Class 390 - 9 Cars v 11 cars

DarloRich said:

Travelling back from Manchester yesterday on a VERY full 9 car Pendolino does highlight how short sighted it was not to extend all of the class to 11 carriages. I know there were engineering works ( I had a nice trip via Stafford and Bescot) limiting the available number of trains running but it seems so short sighted not to extend all of the class.

Two questions:

1. Why did that total extension not happen?
2. Is there any logic behind allocation to services?

(I am sure the answer to the first will be money but hoping there might be more to it!)

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I was on the same route (1515 from Manchester). Not helped by various other factors such as the Great Manchester Run, beautiful weather, engineering works so diverting via Bescot and Perry Barr as you say meaning that there was only 1tph from Manchester to Euston vice 2tph and the fact that the only unreserved carriage on board 9 cars is Coach C in which half of that is the shop!

At the very least, they should have made a whole carriage unreserved (i.e. Coach F which is on both 9 and 11 cars) on the 9 cars.

It was pretty shambolic but thankfully I boarded the set almost 40 minutes before departure as they were dwelling for almost an hour. Even 30 minutes beforehand, the train was practically full.

DarloRich said:

doesn't help my journey

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Perhaps not directly but those passengers who you currently fight for a seat with who are travelling from London to Birmingham/Manchester/Liverpool/Scotland many of them will be on those new vehicles leaving more space for you on the existing fleet of 9/11-car trains.

AndrewE said:

That is the case for the way we do it, but somewhere like Switzerland which runs lots of fully flexible loco-hauled trains finds it easy to procure compatible new coaches...

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Even on the mainland LHCS is increasingly fixed-formation sets more like a 4-TC or Mk5a set. The Railjets and similar are for example. And SBB is rapidly becoming an EMU railway.

amahy said:

I do find the diagramming of 9/11 coach pendolinos very odd. Scotland to Euston via Birmingham services seem to be the busiest in my experience, as the route goes through the highest population density of any Avanti route, however seems to frequently be only 9 cars. Whereas Blackpool to Euston via Trent Valley services seem to mostly be 11 cars, yet these services are relatively quiet compared to other routes. Please do correct me if I’m wrong in my observations.

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The Scotland via Birmingham services generally form Euston-Glasgow fasts so I can see a case for 11 car'ing those diagrams.

Likewise the Glasgow-Euston fasts generally form the xx.53 Euston-Manchester

Bletchleyite said:

Even on the mainland LHCS is increasingly fixed-formation sets more like a 4-TC or Mk5a set. The Railjets and similar are for example. And SBB is rapidly becoming an EMU railway.

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yes, but I bet those sets can have an extra coach added (or removed) quite easily as all the "auxiliaries" are on the loco. Here we can't alter things because of the various bits of equipment distributed along the unit train

Bletchleyite said:

That'll be to do with what the set does next, probably an Edinburgh.

It doesn't always make sense though. In the new timetable the 1652 (Euston-)MKC-Birmingham seems to have swapped from 5 car 805 to 11 car Pendolino, despite the 805 normally having more than enough seats for everyone, unless I guess they plan to release lots of Advances to price people onto it.

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Try the 18:21 from Brum to Euston that it subsequently forms, that was horrific as a single 805…

AJDesiro said:

Try the 18:21 from Brum to Euston that it subsequently forms, that was horrific as a single 805…

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Thanks, that may well be why.

Doomotron said:

I'm pretty sure that's just a myth. Or at least I haven't seen any actual evidence of it beyond people on the forums mentioning it.

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I seem to remember that the 390s were built as 8-car and were tested on the WCML in that configuration. The 9th cars were added before introduction into service.

themiller said:

I seem to remember that the 390s were built as 8-car and were tested on the WCML in that configuration. The 9th cars were added before introduction into service.

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The first 34 sets ran in passenger service during 2002-04 as 8-car with sets from 390035 upwards being delivered as 9, then the sets already in traffic had their TS vehicle added retrospectively during 2004 to make them up to 9 as well.