Pendolino Time, Come On

I had previously enjoyed the briefest of trips on a very full Avanti West Coast Pendolino from Stoke to Manchester Piccadilly, but it didn’t seem fair to judge it on that relatively flat stretch alone. We needed to glide round the curves on Shap and Beattock, at the very least, to experience the tilting train technology.

Using a technology first developed for BR’s Advanced Passenger Train, when that venture failed the Italians took the initiative and the Pendolino was the result. The idea was that you could increase existing line speed safely and comfortably for passengers by adopting a tilting mechanism when going round bends, without the need for a new and expensive railway line having to be built from scratch. So it was that the Pendolino became the mainstay of the longer distance inter city services on the West Coast Main Line, a situation that has now existed for two decades. 

The 12.08 from Crewe to Glasgow Central was already heaving with passengers when we boarded it on 20/11/23. There was someone sitting in my seat. I politely approached him, but he made it perfectly clear that he was staying put. His get out clause was that the overhead seat reservation display was not showing any reservations. This was soon announced as a fact over the train audio system. The seat reservation computer system had failed nationally. By then, I’d seen the guard approaching and told him our tale of woe. He directed us immediately to coach H, described as standard premium, which he added “we could have on him”. We gratefully accepted his invitation and spread out in the comparative luxury of a half empty carriage, as the train sped us past the soap factory at Warrington, then over the hills and far away. It was a really nice experience. Unfortunately for those in the proper first-class coaches, [J and K], blokey had not turned up for work, so their “at your seat service” did not come into effect until Preston, when someone who had indeed got out of bed at the right time was due to take over the role anyway. My tuna sandwich and crisps tasted better than ever as we started to climb up the Lune Valley towards Cumbria.

On our way back to Crewe two days later, the IT system was still down, apparently, but we had secured our seats in good time. Once shoe-horned in, the seat itself was not uncomfortable. The window seat facing the direction of travel is always a critical part of the overall experience for me. My window was shared with a lady in front of me who had a narrow slice of it and a man behind me with a similarly restricted chunk. The low wintery sun came out unexpectedly before Carlisle and the lady then half closed “our” joint blind. I had to crouch down in my seat to enjoy the remaining sliver of the passing landscape.

However, I realised that if we had been assigned seats B36 or B33, both of which were window seats, as claimed on the display above them, I would have had a window seat without a window, at all. They were window seats in name only because all you had was a grey carriage side wall to look at. It would have been totally unsatisfactory and even somewhat claustrophobic. The seats on the Pendolino in standard class are tall. You can’t see over them. Your view is severely limited when looking up, down, forward, backward and to one side of the non-window, window seats. It’s like being in a box that only opens in one direction. The only view at all is of the person next to you. In my case that was very pleasing [naturally], but that might not be a universally held view, depending on who one ends up sitting next to. I would have hated it in B33 or B36. And then there’s the luggage racks. They’re tiny.

I have sampled the more recent Hitachi Aviva high-speed trains, which run on the East Coast Main Line out of King’s Cross, and they felt much better. I also know a couple who travel regularly from Crewe to London Euston but always take the slower eight-car Class 350 Desiro EMUs, which they find spacious, comfortable, airy and with good surround views, rather than putting up with the rather cramped experience on the Class 390 Pendolinos. If I was taking regular journeys on the WCML, I would be tempted to do the same thing, even though the journey takes quite a bit longer because of its more frequent station stops.