It's a trip report episode, I'm here at Waverley station and I'm just about to
travel down to Preston on Avanti West Coast trains, fancy joining me
welcome to RogVLOG.
Here's our ride of the day arriving, it's come all the way from London
Euston, and it's a really short turnaround just ten minutes in the
station and then it's heading back down south, today we're traveling on a Class
390, also known as a Pendolino, now the west coast line up until recently has
always been run by Virgin Trains but recently the franchise was taken over by
Avanti West Coast's, so I'm really interested to find out today how the
service has changed,
the first-class section the train is a spacious 2x1 configuration but as
I sat down I couldn't help noticing that the moquette on these old seats is
starting to look a little threadbare, at each seat is a glass and a coffee cup, a
power socket and an individual reading light, we left Edinburgh Waverley bang on
time and what a beautiful day for travelling,
Avanti West Coast have an extensive menu with different options for breakfast lunch afternoon and in the
evening and of course we were on the afternoon menu, today I was torn between
choosing the harissa chicken salad or the onion bhaji wrap, in the end I went
for the chicken salad and you know what, it was absolutely delicious, but
personally I thought the presentation was a little bit poor, I would have
preferred it to have been served on a plate,
I washed it down with a glass of this excellent Wreck Less Beer, what an amazing
name for a beer brand
and to finish of course a mug of hot black coffee,
for a long time I used to avoid these Pendolino trains, for one simple reason
the Pendolino Pong, yes when these trains were originally introduced, they
had a design flaw, the suspension tanks underneath the toilets were a little bit
too close to the air conditioning inlets, and as you can imagine when those tanks
got full of, stuff, the pong spread throughout the train, virgin had spent
millions and millions and millions of pounds trying to fix it and I'm glad to
say that today no Pendolino Pong,
and so overall I'm pretty impressed from the service on AvantiWest Coast, it was
a little rushed I have to say and the presentation could have been better but
the food was pretty delicious I enjoyed it, and these trains stack up
well given the fact they're nearly twenty years old, But I think those seats are
getting a little bit moth eaten now, perhaps need to be at least
re-upholstered what do you think about it Avanti?
Bang on time just as I like it, if you enjoyed this episode of RogVLOG
please do subscribe to my YouTube channel
in the meantime catch me on the return journey when I go back to Edinburgh with
TransPennine Express.