Monday 16th August

Back in June, I highlighted a Telegraph promotion for Virgin train travel during August (http://birmingham2london.blogspot.com/2010/06/telegraph-prpmotion-10000-advance.html). As I had a long-standing evening engagement on the 16th, I took advantage of the promotion to book £19 First Class Pendolino tickets for the 13.10 up to Euston and the 21.03 back.

Judging by the sea of empty First Class seats both ways, these two trains clearly hadn't benefitted greatly from the promotion (or Virgin's own subsequent copy during July). Given that the 13.10 in particular was 'full' standard class, one wonders at Virgin's inability to fill First Class seats... clearly, the headline fares (£120 single / £240 return) don't help but surely Virgin can find a way of encouraging First Class travel, especially by those Railcard holders who qualify for a significant discount.

So I benefitted from delightfully quiet journeys... the service was friendly both ways though on the 13.10 there wasn't a second round of coffee / tea offered, whilst on the 21.03 there was the usual delay in serving food until after the Milton Keynes stop.

Today's food was a choice of Tuscan Ham Roll or Pasta Salad followed by Strawberry cake or fruit. Fruit juices or alcoholic drinks accompanied the choice. I plumped for the Tuscan Roll on the way down and the Pasta Salad on the way back with apples both ways. Both were fine but hardly filling - the pasta salad in particularly being a fairly small portion...

Nevertheless, both journeys ran to time and both had working Wi-Fi. So for £38, pretty good!