A uniform fleet of five car units is more flexible - there are plenty of services where five cars will be sufficient and a fleet of nine cars would clearly have been more expensive.
I would say that this is essentially exactly what we've got. Or rather, are about to have.
They invariably didn't. They were useful in the peaks and on Sundays but it was absolutely typical to stand at Leicester station and watch the 4 or 5 car ex Sheffield semi fast leave full and standing after everyone had wedged on (we quite often didn't have a single seat left especially in first) and then a handful board the HST 5-10 minutes behind on the ex Nottingham fast.
They were used entirely for operational convenience and they weren't much better heading north.
Comfort is subjective - for everyone who liked the old style interior there was another person who hated the fixed armrests and lack of plug sockets in standard while getting covered in muck opening the doors. The LNER sets are better but you now get people wanting the old EMT interior sets back so you can't win
I've spent most of the last decade working in a front line role in the area of the MML and I can tell you that both 222s and HSTs were marmite - but that more regular passengers asked after the 222s for their more modern facilities on offer.
Their only mistake was not wanging some electric sockets in standard.
Would that have been the 1840s?
Probably don’t want any pesky passengers to use a ‘parliamentary’ service, otherwise they might get shamed into operating a proper service along the route!
IC70s were and remain bloody awful. Good riddance.Well, I've been saying all along that the EMT interior was superior for comfort but no one listens
I've never had the issue of cramming on the earlier train - I always bought advanced purchase, so cost was a far more important factor.
Presumably because said train was not at Super Off Peak times. But the journey is priced via Leicester which is most of the reason for it being rather high. I doubt anyone in MML ever thought a via Corby fare was worth the effort.
They invariably didn't. They were useful in the peaks and on Sundays but it was absolutely typical to stand at Leicester station and watch the 4 or 5 car ex Sheffield semi fast leave full and standing after everyone had wedged on (we quite often didn't have a single seat left especially in first) and then a handful board the HST 5-10 minutes behind on the ex Nottingham fast.
They were used entirely for operational convenience and they weren't much better heading north.
Comfort is subjective - for everyone who liked the old style interior there was another person who hated the fixed armrests and lack of plug sockets in standard while getting covered in muck opening the doors. The LNER sets are better but you now get people wanting the old EMT interior sets back so you can't win
I've spent most of the last decade working in a front line role in the area of the MML and I can tell you that both 222s and HSTs were marmite - but that more regular passengers asked after the 222s for their more modern facilities on offer.
I’m aware of that but don’t see it as terribly relevant to a journey going through Corby to St Pancras.
I've used it from Derby or East Mids P way occasionally - had v cheap Advance Fares even close to travel date- and you had to force the booking engine to show them as of course direct routes were faster. A few were on board and a few got on at Melton etc. I would expect the Advance tickets for that train at the time I travelled to be also cheap from there too. Not tried recently.
In contrast, a former colleague living in the outskirts of Leicester used to prefer to travel with LM from Rugby because he could get better fares and the 350s weren’t a problem to him when working. It takes all sorts.
That certainly wasn't me then as I'd rather have no plugs and fast 4G, rather than plug sockets, interiors that had gone past their sell by date, metallic windows that block 4G (and anything else) and wi-fi that was so bottlenecked that it just doesn't work.
