Does anyone know how much longer the East Midlands Intercity 125s will be in service? They are an iconic train and I find them to be very comfortable but given their age, surely its only a matter of time before they get replaced by Meridians or something else?
The seating on board the 125s look new so maybe theres quite a few more years left in them?
What about the Intercity 125 on other networks?
Already covered (although not directly related to the East Midlands IC125's) in the thread "Future of the Intercity 125s":
http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=74368
Basicly post 2020 don't expect too many to be in mainline service due to the cost of maintaining them beyond then. After 2019 expect them to be mostly limited to the Cornish services, however it is likely that even then they will be replaced by something else (IEP, Voyagers, etc.).
As with the electrification of the MML and the electrification of some XC services by 2019 (and a few almost silly gaps stopping a lot of the XC services being run by EMU's) it is likely that most intercity services will be EMU or bi-model (IEP) by the mid 2020's and those that are not either not suitable for IC125's or will be run by class 22x's (Voyagers, Super Voyagers and Meridians).
With any routes still being run by class 22x's being electrified or cleared for the bi-model IEP's before they need a very major overhaul or replacing.
