I was lucky enough to travel home last night on THE only refurbished HST currently in service and my god what a difference. The seats are definately more comfortable than the 225 equivelant, the noise levels have been vastly reduced, it was clean, the toilets worked, it smelt nice and yes, as others have already mentioned, the lights are very bright.

I actually felt guilty I'd spilled a few drops of my beer (criminal I know) when I opened the can that I got a tissue out to mop it up. There's no way I'd have done that in the old coaches. I'd like to think lord GNER put this set on the 17.20 becasue he knows I use that service and he wanted me to see it and comment on it on this site. In the real world however I'm sure it was just chance. Either way I hope they keep this set on the 17.20 service from now on as it makes the journey home just that little bit more tollerable.

On thing I've noticed this week is the absence of our usual guards on both the 07.20 and 17.20. Other than Matt (the wittiest and funniest guard I've ever come across) I hardly recognised anyone.