Pendolino Shortage
 

Today the 1623 Euston - Preston (1756 ex Stafford) was a 5 coach Voyager instead of a 9 coach Pendolino. Has another Pendolino had a prang ?

Eww, Voyager.

What am I saying, I feel cramped in Pendolino's too - I'm a tall bloke!

Thunderbird + Mk3 stock please. :D

Space is an issue in many trains.
Todays stock needs sevicing as well you know.
Perhaps that's where the missing train has gone?

You could always look on the bright side and hope they have started scrapping them!:)

This has always been inevitable. To have had so little spare capacity is ridiculous, especially with modern trains which have so many systems, electronics etc to go wrong. Apart from taking them out of service for routine maintenance, you only need one or two out for long term repairs and then the odd breakdown to have a problem.

Bring back the 87's from Bulgaria :)

On a more serious note was the old BR corporate days that bad ? Todays privtate companies seem only interested in shiny new trains with pretty colourschemes and ridiculous high fares. :(

Though to be fair the Government transport groups are more to blame if you ask me. They told Virgin that they had a commitment to have replaced all the class 87's 6's, 90's e.t.c by the end of the franchise period.

Totally agree with you on high fares, its only because out Gvt want to treat the railways like a business and make profit out of it. Most other countries treat it like a necessity to the public that is required whatever the costs and i comes out of taxes regardless, like the health service. Shame since if real effort was put into the railways, put back into the public, and a lot more subsidy was dedicated with non profit ideals we might have a decent system.

These people are not always the problem.
Look at first.
Their trains are pretty bad and they use class 170's for everything.
Even the expresses are a three coach train which are often heavily overcrowded on the trip to scotland from manchester.
You simply cannot use what is basically a commuter train for long haul expresses.
They are far to under eqiuped.
Sadly Virgin are one of the good ones.

At one time i thought the free market had all the answers but not any more !

To be fair, I've never had a problem with First Transpennine. The 185s (which they have 51 off, compared to only 9 170s) are quite comfortable units. I know that they have problems with overcrowding at peak times, but there's plenty of room to stand, which gives them an advantage over other dmus as far as I'm concerned. I'll never forget one particularily hellish journey I did on a voyager. I got on at Leamington Spa, and until Birmingham New Street I had so little space that I couldn't move my arms enough to get my phone out of my pocket!