XC Trains Limited - www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk

I've been traveling on CrossCountry for the first time in this weekend. I wish to write my review of my trip and hope it will help someone someday.

# From Manchester Picc to Birmingham New St.

# Out 22nd Oct 18:30, Return 24th Oct 2010

# 2 travelers

# Train

The train condition was great! clean and tidy. The space of seats are larger than the Virgin train. The luggage shelve on top of my seats are also big enough to put my bags in so I don't have to leave them in the end of the carriage.

# Accuracy and timetable

I was not very satisfied by the accuracy of the time because the train was late on my return trip on Sunday.

# Others

We booked a day in advance on the CrossCountry website and it was not able to offer seats reservation to us. I am not sure if that's due to the time we booked but it didn't say anything ( though it let us to choose what type of seats and quiet coach ). Until we'd paid we were told the seats couldn't be reserved. I felt a bit disappointed by this but I wished it could be clear during the purchase.

Luckily we managed to get two seats together. We saw a lot people standing on the train and couldn't find seats for a while on the busy train.

If I go on this train again I would do these below:

# Book in advance at least 3 days in order to reserve seats

# if in an emergency, check the service frequently to see if there's any delay