If GWR have any theoretical surplus of trains then they would be better used ensuring that GWR are able to reliably run a full timetable with adequate capacity, instead of the usual mess of short-formed trains on intercity services and totally inadequate 2/3-car DMUs running on key provincial routes like the Cornish mainline or Cardiff to Portsmouth. No point in robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Further to my earlier post, another easy cut would be the Glasgow extensions to save a couple of units. There’s a perfectly adequate Scotrail service between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Not the biggest saving, but every little helps.
The two services each day that start or finish at Glasgow do so in marginal time. Two units spare only before 07:30 in the morning and after 22:00 at night would be of limited utility - they'd just spend slightly longer on depot overnight. During the main part of the day they're operating within the Edinburgh - Plymouth core section, so there'd be no units saved.
I thought they were increasing the Glasgow extensions in the next timetable?
Must admit I hadn't read anything/can't find a press release about that, so apologies if so. I was basing my comment on the current timetable as that's the only one I can refer to.
If GWR really do have a surplus (I'd be surprised if they do ahead of all 175s in service), they'd be sorting out short-forms on IC services first.
Yes Banbury is the fourth-highest passenger flow from Oxford with over 250k passengers a year; in the past it has been third-highest. Get as many of these passengers off XC onto a GWR extension/higher frequency and that's a big deal. If GWR can't do this, the other option would be get Chiltern to run more services if they ever have the stock; this would have the benefit you could run them further towards Birmingham if line capacity allows.
Wasn't it Virgin who specified Voyager layout & length, not the DfT? They assumed that the Operation Princess frequency uplifts would reduce the need for longer formations, though rail usage has increased quite a lot since then. Of course the DfT isn't free of blame either way - Voyager replacement & cascading should be underway by now really (alongside a mainline electrification programme) - but Virgin seems to have played a part in the debacle too.
I'm unsure how you intend to diagram your 19 9 car sets. Plymouth-Edinburgh has something like 18 diagrams, so if you concentrated them on that route you'd need 21 to cover for maintenance. An XC diagram will cover multiple busy flows so it would be difficult to decide which to give a 5 car to. That's before considering the Bournemouth-Manchester-Bristol diagrams (another 18 diagrams which again see some busy flows). If we're fixing the number of vehicles at the current level then it would be better to have 26x7 and 26x5 which would allow you to spread the fleet more broadly than having a small number of very long trains.
How many single 220 diagrams remain? Don't most of them run coupled up these days except on the Reading-Newcastle run? Today's allocations aren't reliable as there's a lot of disruption.
Approve the off-lease 221s and sort out the staffing issues as a stopgap. But they really do need to look at ordering some new trains.
Chris Green realised what was going to happen and wanted to increase unit lengths. The Strategic Rail Authority (who were the contemporary equivalent of the DfT for this purpose) said "no".
And those 24 years are on the DfT - or its predecessors.
100%. You can't avoid the problem you've been handed becoming your problem.
And solving it was in their gift (though the Treasury are an obstacle). Unfortunately rather than solving the problem the solution has been to just hike fares up to extortionate levels, which has had the unintended consequence of making split ticketing very attractive on this route. Suddenly instead of XC getting most of the fare, it's having to share revenue with local operators because according to the tickets sold, people are just making a series of local journeys. So XC revenue drops (even though the railway as a whole is still getting it all) and it looks even less economic. So you end up with wedged trains, sky-high fares, and XC still can't turn a profit. Someone really needs to grasp the nettle.
Let's not let the rest of Whitehall off the hook - the politicians have collectively failed here, not just at DfT
It's odd that no one has. Of course the four "main lines" have received upgrades. But also Anglia, Wales, Northern and Transpennine have all had new rolling stock. Perhaps it's because it's not a regional service so has no one to particularly champion its services.
And it is the “prime mover” for very small numbers in any particular area. For certain flows it is very important but seen at a constituency level there’s almost always a “bigger fish”. Tamworth / Burton possibly being where XC has the highest proportion of overall travellers.
It is cyclical. CrossCountry had a complete set of new rolling stock in 2002. It had a small increase in capacity in 2008, at which point its service became more structured and stable, and has received more Voyagers latterly, once they were displaced from the West Coast. This isn't what people on this forum want the end state to be but each route seems to take its turn.
This is true for the new trains Northern and Wales have received. But some routes have had more turns than others...
Whoever said they needed to work in multiple with 220/1s? The 222s can run in multiple themselves, no?
Given their performance on the Midland mainline at the moment, it may make things worse. But it is irrelevant, as they are destined for ScotRail.
I'd take a different view. The HSTs in Scotland still work, are in lease, and don't have a reputation for overcrowding. If a needs based assessment for capacity change were to be made, then Scotland would not be as urgent as Cross Country. While I'm normally against centrally directed cascades and political interference, this is one place where devolution and commercialisation have led to a below par outcome.
And ScotRail probably need twice as many sets just to give them the number they need for service. Staff concerned with crash worthiness etc. Getting parts must be, well challenging for sets that were built up to 50 years ago. Great trains, but life expired.
