Half the trouble with CrossCountry is that some services run almost empty - I've been on one out of Sheffield to Oxford, completely full with people standing to Birmingham, practically empty onwards, yet coming back, moderately busy to Birmingham and rammed again to Sheffield - I'm sure services are full at times between Birmingham and Oxford, but I've never experienced it. Seems more irregular than any other service I'm familiar with
Perhaps AT300s aren't right for XC, perhaps something like a end gangwayed and end door 3/4 car Bi-mode AT200 type unit running doubled or tripled up would make better work of pasenger loadings at the expense of top speed on stuff like ECML, something like the 444 ?
We're eventually going to have to accept that some XC units will run around empty at times, that's the trade off the railway has to accept for them travelling through major cities at peak times.
A Class 802 5 car unit in the typical configuration they've been order is a 330 seat unit, with 100 passengers onboard for through journeys (i.e say ones that are only possible on XC) there's still 230 seats available, that's equivalent to the regional TOC such as London Midland finding an extra 4 car EMU in the peak.
We've made peace with ThamesLink Class 700 units running empty at times, otherwise we would still be ordering 4 car units and leaving 4 or 8 cars at Brighton and Bedford outside of the peaks, we now need to do the same with XC and accept the benefit from having 330 to 660 seat trains which will run fairly empty some of the time. There's always the opportunity to yield manage the quiet sections of the route, and I dare say there are some travellers who are put of XC because they think the trains are overloaded on the entire route when that's not always the case.
We've also made peace with the ludicrous operating costs of the Voyager fleet, hoovering up fuel on what are 45 tonne (Class 220) and 55 tonne (Class 221) carriages, each with their own 750hp engine and too few seats, the Class 800 carriages are similar in weight to the Class 220, boast almost 3 extra metres of space, and even with 8 bays, standard intermediate carriages have 88 seats, compared with 66 to 68 seats for the Voyagers. If the XC layout with just 2 tables was used, seating increases to 100 in standard.
It should be possible, if it was absolutely necessary to make the economics stack up, to have a 5 car bi-mode AT300 unit with around 320-330 standard class seats and 45-50 first class seats. That's 1 x 5 car unit having almost the same capacity as 2 x 4 car Class 220 units.
Track access charges are going to be comparable to a Voyager and lower than a Super Voyager, it's able to use OLE where available, has 140mph capability when GWML and ECML are upgraded and day to day running costs will be significantly lower, even with the engine packs rated at 750kW.
I'd guestimate, based on the purchase cost of the Class 802s for FGW, the operating (fuel, track access, maintenance agreement) and leasing costs for the Voyager family, XC could operate 5 car AT300 units for pretty much the same money as a 5 car Super Voyager and at a significant saving over operating more Class 222 units (especially if they are used to allow more units to be doubled up in service) unless they come with astonishingly low leasing costs.
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What's the maximum speed that any unit with a corridor connection like the 380s could run at?
110mph currently, Hitachi claim a 125mph AT200 unit is possible but I'd be doubtful of that retaining a front end gangway connection. The AT200 unit already has the driver relatively far back in the cab, in relation to the coupler head, for the purposes of crash safety.