309, lovely Mk1 comfortable seats, legroom, nice unit
312 not too bad same type of sprung seat
321 horrible, uncomfortable, no legroom ,
FGE's new 360's GHASTLY! Better legroom than a 321 but not a comfortable seat at all, air con is a bonus but like with all these types of train, no openable windows, so what happens in a overhead failure in summer? Ask eurostar, windows get put out!!
If GB railways new owners First group want to use them to norwich they will no doubt loose customers because they will give people backache on that journey, I know I was on one for a 30 min journey from london shortly after they were introduced & it gave me backache!

[ForburyLion]

The best journies I've experienced were a FGW Adelantie from Paddington to Reading and a SWT Juniper from Reading to Winnersh.

I'm 6'5 tall and find Mk3's and to a certain extent Voyagers don't offer enough leg room where as the other units mentioned offer plenty.

[Stooopidperson]

I'm looking forwards to using Pendolinos too

Don't - if you think a Voyager is cramped, a Pandemonium is worse! I witnessed a 'handbags at ten paces' argument between two city slicker blokes who were both trying to use a laptop at the same table (impossible).

But a Voyager is only 4 or 5 cars. But Pendolino, I heard is 9 cars.

[barrymcguire9999]

[quote="jimbob"]Well it may not be for most of you much use but the Mk3's will still be in use (hopefully refurbed internally!) on anglia railways (or what ever they call us from next year!) As its part of the SRA's franchise commitments to replace our very tired & tatty Mk2E/F's with loco hauled trains using Mk3's, but we got to keep DBSO's unfortunatly which are 2nd to the old tired & ready for bed 86's in the failure stakes.

What about the Mk3 DVT's currently on VWC, It would make sense if a few of these replaced the DBSO's..............

[markw]

Platform lengths and seating capacity. Anglia services need the seats in the DBSO as the platforms at Norwich and some other stations along the route will have problems accomodating a train of equivalent seating capacity to the current rakes with the huge wasted space of a DVT at one end. Dont forget, all the Anglia sets currently have at least two of the converted FO coaches with 76 ex APT seats in them - the same seating capacity as a Mk3 in 3m less coach - which are needed south of Ipswich during the peak hours when the trains call at Manningtree and Colchester, and are swamped with commuters. Some even have Mk2 Buffet Firsts to squeeze in an extra trailer standard where full restaurant facilities are not needed. This despite there being three Norwich departues between 5.30 and 6pm from Liverpool St. This is the dilemma of the route - Norwich is a well heeled location, with tv and research facilities that merits a full Intercity service, but 40 miles down the route at Ipswich, it's seats that matter as it becomes an outer-commuter express service.

In fact, I can't help thinking that some of the redundant TGS coaches from HST's should be converted to driving trailer standards to further maximise capacity.

[Stooopidperson]

Platform lengths and seating capacity. Anglia services need the seats in the DBSO as the platforms at Norwich and some other stations along the route will have problems accomodating a train of equivalent seating capacity to the current rakes with the huge wasted space of a DVT at one end.

But I heard somewhere in this forum, that the DVT were built to cach specifications, so it couldn't hold an engine. So surely they could convert the luggage compartment for passenger use!

[markw]

Possibly, or into a kitchen/Guard's brake. It's probably the cost of converting them that would be the problem. The DBSO exists. The DVT conversion would probably cost as much as a new coach given current prices

[jimbob]

Platform lengths and seating capacity. Anglia services need the seats in the DBSO as the platforms at Norwich and some other stations along the route will have problems accomodating a train of equivalent seating capacity to the current rakes with the huge wasted space of a DVT at one end. Dont forget, all the Anglia sets currently have at least two of the converted FO coaches with 76 ex APT seats in them - the same seating capacity as a Mk3 in 3m less coach - which are needed south of Ipswich during the peak hours when the trains call at Manningtree and Colchester, and are swamped with commuters. Some even have Mk2 Buffet Firsts to squeeze in an extra trailer standard where full restaurant facilities are not needed. This despite there being three Norwich departues between 5.30 and 6pm from Liverpool St. This is the dilemma of the route - Norwich is a well heeled location, with tv and research facilities that merits a full Intercity service, but 40 miles down the route at Ipswich, it's seats that matter as it becomes an outer-commuter express service.

In fact, I can't help thinking that some of the redundant TGS coaches from HST's should be converted to driving trailer standards to further maximise capacity.

I like your idea about the TGS, & yeah your so right about the seating, I can only appologise if you use our mainline regularlly in peak. Length wise network rail has been out checking; Liverpool st itself could cause some problems, stratford could be an issue too, chelmsford & colchester shouldnt be an issue, manningtree I think could be as it can be now with load 11, ipswich will be ok, just been lengthend, stowmarket could be tight diss & nowich should be ok I think?

Converted DVT's with seats, luggaue/ bike & guard areas would be nice (would increase reliability too! )
But the deccision is down to Mr Bowker & the SRA!!!