Where do we begin... Whilst yes, the Cross Country is in desperate need of additional capacity, having to travel from Birmingham New Street to get back home to my parents from university, the majority of the time the Class 220/221s just cannot cope with the increasing passenger numbers.
Having said all that, it would be desirable for a new fleet of brand new trains to be introduced, however it is not going to happen given the DFT have continued to issue direct awards to Arriva for the most recent XC tender. Given the whole mess that is the rail franchising system and with the aftermath of the Williams Review, it will be a long way until XC sees any brand new stock. I personally see the WCML Class 221s and EMR Class 222s transferring in the next few years.
The Voyagers I would not count just yet as life-expired and compared to the majority of inter-city trains in operation, they are often the most reliable when looking at the Miles per Technical Incident figures. Voyagers are not bad trains but that's as far as I will go with that comment!
Its often been mentioned that refurbishing the Class 220/221s to a similar specification to the Class 68 and Mark 3 sets will not deliver the amount of capacity needed, and would be completely wasted considering the Chiltern Main Line tops at 100mph. More recently, Chiltern are modifying their Mark 3s in preparation for the PRM-TSI deadline at the end of the year. The Class 68s and Mark 3s are definitely not going anywhere just yet!
That was because of the higher leasing cost that First/MTR did not want to pay for the Class 707s compared to the Class 701s on order...
Successive governments, not just the Conservatives but also Labour that have got the railways wrong. It was the Labour government that ensured that major rail franchises were let as zero-growth franchises and didn't announce any major electrification projects under their tenure
In your opinion! The Class 800s are now in the second year of service with GWR and are criticised for their poor comfort in comparison to the HSTs they have replaced. If you are saying its just "teething problems", 2 years is pretty damning.
So you comparing an image dating from the late 1970s/early 1980s to a Class 800 today??? Hardly a fair comparison...
But since you asked, I would take the HST.
Again, that is your opinion.
I cannot stop chuckling at this comment