Avanti putting 9 car Pendolinos on Anglo-Scottish services

amahy · 20 Jul 2026

I am a regular traveller between Glasgow and England, travelling every month or so on average, usually changing at Preston or Crewe. However, almost every time I make the journey, a 9 car 390 is used, when there is more than enough demand for an 11 car. Are that many services on the Scotland - Birmingham - London and Glasgow - London fast routes booked as 9 car, or am I just unlucky?

In my opinion, if anything, these routes should be Avanti’s top priority to be 11 car, definitely more so than the Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool, and Birmingham routes, due to the high demand and lower frequency of the Scottish routes.

RailUK Forums

pokemonsuper9 · 20 Jul 2026

Having a look at the Wigan-London trains today, there are 21 11 car services and 9 9 car services.
I don't know how Pendolino diagrams work, and I don't use them frequently enough to notice any consistency (indeed, the service I use the most frequently, the 08:31 from Wigan via the West Midlands, varies between 9 and 11)

DarloRich · 20 Jul 2026

amahy said:
In my opinion, if anything, these routes should be Avanti’s top priority to be 11 car, definitely more so than the Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool, and Birmingham routes, due to the high demand and lower frequency of the Scottish routes.

I wonder. The capacity is needed on the southern routes more imo. I bet that is where the money is.

Regardless all the Pendos should have been extended to 11 cars.

sh24 · 20 Jul 2026

IME north of Preston, save for some specific services, most trains aren't that busy so a 9 car makes sense. Manchester has much higher demand for much more of the day.

It is a great shame, if only for fleet flexibility, that only some were extended to 11.

Harpo · 20 Jul 2026

DarloRich said:
I wonder. The capacity is needed on the southern routes more imo. I bet that is where the money is.

Although, ironically, the south end is now seeing lots of 5 car Avanti services on what is supposedly a railway at full capacity.

Bletchleyite · 20 Jul 2026

Harpo said:
Although, ironically, the south end is now seeing lots of 5 car Avanti services on what is supposedly a railway at full capacity.

The Chester/North Wales service is the one that exists pretty much purely for political reasons rather than demand at the level it does, unfortunately. Probably the Birmingham semifast is similar - it's only attractive to those travelling to/from Watford, MKC and Rugby, and many of those people use the WMT services as they are much cheaper. Those are the 5 car services, which are two per hour out of the ten, and only 5 car some very quiet hours, so one could debate "lots", certainly many fewer than the ECML and GWML.

amahy · 20 Jul 2026

sh24 said:
IME north of Preston, save for some specific services, most trains aren't that busy so a 9 car makes sense. Manchester has much higher demand for much more of the day.

It is a great shame, if only for fleet flexibility, that only some were extended to 11.

You are forgetting about Crewe, Warrington, Wigan, Preston, and Lancaster though, which seems to be the popular section of the Anglo-Scottish services. Especially Crewe, which has just 1tph to Preston and beyond in most hours.

The situation is not helped by the 9 cars having only half a coach of unreserved seating. I am currently typing this message from a 9 car Pendolino, travelling on the Crewe - Preston section, where every single standard class coach is fully reserved apart from C.

I agree about the 11 coach extension situation, but that debate has been done to death on here already!

Harpo · 20 Jul 2026

Bletchleyite said:
Those are the 5 car services, which are two per hour out of the ten, and only 5 car some very quiet hours, so one could debate "lots", certainly many fewer than the ECML and GWML.

Agreed, but it was only the WCML that’s been deemed to need a whole new railway to relieve it so I see it’s small trains in a different light.

DarloRich · 20 Jul 2026

Harpo said:
Although, ironically, the south end is now seeing lots of 5 car Avanti services on what is supposedly a railway at full capacity.

aren't the 5 cars trains supposed to be extra off peak fill ins so that the Scotland train doesn't have to stop at stations like MKC/Rugby? They run as 10 card at peak ( or at least should)

Bletchleyite · 20 Jul 2026

DarloRich said:
aren't the 5 cars trains supposed to be extra off peak fill ins so that the Scotland train doesn't have to stop at stations like MKC/Rugby?

Yes, it changed from 3 Birminghams every 20 minutes each stopping at one of Watford/MKC/Rugby to 2 fasts and one calling at all of them.

DarloRich said:
They run as 10 card at peak ( or at least should)

They are mostly 7 car (which seat wise is roughly the same as a 9 car Pendolino), there is only the odd 5 at very quiet times. In my experience demand is generally fairly well matched to or in excess of capacity on these runs, they aren't packed with standees.

