Indeed. Intercity is as much about onbord services and timetable as the rolling material! Skipping small stops, no stops >5 minutes (why XC is not IC), catering, air con, >90kph unless mountains - basically the EuroCity criteria except international and multilingual.
I did not find the mark 3s noisy, I thought that they were well kept with comfortable seats and the armrests were a lot more comfortable than the thin solid plastic one's on new trains. As for the doors, I have opened and closed them for years so perhaps I was just familiar with them.
I believe that there has been a report on here of at least one such trip to Ely ?
in fact just to be able to do rail rovers again
Anyway 720 training will probably take priority, worst case if the 745s don't enter service on the stansted express till later is that the 379s have to stay a little longer which is fine as they haven't got a lease ahead of them yet.
Probably not, the 360s will take priority as they have a lease ahead of them. Although I imagine that drivers have already been trained on the 745s who will be driving them.
Are GA paying for anything at the moment? I believe the government has taken on all the liabilities for the time being.
There are three driver depots for Stansted Express, London, Bishop's Stortford and Cambridge. I'm sure many, possibly all, Cambridge drivers will sign 755s now. Does this mean they can also drive 745s? However, most Stansted work is covered by the other two depots. How many of those drivers have been trained?
Yes if you sign 755s which are more complex then you also sign 745s. There is one depot on the GE side that will however sign 745s but not 755s as they do not have any disgrammed work for the latter.
Assume that’s Liverpool Street.
Yes mate, Anglia Drivers.
As is the case for any ToC, only the necessary drivers and crew will be trained for a particular traction. I e-mailed GA about the Lowestofts and they said only when the timetable is recast following all rolling stock being introduced will those services restart. Somehow I don't think a 755 will ever carry a passenger south of Marks Tey.
Ridiculous comment. They never have signed that route. Only Ipswich/Norwich drivers work the East Suffolk route anyway. I don't thing the franchise agreement is worth the paper it's printed on anymore.
Do you mean Norwich/Ipswich drivers rather than Crown Point?
Norwich, Ipswich and Colchester drivers all sign 755 so any of these could drive these trains South of Ipswich if they are introduced.
Indeed not. If there weren't more important things going on in the world right now it's the sort of thing I'd call for an inquiry into.
Well there has been so much confusion over this. The way it's been quoted many times including from user groups is that it's interpreted as 4 through trains, 2 each way per day.
I do wonder that but remember the government will really be up against it with so many other national issues. It could be that it's easier to continue with some sort of management contract that is guaranteed income with no risk to the train operators leaving one less headache for Westminster to deal with right now. All of the TOCs are going to be in the same boat & without support goodness knows what the Open Access lot are going to do.
