And completely pointless that was too, given the first class cabin on a 170 had 9 seats. The change has added a whole 3 seats to the train- seats that were lost elsewhere due to changes to the wheelchair bay.
Funny how those two operators both have invested in new fleets in recent years. What would be interesting to see is how much those new fleets added in ticket revenue going forward, especially Greater Anglia, given it replaced its entire fleet in the last decade. I'm surprised Southeastern and LNER are not cited though, as they are both very in demand operators, and LNER in particular runs lucrative routes with relatively new stock (and getting more with the 897s).
I'm not sure that that's necessarily true. I book standard class if I'm certain of getting a seat for my entire XC journey. If not I'll bite the bullet and consider first be that at full price or discounted through Seatfrog. On busy trains it may not be possible to get a first class seat at all. On less busy ones first may be busier than standard if the discount isn't too great. That seems a good use of space to maximise income.
Looking at Real Time Trains it seems the first three XC trains from Leeds today were dinky little 4 car units. Good news; the 1102 ex-Leeds had 9 coaches. Bad news; the rear 5 were locked out of use!
At least with a delay you'd get compensation without a fight. Not that it's reasonable of course.
There are many examples of trains being marked as reservations compulsory and then not being available to book online using a journey planner interface. However, our ticketing structure does not depend on having a reservation when travelling on 'walk up' tickets.
I'm guessing there are staff issues driving this particular issue.
20-30 years ago, standees were not expected to stand for more than 20 minutes even on busy commuter services.
we have been told many times in this thread that the staff issues are purely of the management's making, refusing to pay the catering staff in the front unit to be trained (and paid) for some limited safety-critical responsibilities. So they will run one unit out of two empty just to avoid a slightly increased payment to a member of the crew.
I remember standing on XC services for most of the way between Oxford and Scotland in the early 2000s, it's not a new thing.
It's been posted on many occasions that it is in large part because the RMT will no longer countenance catering staff undertaking what they consider to be elements of the safety critical role of the guard. The company and caterers were happy enough with the arrangement. Note - I am stating this as what I believe to be the facts of the case, with no personal opinion as to whether this position is justified. Elsewhere for example EMR have agreed to have 2 train managers on 2 x 810, it's been a feature on Eurostar for many years and so on. On the other hand, LNER and GWR operate with 1 TM per train (excluding the very limited GWR 800 operation).
You never went on a Portsmouth Liverpool 158 then.
I've seen LNER services that had all reservable seats taken and so journey planners were not allowing those services to be booked even on an open ticket.
My record has been standing all the way from York to Bristol. My feet were in absolute agony by the end of it.
My record was Leicester to Cambridge which hurt like hell.
XC have asked for extra 221s, it's the DfT that needs to supply the extra funding though...
I once did Oxford to Newcastle a couple of years ago (on the Reading direct train) and the guard got earfuls of abuse because he wasn’t cater trained and vice versa for the front of train guard
1970s Plymouth to Newcastle was often standing at least half way. Sitting on an upended case in the guards van was a step up though…
thanks .I've not seen that, but those pax would not be barred from boarding that service would they and thus situations like yesterday will still arise.
Are there still a small number of Voyager trains off lease?
Six five-car units stored I think?