HamworthyGoods · 21 Jul 2026

Harpo said:
Although, ironically, the south end is now seeing lots of 5 car Avanti services on what is supposedly a railway at full capacity.

In the same way as the south end of the route saw 5 car 221s under Virgin!

voyagerdude220 · 21 Jul 2026

A few weeks ago I got the 08:17 Preston to Birmingham New Street and was surprised at how busy it was. (9 car Pendolino)

I boarded in coach E I think having seen the crowds trying to board in C and D. Almost all seats in E and F were reserved or already occupied. I ended up upgrading to Standard Premium, which was very quiet until Stafford/Wolverhampton.

The Train Manager did frequently apologise for the overcrowding in Standard Class.

Strangely I'd noticed the day before that Avanti were still offering cheap advance tickets on the 08:17 Preston to Birmingham for less than £20.

Maybe quite a big proportion of passengers like myself didn't have a seat reservation.

LowLevel · 21 Jul 2026

A straw poll of departures from Carlisle today shows:

Southbound:
19 x 11 car
9 x 9 car

Northbound:

18 x 11 car
11 x 9 car

This is both West Midlands and Trent Valley services and may not be exactly accurate as I've not spent much time at it!

D1511 · 21 Jul 2026

Currently on 9M50, thankfully a 11-car
Might be an idea for Avanti to prioritise the 11s for the Edinburghs during August .....

amahy · 21 Jul 2026

D1511 said:
Currently on 9M50, thankfully a 11-car
Might be an idea for Avanti to prioritise the 11s for the Edinburghs during August .....

Agreed, although unfortunately the Scotland via Birmingham services seem to be a prime target for 9 cars, despite it serving the most big population densities of any Avanti route.

Bletchleyite · 21 Jul 2026

amahy said:
Agreed, although unfortunately the Scotland via Birmingham services seem to be a prime target for 9 cars, despite it serving the most big population densities of any Avanti route.

The demand for those services is very flexible, though, as due to their slow journey time to north of Birmingham London passengers will only choose them if they are cheap, so you can do a lot of shifting round with Advance fares.

Generally I find Avanti are very good at matching capacity to demand with their 5 lengths of train (5, 7, 9, 10, 11).

MalaiseForever · 21 Jul 2026

I can’t recall the last time I have stood on an Avanti service, so in my experience they match the diagrams to demand pretty well.

amahy · 21 Jul 2026

Bletchleyite said:
The demand for those services is very flexible, though, as due to their slow journey time to north of Birmingham London passengers will only choose them if they are cheap, so you can do a lot of shifting round with Advance fares.

I agree, but the offering of cheap advance fares should match the length of train. If 9 cars are used, less cheap advance fares should be offered. If 11 cars are used, more cheap advance fares should be offered.

The problem arises when a 9 car is fully booked, there is just half a coach of standard class unreserved seating, which means that if you don't have a seat reservation, you'll probably end up standing. This is especially relevant on the Scotland via Birminghams, as there is lots of potential for short distance passengers to use them, that are less likely to have booked in advance and have a seat reservation. Especially on the section between Lancaster and Coventry, where stops are very frequent for an Avanti service.

This whole problem could potentially be solved by just having an extra unreserved coach on the 9 car Pendolinos.

LowLevel · 21 Jul 2026

I think one thing that has been suggested in the past is that the whole fleet has to visit Polmadie by rotation for certain kinds of maintenance as well.

Bletchleyite · 21 Jul 2026

amahy said:
The problem arises when a 9 car is fully booked, there is just half a coach of standard class unreserved seating, which means that if you don't have a seat reservation, you'll probably end up standing. This is especially relevant on the Scotland via Birminghams, as there is lots of potential for short distance passengers to use them, that are less likely to have booked in advance and have a seat reservation. Especially on the section between Lancaster and Coventry, where stops are very frequent for an Avanti service.

New speculative thread for what they should do about this: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...n-9-car-euston-brum-scotland-services.304908/

hexagon789 · 21 Jul 2026

One thing that hasn't been clarified explicitly that I see is whether there are seperate 9 and 11-car diagrams.

I believe there was when the 11s first appeared due to some platform length constraints as well as a desire to match capacity to demand, but unless my memory is playing tricks I understood this had been abandoned and 9s and 11s used flexibly.

