• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Coach Lettering in the UK

Status
Not open for further replies.

Huntergreed

Established Member
Associate Staff
Events Co-ordinator
Joined
16 Jan 2016
Messages
3,019
Location
Dumfries
I was just thinking about the way in which trains are laid out in the UK and it got me thinking, why is the lettering of coaches on a train rarely/never actually alphabetical? There are often letters missed out or inexplicable gaps in the lettering and I cannot think of a valid reason why this is being done. Some examples:

Letters in brackets are skipped over when naming coaches.
Bold letters are simply out of place

Avanti:

390/0: A B C D E F (G) H (I) J K
390/1: A B C D E F U G H (I) J K

221: A B C D E (F) G H (I) J K L

LNER:

Azuma (10 Car): A B C D E F G H (I) (J) K (L) M
Azuma (9 Car) : A B C (D) (E) (F) G H (I) J K L M

CrossCountry:

Voyager: A B C D (E) F

Is there any reason why letters are skipped, to me it would seem logical to name the coaches alphabetically, and it would make it easier for most passengers to understand too. I notice the letter I is always left out of naming coaches, is there any specific reason for this?
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

rg177

Established Member
Associate Staff
International Transport
Joined
22 Dec 2013
Messages
3,692
Location
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
The only operator that I've seen run with a Coach I is XC. All other things aside it could be mistaken for a lowercase L.

Coach U on the 390s was probably to avoid having to reorder coach lettering on the 11 car units.
 

Alex C.

Member
Joined
7 Jan 2014
Messages
162
I imagine I could be confused with 1 so is skipped, not sure about the others.
 

Wolfie

Established Member
Joined
17 Aug 2010
Messages
6,049
The only operator that I've seen run with a Coach I is XC. All other things aside it could be mistaken for a lowercase L.

Coach U on the 390s was probably to avoid having to reorder coach lettering on the 11 car units.
U and G were added to the 11 car Pendelinos when they were extended. Doing it that way means that the First class carriages are always the same letter. Similarly coaches A-F are identical in design on both 9 and 11 coach variants.

Not 100% sure about the 221 but suspect it is something to do with the 10 coach variant comprising 2 five carriage trains and sometimes substituting for a Pendolino.

The 10 coach Azuma is similarly actually two five coach units. I suspect the lettering may in part be to have some things in the same carriage number on both the nine and 10 carriage versions.
 

Huntergreed

Established Member
Associate Staff
Events Co-ordinator
Joined
16 Jan 2016
Messages
3,019
Location
Dumfries
U and G were added to the 11 car Pendelinos when they were extended. Doing it that way means that the First class carriages are always the same letter. Similarly coaches A-F are identical in design on both 9 and 11 coach variants.
I thought it was F and U that were added, and that the original 9 car layout was A B C D E G H J K.

Was there an 8 car pendolino initially, and what formation did it run in if so?
 

PupCuff

Member
Joined
27 Feb 2020
Messages
498
Location
Nottingham
Where you have a fleet of the same type of train but different lengths, you're always going to end up missing letters out on the shorter trains unless you always keep the fleets operationally separate. XC's Voyagers are probably the easiest example to use, a 4-car will be ACDF and a 5-car will be ABCDF. If you lettered them ABCD and ABCDE if a 4 car was allocated to a 5 car circuit or vice versa then customers are going to get on and find their seat either doesn't exist, or where they reserved a table, it's now an airline seat.
 

Master29

Established Member
Joined
19 Feb 2015
Messages
1,967
Where you have a fleet of the same type of train but different lengths, you're always going to end up missing letters out on the shorter trains unless you always keep the fleets operationally separate. XC's Voyagers are probably the easiest example to use, a 4-car will be ACDF and a 5-car will be ABCDF. If you lettered them ABCD and ABCDE if a 4 car was allocated to a 5 car circuit or vice versa then customers are going to get on and find their seat either doesn't exist, or where they reserved a table, it's now an airline seat.
That makes it very clear as I have often wondered about the disparity of the lettering of IET's with both GWR and LNER. With 5,9 and 10 car formations it makes sense.
 

Philip Phlopp

Established Member
Joined
31 May 2015
Messages
3,004
Was there an 8 car pendolino initially, and what formation did it run in if so?

The initial deliveries were of 8 car units (35 or so were delivered as 8 car units) with the 9th car being added whilst the production line was still open and producing the remaining fleet, those were delivered as 9 car units. Coach E was the vehicle (as it's currently lettered) which was added but I'm not at all certain whether there was re-lettering when the 9th vehicles were added.

The 9th car did rather complicated things and needed some additional components (including a compressor, as I recall) as it wasn't planned in the original design. The original design was based on the Pendolino being 2 half units of 4 cars each, coupled centrally, to form an 8 car EMU. Alstom were fortunate their chosen transformer design (the 8/9 car units have two transformers) managed to support an extra carriage, albeit one which is unpowered. The 11 car variant wasn't so fortunate and there's a third transformer present to provide the necessary power, as one of the two additional coaches is a motor vehicle.
 

thenorthern

Established Member
Joined
27 May 2013
Messages
4,102
With the Pendolinos the 11 coach trains were originally 10 coaches and when they were extended to 11 coaches it was a standard class one added and the U stood for "Unreserved".

"I" is often excluded from things such as Number Plates as people confuse it for 1.
 

Hadders

Veteran Member
Associate Staff
Senior Fares Advisor
Joined
27 Apr 2011
Messages
12,978
With the Pendolinos the 11 coach trains were originally 10 coaches and when they were extended to 11 coaches it was a standard class one added and the U stood for "Unreserved".

"I" is often excluded from things such as Number Plates as people confuse it for 1.

