Originally Posted by
Mr A Tis
That might be the timetabled cross country schedule. In reality many are regularly cancelled-totally unreliable service at ridiculous fares.
Two recent trips, 7 hours Bournemouth to Manchester. The next one 4.5 hours Winchester to Stockport, standing in first class for 4.5 hours. Most passengers denied boarding after Basingstoke due to overcrowding. People having to stand in toilets. This is reality of the so called train service.
The sooner someone gets back on the SOU-MAN route the better.
Completely agree. It is one of the worst train services I've ever experienced. When factoring in delays it's usually quicker to go via London to the south coast from Manchester by rail... including the tube journey from Euston to Victoria/Waterloo. The service is usually formed of 4/5 coaches - far too short when the service doubles up as an intercity/commuter service due to the high number of stops. It's always overcrowded and is usually far more expensive than the flight. And like you said, so prone to delay due to the round-robin route that it takes. To put it into perspective I've previously caught the Piccadilly service from Southampton Central to the airport, and still been back in Manchester over an hour before the train arrives. And that's with getting to SOU 2 hours prior to departure, which is massively over cautious given how quick the door to gate experience is at Southampton.
I'm currently writing this from the 05:05 Avanti service from Piccadilly to London, from where I'll be later travelling onwards to Chichester to work for the next couple of days. Very much missing that route right now! Fingers crossed Loganair make an announcement soon.