Chiltern out, Virgin back

On Tuesday, I needed to be in London after driving to Solihull and had a tight turn-round in terms of completing my business and being back at my daughter's school for the early evening.

Clearly I had a choice: either to park at Solihull and go up to London on the 0825 Chiltern service then return on a Virgin Pendolino to Birmingham International for a taxi to Solihull, or to drive to International and use Virgin both ways.

Actually, the decision was straightforward to make... Solihull station car park costs 75p for a day's parking; International costs several pounds. Chiltern have an off-peak fare of £33 on the 0825; Virgin expect peak fares to be paid from International until 10:10. Chitern Clubmans offer tables with power points throughout; Pendolinos have few tables with power points in Standard Class THOUGH of course they do offer free Wi-Fi at present.

So I settled happily onto a table seat on the relatively quiet 0825 (one advantage of joining at Solihull is that many commuters get off there) and worked on the pleasant two hour journey to Marylebone. My only disappointment was that the Catering Trolley was not operating, and no announcement about its absence was made.

For my journey back, I had booked in advance for the 1623 Pendolino out of Euston to avoid paying the walk-on fare of £74.50 and to secure a table. Of course, nothing is straightforward with Virgin tickets. The quoted Advance fare to International is £49. However, an Advance fare to Coventry is £45.50 and an Anytime Day single (Virgin Trains only) from Coventry to Birmingham International is £1.40 so by buying the two tickets I saved £2.10. Had I had to use a walk-on single fare, splitting the fare at Coventry would have saved me £8.10 (£65 + £1.40)!

Unusually, the Pendolino was sitting in Platform 16 at Euston and was in reverse formation so Coach A was near the 'barrier' - I say barrier advisedly as there were no ticket checks prior to boarding. As is often the case, the reservations weren't being displayed before departure - I wonder if Virgin will ever crack this problem - but fortunately my table seat was unoccupied.

Currently, Virgin is offering free Wi-Fi to Standard Class passengers. The downside of this is that the Wi-Fi is extremely slow: only just capable of handling email downloads. Again this is something Virgin needs to get agrip on...

All Pendolinos offer catering through the shop to standard class customers. Not that the crew seemed particularly interested in alerting potential customers to this fact... Also lacking was any kind of ticket check on board - given the lack of barriers at Euston, Coventry, and International and the cursory ones at New Street, one wonders if Virgin have given up on revenue protection.

Still departure and arrival were on time and the ride was fine. BUT Virgin could do so much better...