Saturday Poole/Weymouth allocations

[evergreenadam]

0905 London Waterloo - Weymouth service was only 5 coaches and very heavily loaded yesterday with standing between Clapham Junction and Christchurch. Is that usual? 10 coaches would have been more appropriate for a summer Saturday in the school holidays.

From what I could see the allocations on the Poole and Weymouth services yesterday seemed to be:
xx05 London Waterloo - Weymouth 5 coaches class 444
xx35 London Waterloo - Weymouth 10 coaches class 444
xx39 London Waterloo - Poole stopper 5 coaches class 444

Is there any operational reason why the xx05 cannot be a 10 coach train, presumably all short platforms can be served by SDO.

Seating capacity levels for such a busy main line seem to be very low. The Brighton Line's 12 coach trains look generous in comparison!

 

[hassaanhc]

The 10 car ones usually have the rear 5 detach at Bournemouth which then reverse and have a train from Weymouth attach to the back of them. The siding is also used by the hourly Manchester Piccadilly XC service so they probably have to work around that. The xx35 does not stop at Christchurch or various other stations, while the country bound stopper has 15-20 minutes dwell booked at Southampton Central and 25 minutes at Brockenhurst to let the fast trains past and isn't attractive for any longer journeys (London bound also does but in different places).
Last week Saturday I used the 0835 train which was 10 coaches, don't recall it being too busy, but then I was sitting in the DMCO coach with only a small number of Standard seats in there so I wouldn't know exactly how busy it was.

 

[swt_passenger]

0905 London Waterloo - Weymouth service was only 5 coaches and very heavily loaded yesterday with standing between Clapham Junction and Christchurch. Is that usual? 10 coaches would have been more appropriate for a summer Saturday in the school holidays.

From what I could see the allocations on the Poole and Weymouth services yesterday seemed to be:
xx05 London Waterloo - Weymouth 5 coaches class 444
xx35 London Waterloo - Weymouth 10 coaches class 444
xx39 London Waterloo - Poole stopper 5 coaches class 444

Is there any operational reason why the xx05 cannot be a 10 coach train, presumably all short platforms can be served by SDO.

The pattern changes later in the day, with the xx05 becoming 10 car (at 1105) and the xx35s 5 car around mid-day, so there is indeed probably no operational issue. Then there's a period with all departures 5 car, then in the early evening 10 cars on both, etc etc...