I’m currently on the way to the North West of England, I travelled the first part of my journey on a train which is a member of the Voyager family, albeit standing in the vestibule of the carriage
These trains use an engine I am now all too familiar with under each carriage, the Cummins QSK19, the very same engines used in the Class 185 Pennine/Desiro trains used by First TransPennine Express, on which I am on now coincidentally
The Voyagers have not been without criticism, they use regenerative brakes which have a resistor bank on the centre of the roof of each carriage, though on one or two occasions fires have been started here as temperatures reach 500 degrees or so, also these resistors disliked storm conditions on the Dawlish sea wall in the south west, the trains had to have a software modification to overcome this
As with all multiple unit trains they aren’t as good as the stock (HST type Mark 3 coaches and Class 43 (HST) locomotives) they replaced, but they still make the times, theoretically most modern stock can exceed 125MPH but due to Network Rail restrictions they cannot do so and are limited to a max of 125MPH running
All Class 220s are pooled to CrossCountry, and half 221s are also pooled to CrossCountry with the remainder of the 221s remaining at Virgin Trains. Even though the engines are identical to class 185 they are not as loud inside as the 185, something Bombardier thought of where Siemens screwed up on, lol
Now while I’m on here, I’ll just briefly go back to the class 185, I noticed the forward facing end of this particular set had the “Golden Spanner best modern DMU award”, the 185 is nothing more than a pile of uncomfortable junk, the hard seats are a sign of it’s German birth, but we’re British, not German, bring back the 158 Super Sprinter anyday :)
Happy journeys :)
