There seems to be a drop in capacity on SW to NE, EXCEPT on a couple of selected trains that are now pairs of voyagers. Great if you can be flexible and purposely travel on one of the 3 or 4 trains a day that are pairs, but not so good if your previous 5 car set is now a a 4 car set (as seems to be the case with most SW to NE services now).
As delightful as all of this sounds, I think I'm just going to keep flying to Bristol instead. Hopefully in a year or two they might have faintly got their act together.
Maybe they will reintroduce the pre COVID timetable in June 2025, with more double sets on NE/SW services.
Well there is still 9 ex Avanti sets still to entre service.
Or upon arrival, you find the front set locked out of use due to lack of staff... but nobody bothered to tell the waiting passengers and they have to all go running down the platform!
The previously discussed track access application lists all the changes including the ‘long distance routes’ having a capacity increase in May/June 2025. “Significant uplift of seating capacity on the long-distance network.” However it will not be exactly pre 2020, as it is also known (from the ECML thread) that on the Reading to Newcastle route some trains will not run north of York, it is also known that the Newcastle - Southampton extensions are no longer in the track access. (pdf attached below.)
Yes indeed. It was reported in Modern Railways a few months back that XC are intending to reinstate the Reading - NE services almost, but not quite, in full from May, giving that much needed restoration of two trains an hour on the Reading - Birmingham section.
There are two fewer 4-car diagrams on the South West - North East route since the summer timetable started: One has become a 5-car and the other a double set. In fact, looking at Realtime Trains I think there's another diagram that was a single set south of Bristol that's currently a double all the way through to/from Plymouth, which would make it three fewer 4-car workings as far as the South West is concerned. It only requires a perusal of Realtime Trains to get an indication of the typical unit allocations for any given day: From Plymouth, single 4-car units on SW-NE services are very much in the minority.
Were there more double sets pre-Covid? The fact that Newcastle - Reading was hourly at the time, requiring more single sets than now, suggests that there would be fewer, even taking into account the couple of HST diagrams that existed then. Especially now that there are three extra trains to play with.
Seems so, there are definitely a couple of extra double sets kicking about and some services that I used to know as 4-car workings are regularly running as 5-car since the timetable change.
This doesn't seem to be reality though, just because something is booked a longer train, doesn't mean it always materialises. Certainly fewer 5 car sets around down here since June. Yes there are more double sets, but there are in reality more 4 car sets than before. If you are not flexible with when you can travel , a 4 car train is really quite unpleasant. Looking at a random day last week on RTT, it seems there was roughly a 50 50 split between 4 car voyagers and longer 5 or 8 car sets. Great if you can steer your journey toward the longer train, but if you can't, the 4 cars are just no good down this way anymore.
I can only remember one double set pre-Covid, 1S49 1127 Plymouth to Edinburgh, with the addition of one summer timetable period when 1V54 0633 Dundee to Plymouth/Newquay ran as a pair of Voyagers instead of an HST.
Yeah, that 1S49 rings a bell for the sort of time of day I'd be travelling. I couldn't recall witnessing many double sets on NE-SW, but then I did tend to aim for the HST services when looking for a longer train where possible.
Both singles pre COVID.
1V66 was one of these during the summer 2019 timetable as I recall from commuting on it.
Did you take pictures of it? It could just be an ex-avanti unit which they refurbished in 2020.
116 is one of the ex Avanti units, though I’m not sure if they’ve switched the WiFi over to XC yet. It was trying to use Avanti’s WiFi in Hampshire when I last used it.
221113 has now moved (not sure where) and 107 is now sitting in it's place.
Genuine question as l don't get to use XC that often. To what extent is the current toilet provision driven by the length of journey and current depot set-ups? How often are toilets out of use due to full tanks on XC? Would such a removal pose future issues?
x.com
The aim isn't to get rid of toilets, it's to replace at one of the 3 accessible toilets with a non-accessible toilet which could take less than half the room in the cabin. Nobody has figured out a way to store luggage below the sole-bar yet, so presumably the space for 3 toilet tanks will still be there, and the tanking setups at depots would be unchanged.
I agree, it's pretty much certain that £60m won't include any significant toilet work.
