Reviews

Virgin Trains East Coast Review

22 September 2017

By Lauren E. White

5/5

Trains get a lot of flack these days, particularly those belonging to southern companies (ahem, Southern Rail) for being late, dirty and cramped.

It seems, though, that Virgin Trains East Coast is an exception to the rule. Travelling at 5:30 am on a Monday morning from Newcastle to King’s Cross, you’d think the train would be heaving. Well, not in the quiet coach it wasn’t. I was quite surprised that it wasn’t busy, seeing as many people often use that train to commute at the beginning of the week.

The quiet coach itself was also…wait for it…quiet! Yes, that’s right, people actually obeyed the rules. Nobody was talking (just the odd whisperer between York and Darlington), there was nobody to disturb you, no phones ringing or alarms going off. Just the sound of the inspector screaming at every stop for tickets. Other than that, I had a good kip.

Virgin Trains East Coast was pretty impressive, actually. There was no hassle or disturbances and the journey was just easy – exactly what you want after waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning, right?

Overall, I’d recommend it and I would use them again. The tea is expensive, but the problem is solved if you get one from Costa in the train station and sleep for the rest of the journey. There are toilets that are clean and that actually work too, so no worries about overloading yourself! It’s a good journey and you can forget the usual horror stories.

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