P.S. There have been through services from Paddington to Manchester and even Glasgow (I think) in the past - I am sufficiently old to have travelled on them too. I recall an 06:00 off Paddington and a late evening arrival back there; the service was really a feeder for the first service of the day Poole - Southampton - Reading - Oxford - Birmingham - beyond which grew into Cross Country, with the train being operated from / serviced at Old Oak. Not hugely crowded off Paddington, and indeed for a period it didn't even bother - started at Ealing Broadway!
A service I used many times, 0635 from Reading, off peak savers valid until the mid-90's! Plenty of room and into New Street reliably in time for connections North (was it through to Picadilly?) and no risk of missing a connection from Euston or Kings Cross, because of
LUL▸ . I also went to Glasgow that way, arrived on time with the Buffet needing to be taken out of service because of mess made by drunken passengers. The (truncated)
XC▸ voyagers are not as comfortable as Mark 2's, proper railway carriages, but they are a lot quicker.
OTC
