Following on from the announcement that XC are likely to havea direct award what additional rolling stock could be seen as part of the direct award.
For most of the discussions see the note closed thread:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/cross-country-new-franchise.166757/
However this is a good starting post:
There are still ways that they XC could still see improvements. Don't forget that GWR's franchise extension brought us the HST GTI's.
For instance by knowing what is happening with the 222's (and when) they could be brought into use on XC.
Alternatively it could result in more HST's being converted and brought to the franchise.
Another option could result in 350's being used to run Manchester to the West Midlands.
Finally, and a bit of curve ball, pairs of 185's could be used on the Exeter/Paignton services.
All of which could be fairly easy wins, although there's possible issues with each.
The 222's may not be released until 2021 or later (which maybe towards the end of the extension), the HST's could be quite costly and there may not be many paths that they could be used on our they may need to be limited in length, the 350's could cause a headache trying to get their extra paths where they overlap with the existing XC services as well as requiring passengers to change and the 185's could cause pathing issues as well as needing to run double units when that's not required currently.
However given the government are aware of the capacity issues I would I would suggest that they would need to be seen to be doing something and they've used up the trick of bringing back into service the last 221.
For most of the discussions see the note closed thread:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/cross-country-new-franchise.166757/
However this is a good starting post:
There are still ways that they XC could still see improvements. Don't forget that GWR's franchise extension brought us the HST GTI's.
For instance by knowing what is happening with the 222's (and when) they could be brought into use on XC.
Alternatively it could result in more HST's being converted and brought to the franchise.
Another option could result in 350's being used to run Manchester to the West Midlands.
Finally, and a bit of curve ball, pairs of 185's could be used on the Exeter/Paignton services.
All of which could be fairly easy wins, although there's possible issues with each.
The 222's may not be released until 2021 or later (which maybe towards the end of the extension), the HST's could be quite costly and there may not be many paths that they could be used on our they may need to be limited in length, the 350's could cause a headache trying to get their extra paths where they overlap with the existing XC services as well as requiring passengers to change and the 185's could cause pathing issues as well as needing to run double units when that's not required currently.
However given the government are aware of the capacity issues I would I would suggest that they would need to be seen to be doing something and they've used up the trick of bringing back into service the last 221.