Certainly my experience of looking at departures from Glasgow Central on a regular basis revealed no discernable pattern as to which services are allocated 9s and which are allocated 11s, so if there are specific diagrams they don't seem to be adhered to half the time.

800001 · 21 Jul 2026

LowLevel said:
I think one thing that has been suggested in the past is that the whole fleet has to visit Polmadie by rotation for certain kinds of maintenance as well.

Out of curiosity, what would Polmadie do that Wembley/Oxley can not do?

Falcon1200 · 21 Jul 2026

hexagon789 said:
One thing that hasn't been clarified explicitly that I see is whether there are seperate 9 and 11-car diagrams.,

I would expect there to be separate diagrams, however travelling regularly from and to Glasgow Central in my experience any given train can be either 9 or 11! No doubt disruption throws sets off diagram and restoring them must be difficult, if for example a set booked to go to Manchester ends up going to Glasgow instead.

D1511 · 21 Jul 2026

I too am a very regular AWC traveller, from and to Edinburgh, and I'm pleased to say that my regular diagrams (9M50 down and 9S80 back) are 11s 95% of the time. I travelled down on 390132 this morning. 9S93 is nearly always a 11 too .......although I note it is zero cars today!

Peakrider · 21 Jul 2026

amahy said:
I am a regular traveller between Glasgow and England, travelling every month or so on average, usually changing at Preston or Crewe. However, almost every time I make the journey, a 9 car 390 is used, when there is more than enough demand for an 11 car. Are that many services on the Scotland - Birmingham - London and Glasgow - London fast routes booked as 9 car, or am I just unlucky?

In my opinion, if anything, these routes should be Avanti’s top priority to be 11 car, definitely more so than the Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool, and Birmingham routes, due to the high demand and lower frequency of the Scottish routes.

Certainly no need to use 11 car on Liverpool services as the frequency has now been (virtually) doubled to 2TPH. Even if the new additional paths have curious stopping patterns.

amahy · 21 Jul 2026

Peakrider said:
Certainly no need to use 11 car on Liverpool services as the frequency has now been (virtually) doubled to 2TPH. Even if the new additional paths have curious stopping patterns.

I agree, and the same can be said for the London - Birmingham services. There should really be no need for 11s on them, with the number of options for customers travelling between the two cities.

Stupidly though, the Blackpools interwork with Glasgow fasts at Euston, which prevents them properly matching demand to each route, where a 9 is very quiet on a Blackpool run, but an 11 is borderline essential for Glasgow.

DelW · 21 Jul 2026

amahy said:
This whole problem could potentially be solved by just having an extra unreserved coach on the 9 car Pendolinos.

AIUI the guiding principle is that the reserved seating numbers and layout are the same on both 9 car and 11 car Pendolinos, so that they can be switched without affecting the seat reservation system. So making two unreserved coaches on 9 car sets would mean having four unreserved coaches on 11 car sets.

Personally that would suit me as I usually travel without a reservation, but others might disagree.

Kite159 · 21 Jul 2026

DelW said:
AIUI the guiding principle is that the reserved seating numbers and layout are the same on both 9 car and 11 car Pendolinos, so that they can be switched without affecting the seat reservation system. So making two unreserved coaches on 9 car sets would mean having four unreserved coaches on 11 car sets.

Personally that would suit me as I usually travel without a reservation, but others might disagree.

Or convert one of the 1st class/standard premium coaches on a 9 coach to be standard class, that way a 9 coach gets 2 unreserved coaches and when a 11 coach replaces it, they gain an extra coach of standard premium & extra coach of standard class coaches

Certainly when I see a 9 coach service, I try and avoid it when travelling without a seat reservation (at least LNER makes it easy to make standalone seat reservations) if boarding along the route.

Western Sunset · 21 Jul 2026

Wonder if more 11-cars will work on the Glasgows in the next few weeks, with the upcoming (poorly advertised) Commonwealth Games in that city.

Falcon1200 · 22 Jul 2026

Kite159 said:
Or convert one of the 1st class/standard premium coaches on a 9 coach to be standard class,

There are only (weekends excepted) 1 Standard Premium and 1.5 First Class coaches on all sets already! The 696xx vehicles on all sets were converted to Standard Class some years ago.

Avanti putting 9 car Pendolinos on Anglo-Scottish services

Member

RailUK Forums

Established Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Member

Member

Veteran Member

Member

Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Established Member

Member

Member

Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Established Member