Cross-country overcrowding: what could be done?

[Rail2002]

As I said in a speculative thread, seat reservations could become optional instead of mandatory with Advance tickets, meaning less seats being reserved but unused.

I don't think that 2 and 3 coach services are appropriate for the Cardiff-Nottingham services, which is a long distance route that connects multiple cities with England's second largest one. Now that EMR and Northern have mopped up most of the cascaded 170s, are there any intermediate coaches available that could be used to lengthen the XC 170s?

 

[brad465]

As I said in a speculative thread, seat reservations could become optional instead of mandatory with Advance tickets, meaning less seats being reserved but unused.

I don't think that 2 and 3 coach services are appropriate for the Cardiff-Nottingham services, which is a long distance route that connects multiple cities with England's second largest one. Now that EMR and Northern have mopped up most of the cascaded 170s, are there any intermediate coaches available that could be used to lengthen the XC 170s?

A more realistic prospect (but still a long way off if possible), is Southern order some BEMUs to replace all their 171s and these are cascaded to the likes of XC.