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Cross Country Voyager Wi-Fi

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Russel

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Hi all,

Just a quick one, is Wi-Fi free in standard class on Cross Country voyagers? I know it used to be paid for access but that was a couple of years ago.

Also, how reliable is it between Sheffield and Edinburgh?

Thanks
 
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TT-ONR-NRN

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Hi all,

Just a quick one, is Wi-Fi free in standard class on Cross Country voyagers? I know it used to be paid for access but that was a couple of years ago.

Also, how reliable is it between Sheffield and Edinburgh?

Thanks
It is free in both classes.
I find it to be fairly reliable, not as good as the decent Wi-Fi GWR have on the IETs, but far, far better than the awful offering on South Western Railway. I find it works better than Avanti and LNER's too. LNER's seems to clash a lot.
 

DelW

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It is free in both classes.
I find it to be fairly reliable, not as good as the decent Wi-Fi GWR have on the IETs, but far, far better than the awful offering on South Western Railway. I find it works better than Avanti and LNER's too. LNER's seems to clash a lot.
SWR's has improved markedly in the last year or so (I'm using it on a 444 at the moment). The cumbersome copy-and-paste login has gone, and once in it usually works okay. Up until last year I always used my own data on SWR as the WiFi was so awkward to use, but no more.

To the OP, I can't help re XC though, sorry.
 

Russel

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It is free in both classes.
I find it to be fairly reliable, not as good as the decent Wi-Fi GWR have on the IETs, but far, far better than the awful offering on South Western Railway. I find it works better than Avanti and LNER's too. LNER's seems to clash a lot.

Thanks, it's been a while since I did a long distance XC journey.

I've found Avanti's Wi-Fi to be terrible for anything other than basic web browsing.
 

stuu

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It is free in both classes.
I find it to be fairly reliable, not as good as the decent Wi-Fi GWR have on the IETs, but far, far better than the awful offering on South Western Railway. I find it works better than Avanti and LNER's too. LNER's seems to clash a lot.
That's the first time I have ever heard GWR wifi described as decent. XC is decent and reliable when I have used it up to Bristol and Birmingham
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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That's the first time I have ever heard GWR wifi described as decent. XC is decent and reliable when I have used it up to Bristol and Birmingham
They have a different type available only on the IETs, with what's described as "our fastest ever Wi-Fi" in First Class, and that's always been very good in my experience. On the Regional fleet, less so.
 

stuu

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They have a different type available only on the IETs, with what's described as "our fastest ever Wi-Fi" in First Class, and that's always been very good in my experience. On the Regional fleet, less so.
It was useless on HSTs and is no better on IETs, on a variety of devices. Might depend which route you use them on though, as obviously its dependent on the mobile coverage.
 

fgwrich

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It was useless on HSTs and is no better on IETs, on a variety of devices. Might depend which route you use them on though, as obviously its dependent on the mobile coverage.

Could be worse, it is utterly terrible on the Turbo's. But then again, most things are with those. It always amuses me sitting in the former First Class compartment, to be greeted with a photo of the HST First Class.

XC I've found to be very hit and miss. Coming back from Reading last week, it certainly couldn't hold any signal and kept dropping out. Enough to make me switch it off and connect to the 5G coming into Basingstoke instead.
 

riceuten

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Not sure anybody charges these days.
I remember when Virgin Trains used to charge in 2nd class, but 1st class was free, people would apparently get on the carriage next to first class and connect in the foyer, and it would work in the first couple of rows of seats in 2nd class.

The best onboard (free) Wifi I ever had was on a double deck TGV from Paris to Nancy. You had to input a special code on your ticket to gain access to it, but it was rock solid the whole 90 minutes I was on the train. Good Wifi at the station as well. In Orleans, staying in the Ibis opposite, you could use the Gare SNCF Wifi as well - it was better and more reliable than the Ibis's !
 

dk1

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I remember when Virgin Trains used to charge in 2nd class, but 1st class was free, people would apparently get on the carriage next to first class and connect in the foyer, and it would work in the first couple of rows of seats in 2nd class.

Yes the same on NXEA/GA where they would try to stand/sit in 1st class vestibules until the Senior Conductor moved them on.
 

voyagerdude220

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I remember when Virgin Trains used to charge in 2nd class, but 1st class was free, people would apparently get on the carriage next to first class and connect in the foyer, and it would work in the first couple of rows of seats in 2nd class.
I seem to remember before WiFi was made free to all on Virgin and not just free to First Class pax, the Standard Class coaches D and K on their Super Voyagers offered free WiFi incase it was used as First Class.
 

Master29

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It is free in both classes.
I find it to be fairly reliable, not as good as the decent Wi-Fi GWR have on the IETs, but far, far better than the awful offering on South Western Railway. I find it works better than Avanti and LNER's too. LNER's seems to clash a lot.
Thats funny because I found SWR to be excellent compared to GWR's hit and miss offering.
 

DelW

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Strangely, GWR's wifi on Turbos refuse to load RealTimeTrains. Never tried the wifi on other GWR stock.
I've never encountered that problem - I quite often use RTT when approaching Reading, to check my connection time and which platform I need to get to, both from Turbos and class 800s. It's always worked okay for me.
 

WelshBluebird

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Somewhat surprised at the comments about XC being decent. I've just come back from up North after a weekend away and the WiFi was basically unusable for most of the Bristol - York stretch and back again. I had much better luck on mobile data (which says a lot given how rubbish signal can be on that route, even more so once you add in the effects the Voyagers have on phone signal). Maybe others just have lower expectations than I do, but I would expect a modern internet connection of any type to be able to deal with refreshing a Twitter feed properly! Granted both journeys were very busy (the TM declassified first class for a period due to how busy the return journey was) so maybe my experience isn't reflective of the usual experience when less people are using it (certainly when it used to be paid for it was actually quite usable IIRC).
 

43172

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Somewhat surprised at the comments about XC being decent. I've just come back from up North after a weekend away and the WiFi was basically unusable for most of the Bristol - York stretch and back again. I had much better luck on mobile data (which says a lot given how rubbish signal can be on that route, even more so once you add in the effects the Voyagers have on phone signal). Maybe others just have lower expectations than I do, but I would expect a modern internet connection of any type to be able to deal with refreshing a Twitter feed properly! Granted both journeys were very busy (the TM declassified first class for a period due to how busy the return journey was) so maybe my experience isn't reflective of the usual experience when less people are using it (certainly when it used to be paid for it was actually quite usable IIRC).

The fact that both journeys were busy would've had an effect on the usability of the WiFi, plus if some people start using high data services it could have a knock on for the rest of train.

When you had to pay on XC for WiFi, i'd sit in standard and use the toilet in 1st for a moment if i was that desperate to connect online. I think WiFi became free to standard class late 2018/early 2019, so didn't use the tactic since.

I've often found it reliable on XC irrespective of rolling stock, which is nice compared to the differences on GWR, where the 16x and 9 car 80x units may as well not have it (the 16x stuggle with loading the Google home page, 9 car 80x is a mess to even connect to). The 15x and 5 car 80x units fine, the HST fleet doesn't like RTT at all but is fine otherwise, and the Night Riviera isn't great (but as it's a sleeper and i tend not to sleep travelling it gets a bye).
 
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