At off peak times that is true but I don't think there are any additional services in the peaks (I admit I haven't checked this fully for Cambridge but I have done a detailed analysis for Stevenage).
Cambridge Express services will be 387s so there will be fewer seats. The semi fasts from Cambridge will be 700s.
If it's an 8-car 700 instead of an 8-car 365 there will be fewer seats
If it's a 12-car 700 instead of a 12-car 365 there will be fewer seats
If it's an 8-car 700 instead of a 4 car 365 there will be more seats (there aren't any 4 car trains in the peaks although there are off peak)
In theory there could be 12-car 700 trains replacing 8-car 365s but I don't think this will be the case. The majority of the 700s are 8-car and I believe the 12-car ones will mostly work on the Bedford services and to Peterborough.
the Thameslink services won't help north of Cambridge
I know King's Lynn is all 387 land now, and Cambridge will be soon, but I've heard that some of the Ely-terminators are still 365s. Are there many 365 turns to Ely, or are they peak only from now on? Not that I'm trying to avoid the 387s for as long as possible, of course ...
I know King's Lynn is all 387 land now, and Cambridge will be soon, but I've heard that some of the Ely-terminators are still 365s. Are there many 365 turns to Ely, or are they peak only from now on? Not that I'm trying to avoid the 387s for as long as possible, of course ...
The only trend I've picked up is that 365s tend to be more prevalent on the Peterborough route.
That was always the intention I'm sure.
In other news, seems Wi-Fi has been turned on today on all the 387s - according to a story in the local paper.
I'm on a 387 to Cambridge now and when you sign in, you're given 50MB of data at full speed. Thereafter it says it will reduce the speed.
However, I'm inclined to believe they're quite severely throttling speeds anyway as I did a few tests and never got above 2Mbps. As the system should apparently use multiple 4G connections, that seems very low - especially given I doubt many people are using it (see below).
It is of course better than nothing, but I wouldn't expect to be able to do any video streaming (I'll see soon what speed I get once I exceed the 50MB).
[In the same location as my GN Wi-Fi speed test, I was getting 4.1Mbps on Vodafone 4G and 24.3Mbps on EE - somewhere just near Baldock]
Also, it seems not every single 387 has had Wi-Fi enabled yet. Plus there are no stickers anywhere on any train I've seen yet to say there's Wi-Fi enabled. I hope they don't take as long to appear as first class stickers did!
View attachment 33835
(Picture showing logged in screen from Icomera)
EDIT: After exceeding the allowance, it seems speeds are capped to just under 1Mbps, so not a massive difference. Still perfectly usable for a lot of things, but you'll definitely want your own mobile data connection for streaming services!
Yes, I wonder if they could have used the various text fields to be a bit more creative!!They sure tell you that you're connected a lot of times don't they... [emoji38]
I think they need to change the giant sticker on the internal doors to first class. Heard quite a few people who think they're in first class when they're looking at the door TO first class.
Given the seats are essentially the same, it's probably a fair mistake to make.
On a weekend trip to Ely from Hatfield (via King's Cross), I must say that the Wi-Fi service was excellent and my son was able to watch YouTube Kids (I know, bad parenting!!) all the way* without interruption.
Certainly it drops out less than that on the 379 GAs. In general I'm pretty pleased with it.
Rather annoying that the websites of all the major cinema chains (and IMDb, BBFC etc) are blocked, however. Makes it tough to plan a trip to the cinema while on the train, as I was just trying to do. Don't see there is much justification for that if they're allowing YouTube...
First class is at the country end ?? So no standardisation then
And besides, its not like fitting an anti massacar is that hard...
Th seating moquette is slight different too - although this extends to some seats in the invisible standard class section too.
I have a little theory that the reason for first being like this is because the first of the recent Electostar builds were the 5-car Southern ones. These have first class, although most of their workings are standard only. On these the first class is at the driving end of the vehicle, with the sliding door in the same place. This gives approximately 4 and a half windows worth of first class, which is probably about right for a 5-car train. Fast forward a couple of years and we now have 4-car versions. Keep the first class at the driving end of the sliding door and you now have excessive provision of first for a 4-car train, especially one who already has a heavily reduced quantity of seating compared to the trains they replaced on GN. So rather than move the sliding door to the ends and have to fit another one at the other end, someone had the clever idea of swapping the first round to the inner end of the sliding door. Then someone thought that as first is now in a part of the train where lots of people would be walking through at King 's Cross, with annoying door open/close beeps going off every couple of seconds as this is where many people choose to board, it would be better to put it at the county end to reduce the number of complaints about that. I wonder how close my guess is?! It's a mess and a bodge if so - first should be at the ends.
Th seating moquette is slight different too - although this extends to some seats in the invisible standard class section too.
I have a little theory that the reason for first being like this is because the first of the recent Electostar builds were the 5-car Southern ones. These have first class, although most of their workings are standard only. On these the first class is at the driving end of the vehicle, with the sliding door in the same place. This gives approximately 4 and a half windows worth of first class, which is probably about right for a 5-car train. Fast forward a couple of years and we now have 4-car versions. Keep the first class at the driving end of the sliding door and you now have excessive provision of first for a 4-car train, especially one who already has a heavily reduced quantity of seating compared to the trains they replaced on GN. So rather than move the sliding door to the ends and have to fit another one at the other end, someone had the clever idea of swapping the first round to the inner end of the sliding door. Then someone thought that as first is now in a part of the train where lots of people would be walking through at King 's Cross, with annoying door open/close beeps going off every couple of seconds as this is where many people choose to board, it would be better to put it at the county end to reduce the number of complaints about that. I wonder how close my guess is?! It's a mess and a bodge if so - first should be at the ends.