A very interesting article, with having given up on the "fortnightly LIAR" a few years ago it's passed me by.
for various reasons, some recent Leeds-bound LDHSSs on the East Coast Mainline have been hauled by Class 90 locomotives with a top speed of 110mph rather than the Class 91 with its 125mph top speed. However, the gearing of the Class 90 means that it has a notably better acceleration than its sleeker cousin, and can thus reach 110mph more quickly. Spending longer at 110mph means that despite not reaching the full East Coast linespeed of 125mph, the Class 90-hauled trains only reach Leeds a few minutes behind their scheduled arrival time.
Very similar to when VT were using FL90s with the Pretendolino Mk3 set on the EUS-BHM diagram which were Pendo timings.
It’s pretty difficult to do a direct comparison between a 350 and 390 north of Lancaster as the dwell times and train lengths are different. The latter does make quite a difference when linespeeds change frequently, which they do north of Lancaster.
Train length is a bit irrelevant as a pair of 350s (8-coach formation) or 397s (10coach formation) can keep the same times as a single set and there's little difference between 9-car & 11-car Pendo's.
Booked dwell times for 221s, 390s & 350/397s are all fractionally different but in the grand scheme of things doesn't make that much difference.......
1S66 14:10 MIA-EDB:
LAN-PNR: 34½mins, PNR stop: 1min, PNR-CAR: 15½mins = 51mins
1S48 09:30 EUS-GLC:
LAN-PNR: 32½mins, PNR stop: 2min, PNR-CAR: 14½mins = 49mins
If you equalise the dwell time at Penrith to 1min we have a difference of 3mins between EPS & non-EPS timings for the 69miles.
As for HS2, there are documents which been released by the DfT over the last couple of years prior to any franchise announcements that imply that all EUS-GLC HS2 services will run non-stop north of Preston, not that this has gone down like lead-ballon with local MPs, user groups, Lake District National Park Authority etc etc.......