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Cross Country Trains - a warning

Posted by (Lake District, England) on

Last Sunday Cross Country withdrew the last of their fleet of HST 125 trains.

So they are now even shorter of capacity, and have long been known for having very crowded trains, far too short for the numbers travelling.

I always urge people on this forum travelling from Bath to York or North East England to travel via London. I would reiterate that even more now. The problem of crossing London is heavily over stated on this forum. And it is more than offset by the far superior travelling experience you will have.

I really have no axe to grind with XC and wish I wasn't writing this post, but it is in the best interests of our overseas visitors.

Today I saw two forum members off on a XC from Leeds to (eventually) Moreton in Marsh. To say that 5 car set was overcrowded, when it arrived from Glasgow, was being polite. Far worse ex Leeds. The XC computer, 8 weeks ago, had allocated 2 random seats (not next to each other), and all efforts to change that had failed, because they had booked through LNER.

What was annoying was that, 2 days after they booked, I found that I could have got them adjacent seats through booking on my local TVM- so it wasn't lack of seats it was maliciousness of the computer.

So the other takeaway is that if you must travel XC, book through their own website, as then you can choose and change your seats.
All luggage stacks and racks on that train were full as well by Leeds.

Overall it was apparently a miserable travel experience.

Posted by
5326 posts

XC is even still not back to its pre pandemic timetable (both routes & frequency) otherwise it would be even shorter of stock. In my opinion worth avoiding through the core areas if you reasonably can.

Posted by
32767 posts

it is sad that XC has been so diabolical for so long. It has been a long time now since Operation Princess. Sad that they have never recovered. And the tin cans trains are pretty awful.

That being said, the Cross Country network is really convenient and allows diagonal travel across the country which can be really helpful.

Posted by
110 posts

XC trains from Penzance to Edinburgh will normally pass through St Davids with five carriages. Five! And the amount of people getting on the train sometimes is almost more than the platform itself can handle.

Posted by
5763 posts

@ianand julie- They had been staying in Skipton for a few nights. And had so hoped to see the cheese man there- except he was on holiday in Greece, so Leeds was just a change point. But I've been in Leeds I believe 7 times in a fortnight (I'm losing count), somewhere over a dozen times in the last month or so.
I was there yesterday.

Posted by
1282 posts

Hi isn31c -

Are you doing freelance forum guide work? If so, nice one! You’ve been in Leeds more frequently than I have of late!

Ian

Posted by
5763 posts

@ianandjulie- The vast majority of my recent trips to Leeds have been personal. I'm taking advantage of having a clutch of Northern Rail complimentary tickets at the moment, and matching that with the unrivalled chance to use Blazefield's (in it's many company names) bus routes before the £2 offer ends.

So I'm doing some wonderful things.

In fact last week I ended up not even paying the £2 bus fare as the ticket machine on the bus wasn't working, so it was free rides!!

On Tuesday I was actually on my way from Cumbria to Wolverhampton, but for the sheer heck of it, as the opportunity arose, routed down to Keighley, then via Ilkley for Leeds, thence NatEx to Birmingham (about £6), then the little known NatEx transfer to their local buses to Wolverhampton.

I've really liked the Leeds Bear Hunt over the summer!!

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