The solution to that is to have the lawyers scan every word of that contract and find something where it’s been breached to give cause for early termination. Given that the 80xs haven’t exactly been problem free and still have availability issues, from a layman’s perspective one would expect this to be doable.
It wasn’t repeated with the 185s, those replaced 158s which offered less capacity.
True but TPE had quite a number of 2-car 158s too. Overall, capacity was at worst matched with the 158s. It wasn’t a decrease.
Looking at the Birmingham - Newcastle corridor as the example I have timetables for, seats per hour changed from around 48 first, 390 standard pre-Operation Princess to about 52 first, 386 standard post-Operation Princess. Overall, no increase, but no decrease either, and the waters are muddied by the lengths of specific trains each hour. Other corridors would have been similar.
Prior to the 185s being introduced, Transpennine were operating 23x3-car (17 original and 6 hybrids) and 23x2-car class 158s. Assuming a one for one replacement by 185s, which isn't strictly accurate as there were some 4-car 158 diagrams operating on North Transpennine at that point, then that is in fact 7,774 fixed seats provided in both cases; but the 169 fixed seats of a single 185 is a fair step down from the 204 seats of a 3-car TPE class 158, or the 268 seats of a 4-car class 158 formation on any given train.
Depends on if the government will even deliver GBR. The last thing the government does is keep their promises.
You won't get rid of Agility that easily.
That's always been the interesting comparison between for example the EMR services on the south route and the TPE ones - the TPE 6 cars are nicer trains but heavy on first class and the best people movers are undoubtedly now the EMR 6 car 170s featuring around 370 - 380 seats on the services they operate - and on a Sunday in particular even they can be full and standing.
If I remember correctly, they were intended to be both longer and more numerous, but then the SRA got involved...
It was a bit of both. The 185s had 25 or so more seats than a 2-car 158- which is pretty poor when you think they were 3-car trains- but had about 50 or so fewer seats than a 3-car 158.
The frustrating thing is that they're not even particularly heavy on first class- there's only 15 first class seats per 185.
TPE did have an overcrowding problem, especially on Sundays. Which is why the size of the 185s was such a bizarre decision by First and the SRA.
Agreed. I feel like its just an illusion because they have a dedicated compartment situated between doors positioned at 1/3, rather than just being chucked on the cab ends like other regional MUs like the 170s - which ironically have more first class seats per unit.
Even going back 10 plus years when they were fairly new I had a regular lady who was a wheelchair user who I assisted on to trains and she would specifically book to avoid TPE for the later leg of her journey as she resented being dumped, in her words, away from everyone else outside the toilet in that horrible tip up seat area like a bicycle in a guards van of old. I could see her point!
As I understood it, before the order for the 185 the intention was for them to be longer and more numerous. The SRA then had both the order size and the length reduced before the order was finalised. If the SRA hadn't gotten involved, the 185s would have been larger on day one than they were
Even the Ipswich to Peterborough/Cambridge trains use the OHLE to the first stop out of Ipswich
This is becoming a theme with multiple TOCs over the last 25 years, isn't it? Five (or even four) coach units used on intercity services and proving to be grossly inadequate. Intercity stock shouldn't be less than seven coaches long. While we're at it, TPE was never the right home for the WCML services, it's too inefficient to run what is an almost independant micro-operation. Those should always have been part of the ICWC franchise and shared crew.
Respectfully disagree. A 5-car formation, where the extra two carriages are Standard with an accessible toilet, plus more First Class seating in the current wheelchair/vestibule area, would work for me (though you'd only be adding six seats and tables at most, and you'd lose four if you had an actual First Class wheelchair offering). But yes, 5-car minimum for TPE gets my vote.
It was and it was moved to TPE precisely because it was a standalone route outside of the normal ICWC focus. When it was moved TPE had much more of a presence in the north west, with the Blackpool, Barrow, and Windermere services all being part of TPE too.
We’d have still just had five carriage CAF units on the route though!
Out of curiosity, when was Manchester - Scotland part of the VWC operation? My recollection of the transition period is hazy, but online sources, including previous discussions on this forum, seen to concur that it remained part of the Crosscountry operation until transferred to First TPE at the December 2007 timetable change, including a final four week period under the new Arriva administration of XC.
I'll be honest, mine is hazy too, especially as the Virgin XC and Virgin WC operations were largely interchangeable. My recollection was that it was in Virgin WC after whichever timetable change split the services at Manchester, but this recollection may well be incorrect.
Manchester - Preston was latterly shown as a spur off the main route of Virgin's VT1 timetable, which was Crosscountry South West - North West & Scotland. A DfT issued map from the time of the Arriva XC franchise award describes Manchester - Scotland as a "CrossCountry route until Dec 07 only". You're right that you'd struggle to slide a sheet of paper between the distinction between VWC and VXC at the time, though.
To quote the most relevant snippet about timings:
This sounds similar to where Southeastern are in the process and timeline for announcement.
