voyagers have relatively low numbers of seats. a refit or new stock would offer way more capacity for the same unit length - and depending on how much the voyagers cost in lease may not actually be more expensive, so would drop the per seat cost. I do really think increasing capacity at a reduced per seat operating cost is the way forward for XC.
For comparison, a 5-car 802 has 326 seats (GWR) or 342 seats (TPE), a 5 car voyager has ~250 seats. That is a lot of extra seat within the same number of coaches, so same staffing costs, lower fuel costs (as bimode). So it would really come down to how much of a difference the leasing costs make.
and if new stock is ordered, it should include an option to add extra coaches within the existing trains when the demand increases - as I think is highly likely
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the Class 802 carriages longer than those used in say a class 221?
Not sure if it is correct, but Wikipedia page for Class 802 has the following: Intermediate vehicles 26 m (85 ft 4 in)
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Class 221: 22.82 m (74 ft 10 in) other cars
Given the above, I suspect that you are likely to get more seats in a class 802 carriage than a 5 car voyager carriage.
But they’ll never have enough to double up anyway if they run the timetable they’re supposed to run. I’d say a permanent 6 or 7 coaches is preferable to a randomly selected 8 coach lottery
Only if you count Monday as the weekend which is when I used it to head to Disney
Problem with that is, there are some services where 4 or 5 coaches is enough for the demand of the train even if it is travelling down from Edingburgh to Penzance. So why should XC have to pay the extra cost in fuel to be using a 7-car say class 222, when the passengers are only filling say three out of the seven cars. I don't disagree, that for services where there is high demand a 7 to 10 car train is needed. Problem that you have is that services through the lunchtime period and after 6pm, depending where you are travelling do not need the full seven coaches.
So for example, GWR used to run 8 coach HST trains to Worcester Shrub Hill, now they only run 5 car class 8xx trains, which probaly for the most part holds the same number of passengers if required as the HST and also is probably correct for the number of people travelling on the service, especially leaving London Paddington at 19:28 this evening. Whereas the services that left Worcester Shrub Hill this morning at 05:14 which I believe was 800311, was a nine car train. Which would be correct, as by the time it got to both Reading and Maidenhead it would be rush hour period time. I am a little surprised that this service does not stop at Slough though.
