ExCon90 wrote:Question for George Matthews: You mention in the Amtrak forum that you make frequent trips to Scotland. I assume that's on Virgin from Bournemouth or somewhere, reversing at Reading; how do you find the experience in general? Also, have you done it since they finished the rebuilding at Reading? Is that working as intended?
Yes, I would board the HST train in Bournemouth and go through Reading. I have to admit I haven't done it for over a year. Quite often I would change at Birmingham New Street, as I have interests in Birmingham. The HST sometimes goes via a non-electric cross country route to Newcastle but an electric train to Carstairs is my preference. I usually go to Edinburgh from there. Reversing at Reading is not a problem. I tend to travel from Bournemouth with my back to the direction of movement. But a few trains don't call at Reading and don't need to reverse (but that may be a practice used during BR days).
In a year or so there may be a continuous overhead electric route from Southampton. That suggests it would be best to pick up the Edinbugh train there. I haven't seen the new Reading station - where yesterday on the BBC local news there was an announcement of "rebuilding". I have no idea of what they meant by that - or was it about another Reading station?