Virgin Trains > Reviews > given a bad name

Author's product rating:   

Frequency of trains	Good
Reliability of trains	Always on time
Comfort of trains	Comfortable
On-board facilities	Poor

Advantages:	Very helpful staff and very reliable trains
Disadvantages:	the only thing is the services on - board the train

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I have recently been on a trip to London from Manchester and used Virgin Trains there and back. Their has been a lot in the papers and on TV recently saying how unreliable and how late they always are so I felt after traveling well on both trips i ought to write a review. Although I only used the train twice I have since spoke to some people who all agree that the service is good and find it hard to make critisims.

First of all was buting the tickets. It cost around £30 pounds there and back which is an excellent price for a trip covering 600 miles. We received some discounts for booking direct with Virgin and because there were four of us. Also one of us bought a Family Saver (I think that was its name) which reduced the price even further. We did have to queue up for the tickets but the line was only about five minutes long and I also noticed that you could get your tickets quicker from a machine next to the branch. There was never more than one person waiting at these so they must be a good idea if ever I travel again.

As for waiting for the train, we walked straight on. We were a few minutes early and the train was already waiting for us. Once all the passengers had boarded it left hastely and was bang on time. The train itself took two and a half hours. This is fairly slow although we did arrive at exactly the time expected.

The train itself was fairy nice. The seats were comfortable and not too cramped in, although I am quite tall and there wasn't that much legroom. The four of us were sat round a table which was clean and big enough for all of us. At the end of each carrage was a toilet so we did not have to walk far.

One thing though was the cafe/buffet. It was small and did not sell much. It was fine for drinks both hot and cold (selling Virgin Cola, obviously). It sold a lot of deserts and snacks aswell like crisps and cookies. But, the only food it had was sandwiches and not much variety either and they weren't that nice.

The staff were all very helpful so there were no problems there. We arrived early for our return journey so they found an earlier one for us with no extra cost.

One other bad point is the safety. I noticed only one hammer per carriage and that was in a glass container. It seems poitless to have to break the glass on the box so you can break the glass on the window! There were no noticable emergency exits marked and it would have been better if a safety talk was given before a long journey.