Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Or add extra carriages to existing formations? 3-car lengthened to 4-car covering for 2 x Sprinters and 2-car units extended to 3-car.
I'm sure the cost per seat is far higher for Northern as opposed to Southern or Southeastern simply because the trains are so short. Increase train capacity and the fixed operational costs are spread across a greater number of fare paying customers.
Well apparently northern want to order more 195 but I doubt that will happen soon considering the current financial environment.
Before this year new trains could be ordered at a good price and rate with many companies using this to get whole new fleets such as 701.
1- You have to store them somewhere
2- You have to maintain them
3- Drivers/Guards will need refreshers on them after a certain amount of time if they are only used occasionally.
4- Not PRM friendly.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Looking in from the outside, none of us will know. Perhaps they are working off a long term maintenance plan, were they expect weekends to have less demand for units. We don't know many units are stopped for unplanned faults. Is there enough operational staff to shunt the units together in the sidings etc. Are the units in the right place to form the train? (Disruption, staff availability, etc etc.
I’d suggest there’s two factors relating to weekends:
Firstly, people underestimate the number of units required to cater for weekend demand. Weekday demand is pretty easy to predict, peak services tend to be loaded the same from one day to the next (Covid has upset this a bit, but even so it is still fairly easy to predict from week to week). Weekend demand varies massively due to external factors, some stuff like events may be partly predictable, but then there’s weather to factor in which can have a big determining impact. So it’s not really possible, especially for the TOCs who aren’t awash with spare peak stock, to lengthen everything. So someone somewhere is probably going to end up on an overcrowded train.
Secondly, rightly or wrongly everything is designed on the basis of reducing the amount of weekend work, as people don’t like working weekends. So there aren’t the crews to be shunting stuff around, which is what is generally done for the weekday peaks to make maximum use of what units are available.
Add in the fact that at weekends most people will be on cheaper tickets, either discounted in some way, many child fares, and perhaps some season ticket holders having an essentially free discretionary trip, and one can see how the current situation persists. I suspect this same discussion will be being had in a decade or two.
One thing which might help is reducing the number of on-the-day cancellations, but again if anything this seems to be getting worse in places.
They were awful units and were getting harder and harder to make work, I'm glad they've gone even if it can make things a little cosy at times. I'd rather sit in a luggage rack on a 158 than be stuck sucking my knees on a 153 or 144.
Once a few more 156s and 158s become available, growing the fleet might be worthwhile.
They were awful units and were getting harder and harder to make work, I'm glad they've gone even if it can make things a little cosy at times. I'd rather sit in a luggage rack on a 158 than be stuck sucking my knees on a 153 or 144.
Once a few more 156s and 158s become available, growing the fleet might be worthwhile.
We are aware of an issue with emails from the Forum to Microsoft-based email accounts (hotmail/outlook/live.com email addresses). This is being looked into currently, thanks for your patience meanwhile.
