I make a lot of long distance train journies, and on each one make a point of reading the complimentary onboard magazine, where the quality journalism lives. Given the current latest issue has been on the trains since July, I have been fortunate enough to have several chances to digest this fully. (JUL-SEP04, as they fashionably write it, was meant to be replaced in September but was instead only supplimented by OCT-DEC04, to the benefit of anyone who after reading this feels the urge to learn about events that happenned before it was even published.)
Pages 53 - 65 are all about the different radio stations that can be selected from the radio in the armrest. These vary according to whether the train is of the Voyager or Pendolino variety. I am on neither a Voyager train nor a Pendolino train, and have no radio. Equally, this magazine was on the table at which I sat. No-one else seems to have one and I cannot see any racks from which they may be taken. I do not actually think this is a Virgin train, so can only conclude that this is an exercise in guerrilla marketing.
The main draw of the magazine is, presumably, given its dominance of the cover, an interview with Keira Knightly. She has been made to look sluttier and more generic and I couldn't actually tell who it was without reading the text. Personally, I consider her far too thin and shapeless to find attractive, but I recognise that a lot of people do. In dedicating five pages to the interview and having only two full length pictures, 'Hotline' misses the point takes the gamble that people care what she has to say about toast.
The majority of the magazine is specific advertisments for Virgin Rail, occasionally interspersed with third party adverts and suggestions that you might like to travel from Brighton to Edinburgh, and then back to London, and on to North Wales...
By far my favourite part of the magazine were the instructions on the inside back cover of how, in the event of a crash, by twisting and pulling the wreckage, the surviving passengers can transform the train into VoyagerPendolino Prime.