AFAIK there has never been 10 car Pendolinos. They were 8, 9 and 11 cars.
 

gimmea50anyday

Established Member
Joined
8 Jan 2013
Messages
3,456
Location
Back Cab
If the units wind up swapped, it becomes E F G A B C. I also swear at one point TPE used a coach D.

Coach D was the 4th coach on a 350, coach C being the 1st class coach. The idea being if a 185 substituted the coach letters matched the reservations.
It wasn’t always like this, when first introduced the first class coach was coach A, they were reversed when the 350s were introduced to match even out the formations. The quirk of this is since the 185 coach letters were reversed the seat numbers are now backwards, so while the coach letters increase, the seat numbers decrease.

With the introduction of the Nova fleet all 5 car trains have first class as coach E with standard D C B and A. First class is the loco end on N2s and first class E should always be at the Manchester/Liverpool end of the train
 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,531
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
U and G were added to the 11 car Pendelinos when they were extended. Doing it that way means that the First class carriages are always the same letter. Similarly coaches A-F are identical in design on both 9 and 11 coach variants.

Except they aren't - converted F (on a 9 car) has a different layout to new F (11 car). I forget what differs, but some of it definitely does.
 

Neptune

Established Member
Joined
29 May 2018
Messages
2,445
Location
Yorkshire
AFAIK there has never been 10 car Pendolinos. They were 8, 9 and 11 cars.
That is correct. The 11 car sets were all lengthened from 9 car sets with the exception of the 4 new build 11 car units (154-157), one of which was built to replace 033.
 

Wolfie

Established Member
Joined
17 Aug 2010
Messages
6,049
Except they aren't - converted F (on a 9 car) has a different layout to new F (11 car). I forget what differs, but some of it definitely does.
Interesting. I'm sure l saw that from Virgin as the rationale at the time it was done. If anyone knows more l'm definitely interested.
 

Deafdoggie

Established Member
Joined
29 Sep 2016
Messages
3,035
Where you have a fleet of the same type of train but different lengths, you're always going to end up missing letters out on the shorter trains unless you always keep the fleets operationally separate. XC's Voyagers are probably the easiest example to use, a 4-car will be ACDF and a 5-car will be ABCDF. If you lettered them ABCD and ABCDE if a 4 car was allocated to a 5 car circuit or vice versa then customers are going to get on and find their seat either doesn't exist, or where they reserved a table, it's now an airline seat.
This was always my understanding. But it’s doesn’t explain why coach F isn’t coach E. I’d always just assumed that there was a plan to add an extra coach at some point-that clearly never happened!
 

Wolfie

Established Member
Joined
17 Aug 2010
Messages
6,049
I have seen 158s where the three cars are A B C and the two cars A and C. Presumably to ensure that the driving ends always have the same letters.
 

tiptoptaff

Established Member
Joined
15 Feb 2013
Messages
2,981
IETs are 'missing' letters partly due to the mixed formations, but also to allow the sets to be lengthened in the future if desired, and the current lettering not be affected. Yes they're all digital displays, but A is where you (on 9cars) the std class disabled space, K and L first class, B for the bike spaces....etc. So as people get used to that, any changes to length in the future don't affect the positions of key features
 

dk1

Veteran Member
Joined
2 Oct 2009
Messages
15,821
Location
East Anglia
I have seen 158s where the three cars are A B C and the two cars A and C. Presumably to ensure that the driving ends always have the same letters.
Same with 3-car 170s on XC. Reservations on those are only ever available in A & C as 2-car units are lettered A & C.
 

43055

Established Member
Joined
8 Mar 2018
Messages
2,884
CrossCountry:

Voyager: A B C D (E) F

Is there any reason why letters are skipped, to me it would seem logical to name the coaches alphabetically, and it would make it easier for most passengers to understand too. I notice the letter I is always left out of naming coaches, is there any specific reason for this?
For Cross Country as least, the wheelchair spaces are in the same coaches on the HST as the voyagers (A & F) but wasn't E left out for the possibility of a 6th coach being added at a later date when they were first introduced?

EMR skip a few letters but I think it's to try and line each train type up with each other:
222/4: ABDG
222/5: ABCDG
222/7: ABCDFGH
HST6: ABCDFG
HST8: ABCDEFGH
 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,531
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
Interesting. I'm sure l saw that from Virgin as the rationale at the time it was done. If anyone knows more l'm definitely interested.

I only noticed it because I'd looked at a conventional seating plan to check what my reserved seat was (obtained through work so no seat selection) and thought it was OK, but when I boarded I found it wasn't anywhere near as good. I think the seat concerned appeared as a table on the plan but was an airline seat.
 

Wolfie

Established Member
Joined
17 Aug 2010
Messages
6,049
I only noticed it because I'd looked at a conventional seating plan to check what my reserved seat was (obtained through work so no seat selection) and thought it was OK, but when I boarded I found it wasn't anywhere near as good. I think the seat concerned appeared as a table on the plan but was an airline seat.
Ta.
 

YorksLad12

Established Member
Joined
5 Feb 2020
Messages
1,875
Location
Leeds
The 10 coach Azuma is similarly actually two five coach units. I suspect the lettering may in part be to have some things in the same carriage number on both the nine and 10 carriage versions.

I quite like the Azuma coach lettering scheme. D, E and F are only in 5-car sets. L is only in a 9-car set. K is always a half-and-half (as is D). For once, there's method to the madness!

Obviously, if they decide to lengthen the 9-car sets there are no spare letters between A and M (apart from I) but that's not on the agenda anyway.
 

Jayden99

Member
Joined
24 Feb 2020
Messages
95
Location
Bucks
EMR I believe the Meridians skip Coach E so that if a 7 car is swapped for an HST then First is still in the same place. Might also have something to do with them being reformed a few times, a 9 car especially is a mess in terms of letters
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top