Virgin struggles

This from 'Dreadnought'...

I was interested to see your little extract from Virgin and their ambitions for the Glasgow market.

On Wednesday I travelled first class to Preston on the 0830 ex Euston and returned on the 1440 ex Glasgow.

No breakfast on the way up due to a faulty kitchen.

Four out of six toilets out of use on the way back.

It looks as if the strain of trying to run the VHF timetable with too few units is starting to take its toll.

A chap sitting opposite told me it was the second time in a week he had been deprived of his breakfast due to kitchen problems.

Not exactly good enough for the bargain price of £390 return!

Yes it's quick, it's frequent but the quality is falling noticeably.

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...

If you are running the VHF short of a Pendolino due to Grayrigg (thanks Network Rail) and because of infrastructure failures (thanks Network Rail) you are regularly stepping up units, leading to the situation where Alstom Train Care don't know which depot a train with a problem is going to end up at. So the replacement griddle may be at Longsight whilst the Train with the dodgy griddle ends up at Wembley...

This is not to say that Virgin and Alsom are blameless, but merely to introduce some mitigating factors.

And from a chart on the wall of Wembley depot noted last Wednesday, about 80% of Pendolino 'toilets out of use' arriving on depot are blocked, so presumably something unsuitable was put down them.

Mind you, when I was the world's leading writer on train toilets (in a field of one, I might add) I went to see the Scandinavian pioneers of vacuum, toilets and they designed to avoid blockages due to coke cans. They use dog food for testing, by the way.