First North Western - A quality alternative to the car (First North Western)

Member Name: GraWar

Product:	First North Western
Date:	25/07/04 (686 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good prices, Punctual service

Disadvantages: Certain services can be very busy

First North Western are one of Britains privatised train companies. They offer train services across much of the North of England. They operate a number of routes with Manchester being where there core business is although they operate routes as far south as Birmingham, as far east as Sheffield, as far west as Wales, Liverpool and Blackpool and as far north as Carlisle.

I have had a number of experiences of travelling with First North Western, all very good I am pleased to say. I have travelled to various sporting events in the north with First and also several trips to Manchester Airport to which they offer a very frequent service. They operate a number of different trains most of which are 2 or 3 carriages in length which can sometimes lead to overcrowding problems but this is only on the busiest routes in the peak and also at times where i've been to sporting events which means the trains obviously are busy. Unfortunately the high price of rolling stock means its probably uneconomical for a regional company like North Western to be able to afford and justify the purchase of a lot of new trains. However over the last couple of years they have invested in some brand new trains which are very good, with air conditioning, CCTV, excellent disabled access and passenger information displays. There are some quite old trains operating but these are always found on the smaller local routes with the new trains typically operating on routes to wales.

I have always found First to be a reasonably punctual operator. I cannot ever recall being heavily delayed on one of there services. As for staff well like all companies they have some good and some bad although i've never had any bad experiences. I have experienced some good though one in particular was when we were lost in the middle of Oldham after going to a football match! The only station we could find was one called Hollinwood which is somewhere near Oldham although on comnpletely the wrong line
as to the one we needed to be on and where our ticket was from!! The conductor was very sympathetic to our cause and allowed us to travel with the ticket we had and helped us get back on track because as he said Oldham isn't the best place for strangers to be stuck in on a Saturday night (especially in opposition football shirts)!

First offer a wide range of discount tickets which are of use to both commuters and others. If I lived in the First region I would certainly look to travel on their train services because the traffic is an absolute nightmare and they offer an extremely reliable and frequent service particularly around the Manchester area where services are funded by GMPTE who are the passenger transport executive which funds additional train and bus services in the areas they are required. They offer some competitive discounted season tickets for commuters between certain stations, DUO tickets where 2 adults travelling together can get a discount of upto 20% and also a number of deals for discounted attractions at places across the north west. It is quite astonishing actually that the equivalent fares seem so cheap here in comparison with my local operator, Central Trains.

Overall in my experience travelling on various routes around the north west, I really must reccommend First North Western and would urge drivers to give them a crack because driving around Manchester in the rush hour cant be fun!

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