I'd argue the conversion to sliding doors were more in line with PSVAR compliance as well as Health & Safety regulations, not to throw money at them for no good reason.
Did I say that the conversion to sliding doors was "throwing money at them for no good reason"? I don't think I did, and I certainly didn't in the bit you quoted. The conversion certainly delivered safety and accessibility benefits, but these will not have come cheap. The longer the trains run after conversion the greater the benefit from doing the conversion, without making the conversion cost more. My opinion is that the public benefit from running them with sliding doors does not justify the cost of conversion, but running them until 2030 would.
West Midlands Trains could retain their class 350/2 fleet, which they are intending to retire with the introduction of the class 730 Aventras, and use them as 8 car trains on a Birmingham-Manchester service to replace XC on this sector. The high capacity seating (3/2) would come in handy on this route. This provision is deemed adequate for the similar Birmingham-Liverpool service.
Are the 350s much different from 379s (from a passenger comfort point of view)? I would argue that neither is an InterCity product, and that the UK rail industry should be ashamed of the pathetic service offering where Birmingham-Liverpool through trains are concerned. On the latter point, the route has only one train per hour and even that is, at best, a semi-fast worked by outer-suburban stock - compare that to the two
INTERCITY workings (admittedly desperately in need of longer units) per hour between Birmingham and Manchester.
That said, I have actually thought of some better-quality stock which apparently is going off-lease: the TPE mark 5s. Not that I think TPE should be losing them either (why didn't TPE's plan to deploy them on Manchester-Cleethorpes services work out, seems the most-sensible use of them to me?) but if they're standing around idle (and with DRS rumoured to be unwilling to start any new class 68 lease contracts elsewhere on this forum) is there something that could be done with mark 5s and 88s or 93s? I think there are 90s and 91s free, but of course the mark 5 driving trailers aren't going to be compatible with those are they. Still means making passengers change in Birmingham though.
I am not adverse to cutting a few voyager units
I am not adverse to scrapping some individual class 220 vehicles (particularly driving cars, which have relatively few seats once you've accounted for the cabs and accessible toilets), but don't see any need to scrap whole units for now.
I would be keen to do some reforms.
As would I, with my main aim being to eliminate 4-car operation making XC's HST* routes 5-car minimum. I would rather not mix the different bogie types (class 221 vs 220), partly to retain the possibility of restoring tilt on the 221s if it becomes desirable in future (not that I think this is likely). Thus there are not many options with the 220s, which are all 4-car to begin with. You could:
- Scrap 15 driving cars (keeping two pairs of redundant driving cars just in case) and reform the remaining vehicles in 17 six-car sets
- Leave them as-is but semi-permanently couple them (no physical mods, just couple them and leave them together except when necessary for maintenance) in pairs as 17 eight-car 'virtual sets'
Neither of those formations seem particularly ideal though - which would appear to be to have as many 7 (or possibly longer) coach trains with no intermedite cabs as possible and everything else being 5-car (with the possible exception of four semi-permanent 'virtual' 9-car class 221 'sets' formed by coupling the four 4-car 221s to four of the 5-car 221s). I had previously thought that the 222s and 220s were largely identical, with just different interior specs and train management software, and assumed that 220 and 222 vehicles could be mixed if the software was changed, but have previously been told on here that this isn't really the case. Could all the tilt equipment on a 221 vehicle be swapped with a 220 (eg. if it is only the bogie that's different) so that you could transfer vehicles between the two classes while maintaining a 'pure' fleet of 220s and 221s and no 'hybrids' with a mix of tilt and non-tilt coaches?
* Used in this context to mean literally
'High Speed Train' rather than specifically IC125s.
Indeed, it's a bit of a shame that a deal wasn't done to replace the 4 coach 221's with 5 coach ones, as that would helped a little more.
I suspect, however, that the numbers are down to ensuring ICWC can carry on using their in service whilst they introduce their new trains.
I wouldn't be surprised if the plan is to drip feed more capacity as the extra units become available, so the government can dine out on multiple announcements. It also allows them to have XC "prove" that extra trains equals extra passengers without it being too risky.
While that makes a degree of sense, and I hope the rest of the 221 fleet will indeed follow to XC once Avanti are done with them completely, they could equally have used the planned increase from two IC125 diagrams to four as a 'proving ground' for the concept of extra trains = extra passengers, instead of cutting capacity for a few months until Avanti are ready to release the first 7 units.
