LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
There was significant 8/6 car 350/185 (respectively) working at weekends in the old timetable. It was almost all Edinburgh services on Fridays and Sundays if I remember correctly. I don't have a clue about the new timetable. The 8 car that used to do the 1800 from Manchester Airport would often be full and standing.
I think one of the tactics was to use 185s on the Glasgow services on a Friday/Sunday, with the 350s switching to Edinburgh as 8-car services.
That won't be possible in the new 397 timetable.
It's also not clear how much Liverpool services will double up with Manchester north of Preston (not that that helps Preston-Manchester).
West Coast services via Birmingham face the same problem of Glasgow v Edinburgh, and might change with WCP.
DfT/NR told Virgin that they could send more trains to Edinburgh but only by cutting Glasgow, which was not acceptable (ie no new trains/paths on the WCML).
The Euston-Birmingham-Scotland through service with some 390s was a partial answer to that.