Grand Union '22X'

[leomartin125]

In the recent edition of 'Modern Railways' magazine for October 2023, there is an article referring to Grand Union now wanting to use '22X' trains on their upcoming Stirling to London route via the WCML. The magazines seems to infer that these are the off-lease 221s from Avanti West Coast, however I was of the belief that some of these were due to go to Grand Central for their services due to 180 unreliability with the rest bound for CrossCountry to bolster their services now that the HSTs have had their last dance. As such, I can only imagine that these '22X' trains that the article refers to are actually 222s from EMR that will be surplus to requirements once the 810s are introduced? It would be great to know if someone could shed any light on this as it certainly is confusing, maybe Grand Union could be making plans out of thin air here... who knows! (Their service has been proposed for donkeys years now, still no sign... so I'm inclined to take whatever they say with a pinch of salt!).

Article in attached image for reference.

 

[hexagon789]

In the recent edition of 'Modern Railways' magazine for October 2023, there is an article referring to Grand Union now wanting to use '22X' trains on their upcoming Stirling to London route via the WCML. The magazines seems to infer that these are the off-lease 221s from Avanti West Coast, however I was of the belief that some of these were due to go to Grand Central for their services due to 180 unreliability with the rest bound for CrossCountry to bolster their services now that the HSTs have had their last dance. As such, I can only imagine that these '22X' trains that the article refers to are actually 222s from EMR that will be surplus to requirements once the 810s are introduced? It would be great to know if someone could shed any light on this as it certainly is confusing, maybe Grand Union could be making plans out of thin air here... who knows! (Their service has been proposed for donkeys years now, still no sign... so I'm inclined to take whatever they say with a pinch of salt!).

Article in attached image for reference.

There's a thread about this ongoing: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/voyagers-for-stirling-euston.255027/